This entry addresses the nature and epistemological role of intuitionby considering the following questions: (1) What are intuitions?, (2)What roles do they serve in philosophical (and other“armchair”) inquiry?, (3) Ought they serve such roles?,(4) What are the implications of the empirical investigation ofintuitions for their proper roles?, and (in the supplementary documenttitled “The Logical Structure of the Method of Cases”) (5) What is the content of intuitions prompted by the considerationof hypothetical cases?

• 1. The Nature of Intuitions
  • 1.1 Intuitions as Beliefs
  • 1.2 Intuitions as Dispositions to Believe
  • 1.3 Intuitions asSui Generis States
  • 1.4 Propositions, Properties, and Faculties
• 2. The Epistemological Role of Intuitions
  • 2.1 Philosophical and Non-Philosophical Uses of Intuitions
  • 2.2 The Method of Cases
  • 2.3 General Intuitions
  • 2.4 Intuitions as Evidence: Intuiteds vs. Intuitings
• 3. Challenges and Defenses
  • 3.1 Four Constraints on Skeptical Challenges
  • 3.2 The Argument from Lack of Independent Calibration
  • 3.3 Arguments from Unreliability
    • 3.3.1 Intersource Inconsistency
    • 3.3.2 Intrasource Inconsistency
  • 3.4 Arguments from Explanation
    • 3.4.1 The Argument from Lack of Explanatory Necessity
    • 3.4.2 The Argument from Inexplicability of Reliability
  • 3.5 Defenses of Intuitions: Self-Support and Epistemic Circularity
• 4. Experimental Philosophy and Intuitions
  • 4.1 The Nature of Experimental Philosophy
  • 4.2 The Experimental Evidence
  • 4.3 Experimental Philosophy and Skeptical Challenges
• 5. Further Research
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. The Nature of Intuitions

Consider the claim that a fully rational person does not believe bothp and not-p. Very likely, as you considered it, thatclaim seemed true to you. Something similar probably happens when youconsider the following propositions:

[I1]

If not-not-p, thenp.

[I2]

Torturing a sentient being for fun is wrong.

[I3]

It is impossible for a square to have five sides.

[I4]

A person would survive having their brain transplanted into a newbody.

The focus of this entry is intuitions—mental states or events inwhich a propositionseems true in the manner of thesepropositions.

It appears clear that ordinary usage includes more in the extension ofthe term “intuition” than such states, as it would allowthat a parent might have an intuition that their child is innocent ofsome crime or an archaeologist might have an intuition that an ancientsite of some interest was in a certain area. Some psychologicalresearch seems similarly permissive. Consider recent research on“intuitions” in naturalistic decision making (Klein 1998).Such research has shown that agents with sufficient experience in agiven domain (e.g., neonatal nursing, fire-fighting, or chess) arriveat judgments and make decisions on the basis of a cognitive processother than conscious considerations of various options and theweighing of evidence and utilities. Such expert“intuitions” that some infant suffers from sepsis, that afire will take a certain course, or that a certain chess move is agood one, appear immediately in consciousness.

Less important than linguistic usage in various domains is whether ourtheorizing captures the relevant psychological and epistemologicaljoints to be found in the world. The focus of the present entry is therole of intuitions in distinctively philosophical (and other“armchair”) inquiry. It is plausible (and will be assumedhere, but see Nado 2014 for doubts) that the intuitions of interest inphilosophy constitute a single epistemic and psychological kindexemplified by [I1]–[I4] and by many additional examples whichappear in§2.2 and§2.3 below, but not by the sort noted in the previous paragraph.

1.1 Intuitions as Beliefs

Some philosophers equate intuitions with beliefs or with beliefs ofsome kind. For example, David Lewis writes,

Our “intuitions” are simply opinions; our philosophicaltheories are the same. Some are commonsensical, some aresophisticated; some are particular, some general; some are more firmlyheld, some less. But they are all opinions…. (1983: x)

Such remarks suggest the following account:

[A1]

S has the intuition thatp if and only ifS believes thatp.

Why adopt [A1]? Some may be moved to do so on grounds of ontologicalparsimony. If intuitions are beliefs, we need accept no new kindpsychological state. Furthermore, there is clearly a tight linkbetween intuitions and beliefs in that one typically believes thecontents of one’s intuitions.

However, that belief thatp is neither necessary norsufficient for intuition thatp is suggested by conflictsbetween a person’s beliefs and their intuitions. One plausiblecharacterization of a paradox holds that it is a set of apropositions, each of which is intuitive, but not all of which couldbe true. If one has reasoned one’s way to a satisfactoryresolution of a paradox and identified the false proposition, oneoften still has the intuition that the rejected proposition is true.Hence, supposing that in such a case one’s beliefs are notcontradictory, one can have an intuition thatp while onedoes not believep and one can have a belief thatpwithout having an intuition thatp. Indeed, even before suchreasoning, one might suspend belief about the contradictory set whileeach remained intuitive. More generally, it seems that one may believesomething—that some theory is true, that some mathematical orlogical proposition is a theorem, that one is hungry, or that a personis now speaking—without having any intuition thatp andso belief thatp is not sufficient for intuition thatp.

Such cases also illustrate an important feature ofintuitions—their relative causal independence from explicitbelief. An analogy with perception is helpful. One might, when viewingthe Müller-Lyer illusion, experience one line as longer than theother even though one, having repeatedly measured the lines, firmlybelieves them to be of equal length. Just such an analogy is invokedwhen, for example, it is suggested that some moral intuitions maybe

ineliminable moral illusion[s], similar to certain optical illusionswhich do not lose their intuitive appeal even when theory tells usbetter. (Kagan 1989: 15)

A more discriminating version of this sort of account holds thatintuitions arebeliefs with a suitable etiology. One suchaccount, favored by many psychologists and philosophers withnaturalistic inclinations, treats intuitions as beliefs without aconscious or introspectively accessible inferential etiology (Gopnikand Schwitzgebel 1998; Devitt 2006: 491; Kornblith 1998) as in

[A2]

S has the intuition thatp if and only ifS forms the occurrent belief thatp withoutconsciously inferring it from some other belief.

On [A2], beliefs with an inferential origin of which a person isconscious are not intuitions. However, [A2] still mistakenly includesnon-inferential perceptual beliefs, memory beliefs, and introspectivebeliefs as intuitions. Moreover [A2], like [A1], runs afoul of thefact that one can have intuitions the contents of which one does notbelieve. The former problem might be circumvented by a contentrestriction on the sort of non-inferential belief at issue or furtheretiological restrictions. The latter problem does not appear so easilycircumvented.

A yet more discriminating etiological amendment to the belief analysis(Ludwig 2007: 135) is

[A3]

S has the intuition thatp if and only ifS forms the occurrent belief thatp solely on thebasis of competence with the concepts involved inp.

This analysis is not open to many of the objections to [A1] and [A2].It does not count an introspective, memory, or perceptual belief as anintuition. However, on the assumption that the concepts in questionare not contradictory, it may imply (depending on what is required forcompetence with a concept) that intuitions are infallible. Even ifintuitions are infallible, ifS has mistakenly rejected oneof the propositions making up a paradox,p, it seems shemight, contrary to [A3], still have the intuition thatp.Finally, [A3] appears to make the direct introspective judgment thatone has an intuition difficult to justify, as one lacks directintrospective access to the non-conscious causes of one’sbeliefs.

1.2 Intuitions as Dispositions to Believe

Peter van Inwagen claims that intuitions might be

in some cases, the tendencies that make certain beliefs attractive tous, that ‘move’ us in the direction of accepting certainpropositions without taking us all the way to acceptance. (1997:309)

This suggests something like the following:

[A4]

S has the intuition thatp if and only ifS is disposed to believep.

If a disposition to believe is a propositional attitude, such anaccount would allow that intuitions are propositional attitudes and,unlike belief analyses, allow that one may have an intuition withoutbelief. However, [A4] appears too liberal in placing no constraints onthe nature or source of the disposition in question. One might bedisposed to believe that a dog is nearby if one turns one’s headand looks, disposed to believe one is in pain if one reflects upon it,or even disposed to believe a complex theorem if one were to reasonappropriately. None of these cases of being disposed to believe is,taken alone, sufficient for an intuition. Additionally, [A4] has, onsome views of dispositions, the implication that a person’sbelievingp cannot be explained by their having an intuitionthatp.

Such concerns about [A4] may be met with a restriction on the groundof the disposition. A more plausible account (Sosa 1998) is:

[A5]

S has the intuition thatp if and only ifS is disposed to believep merely on the basis ofunderstandingp.

However, many claim that the primary notion of intuition is one onwhichS has an intuition thatp only whenSis occurrently in the relevant conscious psychological state. If so,any purely dispositionalist account fails to capture the occurrentconscious character of intuitions in much the way dispositionalanalyses of other conscious states fail. It is quite possible to have,at a time, a large number of dispositions to believe while failing tohost, at that time, a single intuition. For example, a person mighthave an intuition that the naïve comprehension axiom is true whenasked to consider it, but not have such an intuition while drivinghome in heavy traffic. And yet it may be true throughout that she isdisposed to believe the proposition merely upon understanding it(Bealer 1998: 209). As well, one may now have direct introspectiveknowledge that one has an intuition thatp while one has nosuch direct introspective knowledge regarding one’sdispositions, especially one’s non-activated dispositions, tobelieve on the basis of mere understanding. (For additional discussionof dispositionalist analyses see Pust 2000, Erlenbaugh and Molyneux2009, and Koksvik 2011.)

1.3 Intuitions asSui Generis States

A final family of accounts holds that an intuition is asuigeneris occurrent propositional attitude, variously characterizedas one in which a proposition occurrentlyseems true (Bealer1998, 2002; Pust 2000; Huemer 2001, 2005), in which a proposition ispresented to the subject as true (Chudnoff 2011a; Bengson2015), or whichpushes the subject to believe a proposition(Koksvik 2011). Such views are united in denying that belief thatp is necessary or sufficient for an intuition thatpand in rejecting dispositional analyses of intuition. The closeconnection between intuition thatp and disposition tobelievep is explained by claiming that an intuition thatp typically serves as a ground of the disposition to believep.

According to proponents of accounts of this sort, when one has anintuition thatp, one does not merely represent or believe orconsiderp. Rather,p is the content of adistinctive occurrent conscious non-belief propositional attitude.Bealer, for example, claims that

When you have an intuition thatA, itseems to youthatA. Here ‘seems’ is understood, not in itsuse as a cautionary or “hedging” term, but in its use as aterm for a genuine kind of conscious episode. For example, when youfirst consider one of de Morgan’s laws, often it neither seemstrue nor seems false; after a moment’s reflection, however,something happens: it now just seems true. (Bealer 1998: 207)

Some philosophers who endorse such views also hold that perceptual(and other) experiences have propositional contents and seek toprovide an account of the distinctive features of intuition,perception and other seemings or experiences.

According to the “seemings” version of such a view, anindiscriminate account of intuition would be the following:

[A6]

S has the intuition thatp if and only if itseems toS thatp.

While this account seems fitting for much psychological work on thetopic of intuitions, it is insufficiently discriminating. If memorialor introspective seemings with propositional content exist, they arenot plausibly identified with intuitions of the sort with which thisentry began. Moreover, when conjoined with the view that perceptualexperience consists of a suitable seeming thatp, this viewimplies that there are perceptual intuitions. Clarity is served bystipulating that such states are not intuitions even if they are allspecies of some common genus.

A more discriminating account is the following:

[A7]

S has the intuition thatp if and only if itintellectually seems toS thatp.

Some, however, have claimed that there is an important distinctionbetween the intuitions of primary interest in philosophical inquiryand other states which involve intellectual seemings thatp.Bealer, for example, claims that philosophical inquiry typicallyrelies upon “a priori intuitions” which must bedistinguished from the “physical intuitions” elicited byscientific thought experiments in that the latter do not presentthemselves as necessary while the former do (1998: 165). Those whowish to distinguish the states involved in scientific thoughtexperiments from those typically involved in philosophical inquiry mayeither endorse [A7] and reject the suggestion that such physicalintuitions involve the same intellectual seeming or impose furtherconditions on those intuitions of distinctive philosophical relevanceas in the following accounts:

[A8]

S has therational intuition thatp ifand only if it intellectually seems toS that necessarilyp.

[A9]

S has therational intuition thatp ifand only if either [A] (1) it intellectually seems toS thatp and (2) ifS were to consider whetherpis necessarily true, it would intellectually seem toS thatnecessarilyp, or [B] it intellectually seems toSthat necessarilyp.

[A8] renders all rational intuitions overtly modal in content and, ona view of concept possession according to which possessing the conceptc att requires the ability to deployc inthought att, requires a level of sophistication notobviously had by the philosophical innocent who is, nonetheless,presumably capable of having a rational intuition (Pust 2000: 38;Ludwig 2007: 136). Moreover, possibility intuitions are also essentialto philosophical practice and if the proponent of [A8] wishes toinclude possibility claims as the contents of intuitions (rather thantreating them as inferentially justified by a rational intuition andthe principle that what is necessarily possible is possible), thenthey must treat such intuitions as possessed of an iterated modalpropositional content.

[A9] (see Pust 2000: 46) requires a single occurrent consciouspsychological state in rational intuition and distinguishes that statefrom physical intuitions while allowing that a naïve agent mighthave a rational intuition even though not currently deploying theconcept of metaphysical necessity. It also does not require that apossibility intuition involve an occurrent iterated modal content.However, because it leaves the distinction between a rational andphysical (or other) intuitions sometimes dependent on dispositionalrather than occurrent factors, [A9] may raise worries about ourability to discern directly that we harbor a rational intuition.

Some philosophers maintain that suchsui generispropositional attitudes do not exist or are not part of their ownmental life. For example, Williamson writes,

For myself, I am aware of no intellectual seeming beyond my consciousinclination to believe the Gettier proposition… . Theseparadigms provide no evidence of intellectual seemings, if the phraseis supposed to mean anything more than intuitions in Lewis’s orvan Inwagen’s sense. (2007: 217)

Proponents ofsui generis attitude accounts must be concernedto explain the error of their opponents and, ideally, to enable themto locate the states in themselves. (See Chudnoff 2011a and Koksvik2011 for attempts to help such skeptics by describing carefully thatwhich they should seek.)

Williamson (2007: 218–219) argues against analyses of the sortnow under consideration and in favor of a more permissive belief ordispositional analysis by noting that a wide variety of propositionsmay be properly called “counterintuitive” and that thisclass does not consist merely of the negations of propositions whichare, according to more restrictive accounts of intuition, the contentsof intuitions. For example, Williamson points out that philosophicalviews which entail that there are no mountains are often thought, invirtue of such entailments, to be highly counterintuitive. Theproposition that thereare mountains is, however, not thecontent of an intuition on any of the accounts in this family.

One possible rejoinder to Williamson’s argument would be tocharacterize the counterintuitive claim as the claim that no suitablearrangement of matter is metaphysically sufficient for the presence ofa mountain (i.e., that mountains are impossible) and there is noreason why the negation of this proposition cannot be, on morerestrictive accounts of intuition, the content of an intuition.Another possible rejoinder would point out that we have extremely goodgrounds for believing that there are mountains and to suggest that thecomplaint thatp is counterintuitive is merely the claim thatnot-p is extremely well-justified.

1.4 Propositions, Properties, and Faculties

It has thus far been assumed that intuitions always take propositionsas their objects. Some might disagree, holding that we havedere or objectual intuitions of properties or states of affairs.Indeed, it might be held that ourde re grasp of variousproperties is what grounds or justifies our assent to propositionsinvolving them. Pursuit of this issue would require a detailed accountof propositions and properties and their relations. It would alsorequire detailed accounts of thede dicto andde reattitudes. None of these explorations can be undertaken here. Itshould be noted, however, that such a conception of ourde regrasp of properties lurks under the surface of many rationalistaccounts whether framed in terms of concepts or properties (Bealer1998; BonJour 1998) and is even more explicit in the claim that wehave knowledge by acquaintance of universals (Russell 1912).

In addition, the precise conception of propositional contents may haveto be varied with the account of intuition. For example, those whoappeal to propositions which seem true or which one is inclined tobelieve would presumably hold that what we are justified in believingvia rational intuition is not a pure Russellian propositionbut rather either a Fregean proposition or a Russellian propositionunder something like a mode of presentation.

Finally, the focus above has been on intuitions as psychologicalstates or events. Sometimes the issues surrounding intuitions areframed in terms of whether there is a distinctfaculty ofintuition. Of course, to the extent that intuitions are causallyexplicable, there issome process which produces them andsome may wish to call that process a “faculty.” If that isall that is meant by the term, then no harm is done. Still, while suchtalk may have its place (especially in various cognitive scientificattempts to explain the occurrence of intuitions), taking it to meanmore than just suggested seems to prejudice the issue of how muchintuitive justification is like the justification produced byempirical faculties like vision and to invite dismissive caricaturesof the view that intuitions serve to justify beliefs.

2. The Epistemological Role of Intuitions

2.1 Philosophical and Non-Philosophical Uses of Intuitions

As noted in§1, the focus of the present entry is the role of intuitions inphilosophy. It is as accounts of such intuitions that the accountsabove were evaluated. Hence, in what follows, it will be assumed thatthe appropriate account of the states at issue is some relativelyrestrictive version of thesui generis state account (§1.3). Such an assumption is not, however, essential to much of whatfollows.

In light of the discussion of§1, some of the states which are included in more expansive accounts ofintuition might be better taken to be perceptual seemings orexperiences of the sort endorsed by those who claim we have perceptualseemings or experiences with complex propositional content. In thisconnection, it is worth considering the views of various theorists whohold that perceptual experience can basically represent, and presentto a subject, propositions featuring sophisticated properties wellbeyond phenomenological ones (Siegel 2010). On this kind of view,those with suitable training might have a perceptual experience that achild is ill or that a fire will soon engulf a room in the way that anon-expert has a perceptual experience that they are presented withsomething red. The epistemology of such propositional perceptualstates (if they exist) must be addressed elsewhere.

2.2 The Method of Cases

Consider the following paradigmatic examples of philosophicalreasoning in which a philosophical theory is taken to beprimafacie undermined by contradicting an intuition regarding aparticular hypothetical case:

The Gettier Case (Gettier 1963):

Suppose that Smith and Jones have applied for a certain job. Smithbelieves, on the basis of strong evidence, that Jones will get the joband also that Jones has ten coins in his pocket. He infers from thisthat the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket.However, imagine that, unknown to Smith, he himself, not Jones, willget the job. And, also unknown to Smith, he himself has ten coins inhis pocket.

Gettier Intuition: Smith does not knowthat the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket.

Justified True Belief Theory ofKnowledge:S knows thatp IFFS has ajustified true belief thatp.

 

The Transplant Case (Thomson 1976):

Suppose that you are a transplant surgeon and that you now havefive patients, each in need of a different organ in order to preventimminent and certain death. You also have a suitable donor in yourhospital for a routine check-up. If you were to involuntarily (andsecretly) take her organs and transplant them into the needy five, youare certain to bring about her death but also to prevent the death ofthe five.

Transplant Intuition: It is not morallypermissible to take the organs of the one in order to save thefive.

Act Utilitarian Theory of Morality:ActionA is morally right IFFA maximizeswell-being.

 

The Chinese Nation Case (Block 1978)

Suppose that the citizens of China are organized so as to befunctionally equivalent to a human brain and to interact with ahuman-like body in a manner functionally equivalent to that in whichthe brain interacts with the human body.

Chinese Nation Intuition: The nation ofChina, so organized, would lack qualia (i.e., there would be nothingit would be like to be the nation of China).

Functionalist Theory of Mind:S has mental stateM IFFS contains arealization of functional stateF.

 

The Flagpole Case (Bromberger 1966)

Suppose that a flagpole is standing on level ground in brightsunshine. From a specification of the length of the flagpole’sshadow and the height of the sun in the sky one can, given therelevant laws of optics, deduce the height of the flagpole.

Flagpole Intuition: The height of theflagpole is not explained by the length of its shadow.

Deductive-Nomological Theory ofExplanation:E is an explanation ofF IFFE is a set of truths which deductively impliesF andthe deduction relies essentially on a nomic generalization.

Such examples could easily be multiplied to include teletransportationand fission cases in the literature on personal identity, preemptionand epiphenomena cases in the literature on causation and explanation,clairvoyance and evil demon cases in epistemology, Newcomb cases indecision theory, Frankfurt cases in the literature on free will,Twin-Earth and Swampman cases in the literature on mental content,Jackson’s Mary case in the metaphysics of mind, trolley cases inapplied ethics, experience machine cases in normative ethics, and manymany others.

In each such instance, the fact that the theory or generalization inquestion contravenes the content of an intuition is treated as(defeasible) evidence against the theory or generalization. As well,the fact that a theory implies results which agree with intuitions iscommonly taken to constituteprima facie support for thetheory. (See the supplementary document “The Logical Structure of the Method of Cases” for further discussion of the logical structure of suchreasoning.)

This use of intuitions is, perhaps, even clearer if we consider whatseems to be a contrast between philosophical methodology and that ofthe natural sciences. An empirical scientist must engage in empiricalobservation of some sort in an order to confirm or disconfirm thetheories with which her discipline is engaged. If judged by herpractice, the philosopher, by contrast, appears able to proceedlargely or entirely from the armchair. If one takes the evidence towhich natural science is primarily responsive to be that produced byempirical observation, it seems that philosophical (and other) inquiryproceeding from the armchair must have some other (putative)evidential basis. A natural (though contested) suggestion is thatintuitions are treated as the primary evidence in philosophicalinquiry.

(Some contemporary discussion of the methodology and epistemology ofthe appeal to particular hypothetical cases treats them as“thought experiments” and endeavors to draw analogiesbetween the role of such cases in philosophical inquiry and the roleof thought experiments in empirical science (Horowitz and Massey 1991;Sorensen 1992). This analogy is not pursued here for reasons outlinedin§1.3.)

2.3 General Intuitions

The four examples above (§2.2) involve appeal to intuitions regarding particular hypothetical casesin philosophical theorizing. There are, however, other prominentexamples of appeals to intuition, such as those of the epistemologicalrationalist. For present purposes, the epistemological rationalist isone who holds that belief in some propositions is not justified bysense experience, introspection, or memory, but rather byrationalintuition (BonJour 1998; Bealer 1998).

One traditional argument for rationalism appeals to variouspropositions which (a) we seem clearly justified in believing, and (b)seem justified not by experience, but rather simply by our seeming tosee or apprehend that they are true. Plausible candidates includeprinciples of classical logic, basic arithmetic, analyticpropositions, color or shape exclusion principles, and transitivityclaims. The following examples are representative:

[R1]

Nothing can be red and green all over at the same time.

[R2]

\(2 + 2 = 4\)

[R3]

IfA is taller thanB andB is tallerthanC, thenA is taller thanC.

[R4]

There are no round squares.

[R5]

(P andQ) impliesQ.

The hypothetical case examples which drive much philosophicaltheorizing in epistemology, moral theory, metaphysics, and thephilosophy of mind are, in some sense, particular in content. Therationalist’s examples are typically more general.

In fact, there are philosophically significant propositions at alllevels of generality which may be the content of intuitions. Here aresome examples of general propositions which have been alleged to beintuitive:

[G1]

IfS is justified in believingp and justifiedin believing \(\Box(p \supset q)\), thenS is justified inbelievingq.

[G2]

IfX is a heap of sand, thenX remains a heapeven if one grain of sand is removed.

[G3]

S performs actA freely only ifS couldhave done otherwise.

[G4]

For every propertyP, there is a set of individuals(perhaps empty) which possessP.

[G5]

Through a given point not on a given line, there exists exactlyone line parallel to the given line.

[G6]

Whether a person,y, is numerically identical to anearlier person,x, can depend only on intrinsic facts aboutx andy and the relations betweenx andy.

[G7]

Any two possible actions exactly alike in all non-moral respectsmust be exactly alike in all moral respects.

2.4 Intuitions as Evidence: Intuiteds vs. Intuitings

The previous sections have aimed to show that much philosophicalinquiry depends in significant ways on intuitions as evidence orreasons. However, such a claim is ambiguous. To say that the intuitionthatp is treated as evidence might be to claim thatthefact that a person has an intuition is taken to serve as somekind of evidence (the intuiting) or it might be to claim thatthe propositional content of the intuition (theintuited) is treated as the evidence. The two options may becompatible. (See Climenhaga 2018 for a probablistic defense of theformer which allows the latter may be true as well.)

Treating the intuitings as the exclusive evidence has beenalleged to overly psychologize philosophy (Pust 2001) and to play intothe hands of skeptics of both the armchair and empirical variety(Williamson 2007; Deutsch 2010). After all, if one’s ultimateevidence is psychological, it can seem a difficult question why suchstates or events ought to be treated as evidence for claims which arenot psychological at all—claims about the nature of knowledge,morality, modality, etc. (For the deflationary suggestion thatphilosophers should instead treat many of their efforts as aiming toexplicate the structure and content of ourmentalrepresentations, see Goldman 1999, 2007.) Furthermore, itdoesn’t seem at all plausible that most explicit philosophicalargument and analysis proceeds from psychological premises (i.e.,premises about what some person or persons find intuitive). Rather,they appeal to claims regarding knowledge, justification, morality,explanation, etc.

On the other hand, to fail to address the fact that the proposition inquestionis intuitive—that it is thecontentof an intuiting—is, it seems, to neglect somethingimportant about one’s apparent justification for believing theproposition. While most of our putative evidence in philosophyconsists of non-psychological propositions, what qualifies suchpropositions as our evidence must havesomething to do withour epistemic justification for believing them. Even if philosophicalargumentation rarely includes premises about the intuitiveness of aproposition, our justification for accepting the premises in anargument is of great importance in determining the ultimatejustificatory force of the argument.

Hence, the view that intuitions are treated as evidence in philosophyis best thought of as the view that, with respect to many corequestions of philosophy, our justification for believing an answerconsists (at least substantially) in our having suitable intuitions.It does not follow that all explicit philosophical reasoning can beproperly represented as beginning with propositions stating that wehave intuitions of various sorts (that route is self-defeating andincapable of accounting for justification by reasoning). Put simply,the view is that the occurrence of an intuiting is taken toprovide the person in whom it occurs withprima faciejustification for believing the intuited. Alternatively, itholds thatS’s having an intuition thatp primafacie justifiesS in believing thatp. Given acapacious view of evidence, then, both the intuiting and the intuitedare treated as evidence, the occurrence of the former being treated asprima facie non-inferential justification for accepting thelatter and the latter as a potential basis for the inferentialjustification of further propositions.

Those who prefer to focus on knowledge rather than justification cantake the claim that intuitions are treated as evidence as the claimthat beliefs based on intuition (if intuitions are distinct frombeliefs) or intuitive beliefs are usually taken to be knowledge and sotaken as evidence for further claims. They may also allow that havingan intuition thatp is, when it is veridical, a way ofknowing thatp and thereby havingp as part ofone’s evidence (Cath 2012).

The view that intuitions are treated as evidence in philosophy hascome under recent attack by a number of philosophers (Williamson 2007;Cappelen 2012; Deutsch 2015). The critics seem clearly to wish to denythat philosophical practice treats the having of an intuition asprima facie justification for its content, either becausethey deny that intuitions (at least as characterized by thesuigeneris accounts) exist or because they are skeptical that suchstates could serve asprima facie justification for theircontents. Though Williamson, as noted above, suggests he cannotintrospectively locate such states, Cappelen and Deutsch largely avoidintrospective appeals, arguing instead that attention to philosophicalpractice and writing reveals little evidence of appeals to intuitions.Instead, they claim that close attention to influential discussions inphilosophy reveals the ultimate source of justification for variousclaims is to be found in arguments.

The rejoinder to such a revisionary view of the role of intuitionstakes various forms. An understanding of the sort of state at issuemay require careful introspection and theorizing of the sort appearingabove. Moreover, one may doubt that a given account of the nature ofintuitions is correct without doubting that intuitions exist. Afurther rejoinder argues that much of the written work discussed byCappelen and Deutsch features language whichis plausiblyused to designate intuitions (Bengson 2014) and, additionally, thatclose analysis of much case-based reasoning reveals it to involveabductive or explanatory inference in which the content of intuitionsabout cases serve as the primaryexplananda justifyingacceptance of theories which well explain them (Conte 2022, 2024).Finally, the provision of arguments supporting verdicts regardingvarious thought experiments is not inconsistent with theauthor’s taking (implicitly or explicitly) intuitions to serveasprima facie justification for their contents (Bengson2014; Devitt 2015).

3. Challenges and Defenses

3.1 Four Constraints on Skeptical Challenges

Skeptics about intuitions allege that we are not justified inbelieving the contents of our intuitions. Prior consideration of thefeatures that a suitable skeptical argument must possess will allowgreater concision below and will also aid in revealing common featuresof the arguments.

First, such arguments are arguments for the conclusion that intuitions(either intuitions generally or intuitions of some specific sort) donot justify us in believing their contents. Hence, any such skepticalargument must have a premise stating a necessary condition on thejustification of belief. Call this premise, “the normativepremise.” Second, such an argument must contain a premisestating that beliefs based on the intuitions in question do notsatisfy the necessary condition of justified belief advanced in thenormative premise. Call this premise, “the non-normativepremise.”

Third, a successful argument forselective skepticismregarding intuitions must be one which does not equally apply to manyother sources of putatively justified belief. After all, if theargument at issue would also justify skepticism regarding perceptualbelief and/or memorial and/or introspective belief, it shows nothingdistinctively problematic about intuitions or beliefs based upon them.Call this constraint on a successful argument, “the localskepticism constraint.”

Finally, and this is often overlooked, (a) the justification for thenormative and the non-normative premises must be provided by somesource of evidence or justificationother than intuitions ofthe sort impugned by the argument and (b) we must lack good reason tothink that our belief in the normative or factual premise fails thenecessary condition on justified belief advanced by the normativepremise. Call the conjunction of these requirements “thenon-self-undermining constraint” (Bealer 1992; Pust 2001;but see Silva 2013). While running afoul of this constraint does notprovide reason to think the argument at issueunsound, itappears a reasonable constraint on a skeptical argument meant toproduce reflectively justified belief in a conclusion in virtue of itsfollowing from justified premises. Given that the proponents of thevarious skeptical arguments to be discussed are mere local skeptics,they certainly appear to be offering arguments aimed at inducingphilosophically reasonable belief in a local skeptical thesisregarding intuition.

Attempts to construe skeptical arguments against intuition as areductio of the supposition that intuitions have evidentialworth will not be discussed below. Note, however, that theirproponents (a) require some justification for the relevant inferentialprinciples required by thereductio, and (b) are likely to bedeprived of any justified positive epistemological position, let aloneone sufficient to justify the typical intuition skeptic’s highepistemic regard for empirical inquiry.

3.2 The Argument from Lack of Independent Calibration

Some skeptics regarding intuition argue that intuition isepistemically illegitimate because it cannot be independentlycalibrated. In Cummins’ forceful presentation of the argument,this independent calibration requirement is used to justify theconclusion that we should “dismiss philosophical intuition asepistemologically valueless” (1998: 125).

Let us state the argument as follows:

Though it has substantial plausibility in connection with variousderived epistemic sources such as scientific instruments, it is clearthat [P1] runs afoul of the local skepticism constraint. It amounts toa demand which isin principle unsatisfiable. If, as [P1]implies, intuition must be calibrated by some other source,X, then, by [P1],X must itself be calibrated by yetanother source of evidence,Y, which must itself becalibrated and so on. Some hold, in virtue of this fact, that it isimpossible to arrive at justified belief and others that it is, insuitable circumstances, possible to do so. If the former is true, then[P1] runs afoul of the local skepticism constraint. If, instead, thelatter is true, then [P1] is false. Additionally, it seems clear thatan argument for [P1] will require evidential reliance on epistemicintuitions and so contravene the non-self-undermining requirement.

What of [P2]? Setting aside non-reductive accounts of testimony,independent calibrations look unlikely to succeed for the full rangeof philosophically relevant intuitions, at least given the moreconstrained accounts of intuition above. The primary reason is thelack of overlap between the contents of intuitions and those beliefsjustified by suitably independent sources. One doesn’t, itseems, use one’s senses to discern if some hypothetical case isa case of knowledge or right action or a case in which thehypothetical entity is conscious or in which two temporally distinctpersons are the same person. As well, while perception may indicatethe truth of some proposition and hence its possibility, it seemsincapable of itself demonstrating the possibility of non-actual truthsor the necessity of any proposition.

3.3 Arguments from Unreliability

A more plausible normative premise would hold that unreliable (ratherthan uncalibratable) faculties cannot justify belief, yielding thefollowing:

Insofar as the normative premise is meant to articulate a necessarytruth, it is open to the “new evil demon” counterexampleto the necessity of reliability (Cohen 1984) according to whichsubjects with exactly our experiences and beliefs are justified inbelieving as we do even if they are the victims of a deceptive evildemon. As a natural interpretation of the reliability condition wouldbe contravened here, this is taken by many to demonstrate thatreliability (so understood) is not a necessary condition of justifiedbelief.

However, even those who reject [P1] typically allow that good reasonto think a putative source of evidence isunreliable issufficient to defeat whateverprima facie justification itmay otherwise provide. Hence, we may reformulate the argument asfollows in order to provide it with a more plausible normativepremise:

As the defense of [P1] or [P1*] requires appeal to epistemicintuitions, any attempt to justify by such means a skepticalconclusion regarding all intuitions, all epistemic intuitions or evenall normative intuitions, would fail to observe thenon-self-undermining constraint.

Still, it is worth considering the possible ways of attempting tojustify skeptical argumentsof a more limited sort by arguingthat intuitions of some sort (which does not include epistemicintuitions or at least the epistemic intuitions of the sort needed tojustify the premises) are unreliable. Given that the relevantnon-normative premise must claim that intuitions of the sort at issueare more frequently false than true (or equally likely to be false asto be true) it seems to require an inductive justification based on asufficiently large number of cases in which we have justification forbelieving \({\sim}p\) whilep is the content of anintuition.

One way of developing the case would involve a sufficiently largenumber of cases in which one has an intuition-independentjustification for thinking \({\sim}p\) while intuition testifies thatp (intrapersonal intersource inconsistency). Anotherwould involve a sufficiently large number of cases in which one hasthe intuition thatp and either oneself or some other personhas the intuition that \({\sim}p\). In the intrapersonal case, thismight involve our finding a given proposition intuitive and, at someother time, our finding its explicit negation intuitive(intrapersonal intrasource inconsistency). More likely is aless direct inconsistency, as when we have two intuitions which,though not the explicit propositional negations of each other, can beshown to contradict with the aid of some other justified principle.Many contemporary skeptics, however, wish to appeal tointerpersonal disagreement as justification for theirskepticism. Here we should distinguish between cases in which someother person has intuition-independent justification for believing thenegation of the content of one of one’s own intuitions(interpersonal intersource inconsistency) and cases in whichthe other person has an intuition with a content contradictingone’s own intuition or, perhaps, fails to have any intuitionregardingp (interpersonal intrasourceinconsistency).

3.3.1 Intersource Inconsistency

As noted when conceding the factual premise, [P2], of the Argumentfrom Lack of Independent Calibration (§3.2), on thesui generis accounts of intuition (§1.3), there are few, if any,direct conflicts between the putativedeliverances of rational intuition and our other sources of evidence(Bealer 1998; BonJour 1998).Indirect conflicts would be onesin which the results of empirical theory contradict the content ofrational intuitions. Such cases, if there are any, are quite rare.

Indeed, in view of the lack of direct conflicts, there is substantialreason to think indirect conflicts must be quite rare as standardempirical theorizing seems unlikely to yield conclusions about thedomains about which intuition seems to inform us. These facts suggestthatinterpersonal interfaculty inconsistency will also be aninsufficient basis for skepticism.

3.3.2 Intrasource Inconsistency

The main case ofintrapersonal intrasource inconsistency hasbeen mentioned previously—the case of paradoxes. To support thepresent (limited) skeptical argument, however, it must be parlayedinto an argument that intuitions are so unreliable as to fail tojustify belief at all.

It is not clear how this can be done. For one thing, there remains thefact that most of a person’s intuitions are not in conflict withone another. For another, some conflicts between intuitions can beresolved by standard means or by favoring the more intuitivepropositions. This is not to claim that such disagreements might notrationally require a suspension of judgment about the actualcontradicting intuitions (if they are suitably balanced in strength).However, such a conclusion is quite limited and extends clearly onlyto areas of demonstrable and irresolvable inconsistency.

The case of greatest interest to skeptics is likely to be the case ofinterpersonal intrasource inconsistency or disagreement. Wemust be careful to distinguish between interpersonal conflicts ofintuitions and conflicts between beliefs or between beliefs andintuitions. Philosophers disagree a great deal about the correcttheory of free will, knowledge, justification and the like.This fact has been alleged to make a certain sort of epistemic modesty(though not complete skepticism) about thetheoreticalaccomplishments of philosophy quite reasonable (Christensen 2007).However, philosophers seem to disagree less about what the relevantintuitions are. Bealer claims that

the on-balance agreement among our elementary concrete-case intuitionsis one of the most impressive general facts about human cognition.(1998: 214)

(See, however, “the variation project” of experimentalphilosophers discussed in§4.1.) Functionalists, for example, don’t usually claim to lack theintuition that the Chinese nation (Block 1978) would lack qualia.Rather, they often go to great lengths to explain away suchintuitions, formulate the functionalist theory to accommodate them(Putnam 1967), or selectively deflate their epistemic value.Reliabilists don’t typically claim that there is no new evildemon problem (Cohen 1984). Rather, they engage in considerablemaneuvering to discount the intuition, to rephrase it in a way notdamaging to straightforward reliabilism, or, most commonly, to providean alternative, recognizably reliabilist, theory which accommodatesthe intuition.

Much of the recent literature on the epistemic significance ofdisagreement is focused on cases in which two persons disagree withrespect toa single proposition which isinferentiallyjustified, and in which the two parties areknown to eachother to have thesame evidence and general cognitivevirtues (Christensen 2009). The lessons of such cases for the presentquestions are likely to be limited. If intuitions are evidence whichnon-inferentially justify belief, then even if one ought to suspendjudgment in the aforementioned kind of case, it will not follow thatone ought to do so in the case of intuitive disagreements. Hence, wemust instead focus on cases of disagreement between non-inferentiallyjustified beliefs or, more appropriately, on the propositional contentof some non-doxastic basis for such belief. Feldman (2007) provides aperceptual case (explicitly compared to something like rationalintuition) in which one person seems to seep and the other,similarly situated, does not seem to seep. When the twobecome apprised of each other’s appearances (and know each otherto have equally good vision and to be honest), Feldman avers that theymust withhold judgment onp. Perhaps the same is true withrespect to philosophical intuitions.

However, it can be difficult to determine if another’s failureto have an intuition thatp is epistemically significant, asthey may have yet to really grasp or consider the precise propositionat issue. An analogous claim is true in the perceptual case as well,as when one sees an object which is well camouflaged and anotherclaims not to see it. Still, restricting ourselves to a situation inwhich one has good reason to think the other fully understands thecontent at issue and claims either not to have the intuition or tohave the contrary intuition, we must ask what the appropriateresponses to such cases is. Here, it does seem that the properresponse is sometimes (depending on the proposition at issue)suspension of belief or some suitable diminution of credence (BonJour1998: 138–142). Even if the correct response to disagreementaboutp in such cases is the suspension of belief (or areduction of credence), it won’t follow that beliefs inpropositions about which no known disagreement exists are undermined.Nor could it follow that one must always have independent reason tothink there is no disagreement prior to being justified in acceptingthe content of an intuition. That would be impossible.

A serious case for disagreement-based local skepticism regarding someentire class of intuitions which evades the non-self-underminingconstraint would require justification for thinking that quitesubstantial disagreement with some equally (or more) competent otherperson has arisen. It cannot be supposed that the question of whetherone is justified in thinking that some apparent competent interlocutoris sincerely testifying thatp is entirely independent of thecontent of their apparent assertion or of one’s total evidencerelevant to existence of other minds and their mental contents of theappropriate sort. Some sorts of apparent disagreement call intoquestion the understanding, sanity, intelligence, or sincerity ofone’s interlocutor, as when some other denies some basic truthof arithmetic. Consider a version of Feldman’s perceptual casein which there are successive occasions on which one seems to seep and one’s interlocutor apparently denies that theysee any such thing. Were they to become frequent enough, there mightbe reason to doubt that the other is honest and competent, speakingone’s language, or, indeed, whether there is another person towhom one is speaking. Similar obstacles arise for the possibility ofvery widespread disagreement of intuitions, especially on viewsaccording to which the reliability of intuitions is constitutive ofpossessing certain concepts (Bealer 1998; Huemer 2005; Ludwig2007).

3.4 Arguments from Explanation

Many of the most interesting arguments for skepticism regardingphilosophical intuitions do not appeal to direct evidence ofunreliability, but are instead instances of what shall here be called“arguments from explanation.” Such arguments maintaineither that (a) the fact that our best explanations of the occurrenceof intuitions (i.e., intuitings) do not appeal to the truthof their contents is reason to think we are not justified in acceptingsuch contents, or that (b) the fact that we cannot provide anyexplanation ofhow our intuitions are or could be reliableregarding the domains about which they might initially appear toinform us, is reason to think we are not justified in believing theircontents. Let us call former sort of argument “the argument fromlack of explanatory necessity” and the second sort, “theargument from inexplicability of reliability.” Recent argumentsof this sort have been discussed by those concerned with so-called“debunking arguments” regarding our moral beliefs andintuitions (Street 2006; Clarke-Doane 2015).

3.4.1 The Argument from Lack of Explanatory Necessity

Gilbert Harman (1977) suggests that moral theories are unjustifiedbecause they cannot be tested and confirmed in the way that scientifictheories can. While he admits that we may “test” generalmoral principles against our intuitions regarding particular actualand hypothetical situations, he argues that we are not thereby testingour moral theories or principles against the world. Instead, we aremerely testing them against our “moral sensibility” oragainst our tacitly held moral views.

Harman claims that there is an important difference between the use ofobservations in empirical science and the use of intuitions in moralinquiry, a difference which renders moral intuitions unable to provideevidence for moral theory. The alleged difference is that

you need to make assumptions about certain physical facts to explainthe occurrence of the observations that support a scientific theory,but you do not seem to need to make assumptions about any moral factsto explain the occurrence

of the moral intuitions. When, for example, one has the intuition, inthe Transplant case, that it would be wrong for a doctor to kill anunconsenting healthy patient to save the lives of five otherpatients,

an assumption about moral facts would seem to be totally irrelevant tothe explanation of your making the judgment you make

and hence the intuition “does not seem … to be …evidence for or against any moral theory” (1977: 6–7). Theargument seems to be:

The Argument from Lack of Explanatory Necessity

[P1]

Aside from propositions describing the occurrence of herintrospectively accessible states,S is justified inbelieving only those propositions which are part of the bestexplanation of the occurrence of those introspectively accessiblestates.

[P2]

Moral propositions are not part of the best explanation of theoccurrence ofS’s introspectively accessiblestates.

[C]

S is not justified in believing moral propositions.

A number of recent explanationist debunking arguments (Lutz 2020;Korman and Locke 2020; Faraci 2019), while invoking more plausibleexplanationist principles in the place of [P1] and couched in terms ofthe undermining defeat ofprima facie justification, mayplausibly be grouped with Harman’s argument. They share the ideathat that the power of intuition toprima facie justifybelief is defeated by the fact that we can well explain the existinceof our intuitions (i.e. our intuitings) and otherpsychological states without commitment to the (realisticallyconstrued) truth of their contents.

The normative premise above, [P1], is perfectly general and hence maybe equally deployed to undermine justified belief of any propositionfailing its standard. Indeed, there seems equally good reason to thinkthat the propositions which are the contents of most philosophicalintuitions will not be part (outside of attitude contexts) of the bestexplanation of ourhaving those intuitions. (See Goldman1989, 1992 for similar skeptical arguments regarding the use ofintuitions in contemporary metaphysics.)

One possible response to this sort of argument is to concede [P1] andto argue, for the class of propositions at issue, that they do satisfythe necessary condition of justification. This maneuver is representedby Sturgeon’s (1984) rejoinder to Harman. Sturgeon suggests thatit is often reasonable to think that wewouldn’t thinksome action or person possessed a relevant moral property unless theyin fact possessed the property. More precisely, he holds that in orderfor a given act or agent to have a different moral status it or theywould have to differ in some non-moral way and then we often would nottake it or them to have the same moral status. However, whatever theplausibility of this account with respect to actual token actions orpersons, it is less clear how the counterfactual criterion would applyto the moral status of actions featured in the merely hypotheticalcases found in typical methodology. Moreover, even if one takesSturgeon’s maneuver to be successful against Harman’sattack on moral intuitions, it seems quite unclear how it is to beextended to the many appeals to intuition catalogued above (§2).

It has also been argued that [P1] is unjustified (Pust 2001). Thereappear to be only two ways that [P1] could be justified. It might bejustified by being intuitive or by being supported by our intuitionsregarding particular cases of justified belief. [P1] is not, however,intuitive. Furthermore, an inductive argument for [P1] based on ourintuitions about particular cases of justified belief will not support[P1] since many of what seem, intuitively, to be our most justifiedbeliefs run afoul of [P1]. (See, for example, [I1]–[I4] from§1 and the examples in§2.2 and§2.3.) Many of our particular epistemic beliefs, moral beliefs, and modalbeliefs seem, intuitively, no less justified than our empiricalbeliefs. Indeed, some of them seem more justified. Since it seemsimplausible that all of these propositions are required in the bestexplanation of the occurrence of our intuitions, it seems that [P1],which requires such a role, is undermined by such cases.

Even if there were sufficient intuitive support for [P1], defendingthis argument by such means would contravene both strands of thenon-self-undermining constraint (Pust 2001). According to [P1],S’s non-introspective belief thatp isjustified only if the proposition believed plays a role in the bestexplanation ofS’s mental states. No demonstration ofexplanatory relevance is involved in the two methods of justifying[P1] just discussed. Rather, each approach would take the mere factthat the principle is thecontent of an intuition or bestexplains the content of a set of particular intuitions (i.e.,intuiteds) as sufficient for justified belief in thatprinciple. This is to treat intuiteds as supporting evidencefor a principle allowing only intuitings to count asevidence. Moreover, since [P1] states a necessary condition for thejustified acceptance ofany proposition not about theoccurrence of an observation or intuition, acceptance of [P1] itselfis justified only if it satisfies the very requirement it articulates.Unfortunately, because [P1] is a normative proposition about when abelief is justified, it is difficult to see how its truth could playany role in the explanation ofthe occurrence of any of ourexperiences or intuitions. However, if [P1] does not satisfy [P1],then, if [P1] is true, we cannot be justified in believing [P1].

3.4.2 The Argument from Inexplicability of Reliability

The second argument from explanation has its origins inBenacerraf’s (1973) epistemological objection to Platonism inmathematics. Benacerraf argued that the best semantic accounts ofmathematics (e.g., Platonist ones) were in tension with our besttheories of knowledge (e.g., causal ones) and that attempts to bringthe truth conditions of mathematical statements into closer epistemicproximity to human subjects were semantically inadequate. Though heclaimed to favor “a causal account of knowledge” and suchan account is now generally thought mistaken, it should be noted thatBenacerraf motivated the causal connection constraint by noting thatone may justify the claim thatS does not knowp byarguing thatS

could not have come into possession of the relevant evidence orreasons: that [S’s] four-dimensional space-time wormdoes not make the necessary (causal) contact with the grounds of thetruth of the proposition

forS to have adequate evidence (1973: 671).

Field (1989) provides a Benacerraf-style epistemic challenge to beliefin mathematics (construed in a Platonist fashion), one which healleges

does not depend on any theory of knowledge in the sense in which thecausal theory is a theory of knowledge; that is it does not depend onany assumption about necessary and sufficient conditions forknowledge. (pp. 232–233)

On his account, the fundamental problem has to do withtheimpossibility of explaining “the reliability of ourbeliefs” in the domain in question. More precisely, healleges that “if it appears impossible to explain” how ourbeliefs about some entities or our grounds for the beliefs “canso well reflect the facts about them,” then

that tends to undermine the belief in …. (these) entities,despite whatever initial reasons we might have for believing inthem. (p. 26, emphasis added)

Though Field’s argument has various of our beliefs as it target,it seems to support the following argument against intuition (thoughperhaps only on a realist construal of their contents):

The Argument from Inexplicability of Reliability

[P1]

If we have good reason to think that there is no explanation ofwhy our intuitions are reliable, then we are not justified inbelievingp on the basis of the intuition thatp.

[P2]

We have good reason to think that there is no explanation of whyour intuitions are reliable.

[C]

We are not justified in believingp on the basis of theintuition thatp.

The non-normative premise, [P2], seems to extend to all necessarytruths if the explanation of reliability mentioned in [P1] requiresany sort of counterfactual sustaining relation between the truthmakers of the propositions in question and our psychological states.The failure of explanation here is intimately linked to the intuitivedeviance of counterfactuals featuring in their antecedents thenegations of necessary propositions. The standard semantics treatsthem as uniformly and vacuously true and so there is littleinformative sense to be made of the notion that were some propositionwe take to be (necessarily) true to be false we would believe (orintuit) otherwise than we do. As it is implausible thatallour beliefs in non-contingent matters are unjustified, this cutsagainst [P1] if it is taken to require a counterfactual supportingkind of explanation.

If, on the other hand, [P1] requires only that we have reason to thinkour reliability not utterly mysterious, then, while [P1] is moreplausible, the relevant instance of [P2] may be false. It has beensuggested that the provision of an explanation of our having theintuitions we do would, in virtue of the impossibility of suchpropositions as we intuit having different truth values, suffice asan explanation of theirreliability. There is noparticular reason to think that our intuitions lack explanation whileour other mental states have an explanation. That explanation, whenconjoined with ourprima facie justification for believingthe contents of our intuitions (and our beingprima faciejustified isn’t challenged on this construal of the argument)seems to suffice asan explanation of our reliability. Putanother way, if our reliability is a necessary accompaniment of havinga certain content, then we have no reason to think our reliability isinexplicable. The explanation, in this sense, of ourreliability is a straightforward consequence of the necessarily truecontents of our intuitions and the psychological explanation for ourhaving those particular intuitions (Pust 2004; Grundmann 2007: 84; butsee Schechter 2010).

A structurally similar, but more explanatorily robust, rejoinder canbe found in the work of so-called “third-factor” responsesto evolutionary debunking arguments against robust moral realism(Street 2006). Such responses argue that evolution by naturalselection would likely produce intuitions or dispositions to believemoral claims such as the claim that pleasure is usually good(Skarsaune 2011), survival is usually good (Enoch 2010), or that thereare moral constraints against treating creatures with cognitivecapacities like ours in various ways (Wielenberg 2010). Given adialectical context in which robust moral realism is prima faciejustified, we are justified in believing those claims to be true andtheir truth non-causally explains various other moral truths. So, itis claimed, we have an explanation of our reliability. For criticismof third-factor replies, see Korman and Locke 2020 and Bhogal2022.

Finally, it may also be argued (Pust 2004) that it isn’t, asseems assumed by Field’s objection, clearly possible for acreature to have intuitions significantly different from our own.Given the more constrained accounts of intuition discussed above, itis not clear that a creature might have intuitions with contentsgenerally contradicting our own. That such a creature ismetaphysically possible is itself a modal claim apparently requiringjustification by intuition and such intuitions seem to be lacking.This response to the explanationist can be elaborated in the contextof a theory of concept possession according to which a necessarycondition of the genuine possession of a given concept (of the sort ofprimary interest in philosophical investigation) is the reliability ofone’s intuitions regarding hypothetical cases. Such an accountis justified by intuitions and so cannot be an independentjustification of them. It may, however, still reasonably be thought tobe an explanation (though not a causal one) of their (necessary)reliability. (See Cuneo and Shafer-Landau 2014 for a similar argumentrestricted to moral concepts.)

Finally, just as was true with respect to the Argument from Lack ofExplanatory Necessity, there remains the concern that any attempt tojustify believing [P1] and [P2] will run afoul of thenon-self-undermining constraint by relying on intuitions aboutjustification andexplanation in order to argue thatintuitions do not justify belief.

3.5 Defenses of Intuitions: Self-Support and Epistemic Circularity

There are, broadly speaking, two ways of defending the use ofintuitions as evidence. The first possible defense would be anempirical defense of intuitions by arguing against the second premiseof the Argument from Lack of Independent Calibration (§3.2). The defense would proceed by providing an inductive argument, basedon non-intuitive evidence, that the contents of intuitions (eithergenerally or of some specific sort) are reliable.

The only other apparent possible defense of the thesis that intuitionsprima facie justify belief in their content appeals, as doesthe traditional rationalist, to the fact that there are manyparticular propositions which one seems justified in believing simplyin virtue of their being the content of a rational intuition (Bealer1998; BonJour 1998). The strength of the conclusion is, of course,more supported to the extent that such examples are multiplied. And,as noted above, there appear to be many such examples.

This defense may be generalized by claiming that intuitionisself-supporting insofar as the general claim that intuitionsprovideprima facie justification for belief in theircontents is itself intuitive. The possibility of such a defense is theresult of the same fact that revealed that all of the extant localskeptical arguments run afoul of the non-self-underminingconstraint—the fact that intuitions seem to be the only sourceof justification for claims about justification, reason, evidence, andother epistemic properties (Pust 2014, Section 3.3).

The obvious concern about this sort of defense (in both its particularand general form) is the fact that it necessarily involves epistemiccircularity of some kind. That is, it defends the appeal to intuitionsas reasons for belief by appeal to intuitions. It seems clear thatepistemically circular defenses are sometimes illegitimate, as whenquestions about the epistemic probity of appeals to a crystal ball areanswered by consulting the ball. However, as indicated above (§3.2), it also appears thatsome sort of epistemic circularity isinevitable in the attempt to defend our most basic modes of evidenceand justification. Exactly when such circularity is epistemicallydisabling and when, if ever, it is acceptable is a difficult questionwhich cannot be here treated in detail (Alston 1986, 1993; Bergmann2006; Cohen 2002; Vogel 2008). However, a few remarks are inorder.

First, if epistemic circularity isalways unacceptable, thenit is impossible to defend the appeal to intuition. However, the sameresult will follow (ultimately) for any putative source of evidence.So, while it will be the case that the use of intuitions as evidencecannot be defended, it will also follow that the reliance onperception, memory and introspection can also not be defended.Universal skepticism would appear to follow. Alternatively, ifepistemic circularity is sometimes acceptable, then no reason has beenprovided why it is not acceptable in the case of rationalintuition.

Second, if we focus on the question of whether we areprimafacie justified in accepting the contents of our intuitions,there may be a feature which distinguishes intuition from all otherputative sources of evidence. Only intuition is clearly capable ofepistemic self-support because it is the only source which producesnon-doxastic states withepistemically normative content.Whether or not apparent perception thatp, introspection thatp, or apparent memory thatp justify us in believingtheir content is, it seems, a question they cannot answer as theircontent is never epistemic. Hence, intuition appears distinguishablefrom our other putative sources of evidence in beingbothrequired for a coherent epistemology and capable of epistemicself-support. So, if any source of evidence can be defended againstglobal skeptical attack, it seems that intuitions can.

Recently, a number of philosophers have argued that the epistemiccredentials of intuitions can be defended by appealing to similaritiesbetween perceptual justification and intuitive justification or to ageneral doctrine regarding non-inferential justification. According toperceptual dogmatism, a person having a perceptual experienceor a perceptual seeming with propositional contentp istherebyprima facie justified in believingp (Pryor2000). According tointuitive dogmatism, a person having anintuition or intellectual seeming with propositional contentp is therebyprima facie justified in believingp. According togeneral dogmatism, when it seems toa person thatp, that person is therebyprima faciejustified in believingp. It follows from general dogmatismthat intuitions, as characterized by the various versions of thesui generis state view above (§1.3), are a source of justification (Huemer 2005, 2007). Moreover, it seemsextremely plausible that if perceptual dogmatism is true, then so isintuitive dogmatism (Chudnoff 2011b; Koksvik 2011; Bengson 2015).

Whatever the merits of general or perceptual dogmatism, it isimportant to recognize that appealing to them in defending intuitivedogmatism involvesexactly the same sort of epistemiccircularity as that involved in the more straightforward defensepreviously noted. This is because all versions of dogmatism arethemselves justified entirely on intuitive grounds—by the factthat they properly accommodate our various intuitions about theconditions under which a person has non-inferential propositionaljustification. Hence, appeals to dogmatism of any sort are ultimatelyjustified only if intuitions do provideprima faciejustification and so cannot serve as an independent defense of theappeal to intuitions. Epistemic circularity in the epistemology ofintuition appears unavoidable.

4. Experimental Philosophy and Intuitions

4.1 The Nature of Experimental Philosophy

In the last couple of decades, there has been an explosion of interestin research involving the scientific or empirical investigation ofintuitions of philosophical interest. Such projects are now frequentlygrouped under the rubric of “experimental philosophy.”(For general characterizations of experimental philosophy see Knobeand Nichols 2008, Appiah 2008, and Nadelhoffer and Nahmias 2007.) Atleast four broadly-individuated projects in experimental philosophycan be distinguished.

The first project, “the psychology project,” aimsto discover how people ordinarily think. Knobe and Nichols claim thatthe results of such inquiries “have great philosophicalsignificance in their own right … for traditional philosophicalquestions” (2008: 12). This claim is motivated in part by theidea that questions which occupied the attention of historicallysignificant philosophers ought to count as philosophically significantquestions. As many philosophers of antiquity and the early modernperiod made various claims about human psychology, such questions, itis claimed, count as philosophical questions which may be betterpursued by modern psychological inquiry.

The second project, “the verification project,”aims to determine if the various propositions which philosophersallege to be intuitive, pre-theoretical, or “part of commonsense” are, in fact, intuitive to ordinary non-philosophers.This project is motivated both by the general conviction thatempirical claims, such as those regarding the extent to which somebelief or intuition is shared by others, require adequate empiricalsupport, and by the suspicion that what philosophers find intuitive orregard as commonsensical may be the result of their specializedtraining, theoretical allegiance, or general cognitive biases(Nadelhoffer and Nahmias 2007: 125; Knobe and Nichols 2008: 9). Anexample of this approach can be found in Nahmias and colleagues’investigations of free will (2006, 2007).

The third project, “the sources project,” aims todiscover the psychological mechanisms or processes that producepeople’s intuitions. According to Knobe and Nichols, it ismotivated by the “hope … that we can use the informationto help determine whether the psychological sources … undercutthe warrant for the beliefs” based upon the source (2008: 9).Similarly, Allman and Woodward suggest that

better understanding of the sources and character of moral intuitionwill help to clarify whether and when it has a legitimate role inmoral argument. (2008: 167)

Examples of this approach include: Greene’s (Greene et al. 2001;Greene 2003: 848) fMRI investigations of moral judgment (criticized inBerker 2009), Horowitz’s (1998) attempt (see also Sunstein 2005)to explain certain intuitions taken to support the doctrine of doingand allowing using Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory(criticized in Kamm 1998 and van Roojen 1999), and aspects of Nicholsand Knobe’s (2007) investigations of the role of affect onjudgments regarding the compatibility of determinism and moralresponsibility.

The fourth project, “the variation project,”seeks to determine the extent of variation in intuitions betweendifferent groups, persons or persons-at-times or persons-in-contexts.Many working on this project hold that the empirically discoveredvariation in intuitions gives us reason to believe that intuitions areunreliable (Alexander et al. 2010). Examples of this approach (whichtraces its main intellectual lineage back to Stich 1988) includeWeinberg et al. (2001) on cross-cultural variation in intuitions aboutknowledge (criticized in Sosa 2007), Swain et al. (2008) on ordereffects in intuitions about knowledge (criticized in Sosa 2007),Buckwalter and Stich (2013) on gender variation in intuitions of manysorts, and Machery et al. (2004) and Mallon et al. (2009) oncross-cultural variation in intuitions about reference (criticized inLudwig 2007; Devitt 2011; Deutsch 2009; Sytsma and Livengood2011).

4.2 The Experimental Evidence

For experimental philosophers seeking to investigate the sources,character, and distribution of intuitions of philosophical interest,the primary method has consisted of asking subjects questions abouthypothetical scenarios, or less frequently, about principles orgeneralizations. The evidence has been responses (whether binary[yes/no] responses or graded [Likert scale] responses) to such surveyquestions. Those pursuing the sources project and the variationproject also aim to determine which factors co-vary withanswers—cultural or ethnic group, socio-economic status, regionof brain or cognitive processes implicated in answering the question,psychopathology, order of questions, framing of questions, etc.

Of course, traditional first-person armchair methods seek to determinewhich features of the content of the scenario under consideration varywith one’s intuitions. Indeed, this is exactly how one endeavorsto test or to make more precise some general thesis in many areas ofphilosophy. Proponents of the sources project and the variationproject however, seek to determine which features of those consideringthe scenario or of framing or presenting the same question vary withthe relevant intuitions.

There have been a variety of worries raised about the adequacy ofsurvey methods as means of gaining access tointuitions ofthe relevant sort. The strength of these worries vary according to theconception of intuition. If, as claimed by varioussuigeneris state accounts (§1.3), intuitions are not beliefs or mere dispositions to believe, then theinferential route from evidence consisting of survey responses toconclusions about intuitions is considerably lengthened.

First, differences in responses may be produced by different ways of“filling in” a schematic hypothetical case (Sosa 2007;Horvath 2015; Saint-Germier 2021). Second, there may be multipleconcepts answering to a single word (Sosa 2007). (For some recognitionof this fact by experimental philosophers, see the use of the“coin-flipping” case by Weinberg et al. (2001) and Swainet al. (2008) to exclude subjects who use “S knows thatp” to mean merely thatS has high confidencethatp.) These two suggestions do not raise the possibilitythat that the subjects in such surveys are not responding on the basisof intuitions. Rather, they raise the possibility that the intuitionsare not intuitions regarding the same property or about the same case.(See Alexander and Weinberg 2007 for the suggestion that both of theseconcerns apply equally to non-solipsistic proponents of thetraditional armchair methodology.)

A third, more general, worry is that such surveys run a risk ofeliciting from subjects responses determined by something other thantheir intuitions regarding the answer to the surveyquestion—e.g., by implicatures determined by what a sentence istypically used to communicate (Adams and Steadman 2004; Deutsch 2009;Bach 2002) and by more general pragmatic factors governing thedetermination of speaker meaning and task interpretation. Theseworries may be especially pressing in the odd and ambiguous context ofa set of hypothetical and often bizarre cases presented by aphilosopher to a philosophically naïve subject unaware of thenature of the discipline (Scholl 2007: 580; Cullen 2010; Ludwig 2007).Bengson (2013) argues that it is plausible that many survey responsesare often not indicative of subjects’ intuitions but are insteadthe product of guesses, hunches, or inferences.

Some proponents of survey methods claim that such worries have verylow prior probability and should not be taken seriously withoutexperimental confirmation. Those who raise them, however, claim tohave significant independent evidence of their general relevance(Cullen 2010; Scholl 2007) or their importance in producing theparticular results at issue (Bengson 2013). Some of these problemsseem difficult to control for without engaging subjects in somethinglike philosophical dialogue and dialectic (see Kauppinen2007)—i.e., by doing philosophy with them—which is thoughtby many experimental philosophers to be a form of biasing or datacontamination.

A final worry, of relatively recent vintage, concerns the extent towhich the results in question are reproducible or robust. A number ofrecent studies have provided reason to think that many publishedpsychological results are not reproducible, with studies in socialpsychology being especially likely to fail attempts at reproduction.Exactly what to make of this fact and how to respond to it is a matterof much debate, but it should be noted that experimental philosophershave begun to pay attention to the problem and to seek replication oftheir results. The issue is quite complicated and the research movingquickly, but it appears that quite a few of the claims of cultural orgender differences have not proved robust (Seyedsayamdost 2014, 2015;Adleberg et al. 2014). Knobe (2021) marshals extensive evidence toargue that, contrary to many early studies, intuitions are suprisinglystable across demographic groups (sex, culture, education) andsituational manipulations (presentational order, environmentalmanipulation). Claims of variation, as noted below, have been theprimary empirical basis of skepticism regarding the evidential valueof intuition.

Nothing precludes experimental philosophers from circumventing some ofthe concerns just noted by using experimental paradigms other than theadministering of surveys. They may use reaction-time studies fromcognitive psychology (Arico et al. 2011), empirical evidence fromneuroscience (Allman and Woodward 2008; Greene et. al. 2001),evolutionary biology, or other sources. Indeed, Scholl (2007) suggeststhat the most methodologically satisfactory experimental philosophywill be primarily a version of the sources project implicating ratherlow-level processes immune, in virtue of their modularity, from theinterpretive and pragmatic difficulties outlined above. While suchsources of evidence are not subject to the difficulties of surveys,they also appear unlikely to produce direct evidence of use to theverification project or the variability project because these projectsrequire responses to the abstract and detailed linguistic descriptionsof cases one typically presents in philosophical analysis.

4.3 Experimental Philosophy and Skeptical Challenges

The sources project is, as noted above, often presented as a possiblemeans of justifying skepticism regarding some class of philosophicalintuitions. An analogy suggested by Knobe and Nichols (2008) is todebunking explanations of religious beliefs. Theorists engaged in suchprojects argue that religious belief (or religious experience on whichsuch belief is based) is produced by some questionable process such aswish fulfillment, desire for a father figure, cultural indoctrination,etc. It is then argued (or assumed) that this fact about the source ofthe belief (or its direct internal ground) undermines the epistemiccredentials of such beliefs.

This may suggest that some skeptical proponents of the sources projectaim to motivate an instance of the Argument from Unreliability (§3.3). As an example, consider Greene’s fMRI-based arguments (Greeneet al. 2001; Greene 2003, 2007) against certain“characteristically deontological” intuitions in ethics.The primary experimental data on which his argument is based is thefact that portions of the brain independently implicated in emotionalreaction are more active when subjects consider cases giving rise tocharacteristically deontological intuitions than when they considercases giving rise to characteristically consequentialist intuitions.However, critics will allege (§3.3) that attempts to show that a process is unreliable (independent ofdisagreement) require independent access to the target domain and suchintuition-independent access seems lacking for most of the targetdomains of philosophical inquiry. In this vein, Berker (2009) arguesthat the best argument in Greene’s work rests largely on otherintuitions about the general normative insignificance of thefactors within hypothetical cases to which Greene believesdeontological intuitions are responsive. (See Unger 1996 for anentirely armchair criticism of many “characteristicallydeontological” intuitions for their apparent responsiveness tointuitively normatively insignificant factors.)

The aforementioned analogy to debunking explanations of religiousbelief might also be taken to suggest a version of the Argument fromLack of Explanatory Necessity (§3.4.1). According to that argument, the provision of an explanation of theoccurrence of the intuitions in question (the intuitings)which does not appeal to the truth of their contents (theintuiteds) undermines belief in their contents. The role ofexperimental work might be thought to be to support the factualpremise of that argument (see Greene 2003: 849 for such a suggestion).As we have seen (§3.4.2), critics will claim that the argument relies on a questionablenormative premise and violates the non-self-undermining constraint.They may also suggest that the plausibility of the non-normativepremise of the argument derives from very general armchair (perhapseven entirelya priori) reflections on the contents of theintuitions, their truth-makers, and the nature of explanation (Baras2020; Lutz 2018: 1118). If so, then the experimental investigationsare idle.

Some proponents of the variation project present empirical evidence ofdisagreement between intuitions between demographic groups or personsin contexts in order to motivate a version of the Argument fromIntrasource Inconsistency (Machery 2017) (§3.3.2). Some critics of skepticism motivated by the variation project claim,contrary to what was suggested earlier (§2.4), that intuitions arenot treated as evidence or reasons inphilosophical inquiry (Deutsch 2015; Williamson 2007; Cappelen 2012).Whether such a maneuver really evades whatever skeptical implicationsfollow from disagreement depends on whether disagreements of beliefare epistemologically less troubling than variations in non-doxasticjustifiers.

Though critical of the variation project, Sosa’s suggeststhat

there will definitely be aprima facie problem for the appealto intuitions in philosophy if surveys show that there is extensiveenough disagreement on the subject matter supposedly open to intuitiveaccess. (Sosa 2007)

Relevant to determining whether the antecedent of Sosa’sconditional is satisfied are various concerns about survey data notedabove and their ability to support claims ofintuitiondisagreement. Relevant to determining the possibility of theantecedent of Sosa’s conditional being satisfied are thedistinctivelya priori concerns raised above (§3.4.2) about the possible extent of disagreement, about how the existence ofwidespread disagreement could be justifiably believed to exist (§3.3.2), and, importantly, about the non-self-undermining constraint (Dixon2024).

5. Further Research

In light of the foregoing, it seems that further research on thefollowing issues would be especially beneficial. Thankfully, it isongoing.

The first is the precise conditions under which epistemic circularityis problematic. This would aid in determining the relative initialepistemological standing of intuition and perception.

The second is the exact actual and possible extent of intuitivedisagreement and the proper response to such disagreement. This wouldenable the proper evaluation of what appears to be one of the mostserious skeptical argument.

The third is the exact import of self-defeat. As many skepticalarguments against the use of intuitions seem to involve self-defeatand were criticized above for this reason, its nature, rationalsignificance, and avoidablity merit further investigation.

Bibliography

• Adams, Fred and Annie Steadman, 2004, “Intentional Action inOrdinary Language: Core Concept or Pragmatic Understanding?”,Analysis, 74(2): 173–181.doi:10.1093/analys/64.2.173
• Adleberg, Toni, Morgan Thompson, and Eddy Nahmias, 2014, “DoMen and Women Have Different Philosophical Intuitions? FurtherData”,Philosophical Psychology, 28(5): 615–641.doi:10.1080/09515089.2013.878834
• Alexander, Joshua, Ronald Mallon, and Jonathan M. Weinberg, 2010,“Accentuate the Negative”,Review of Philosophy andPsychology, 1(2): 297–314.doi:10.1007/s13164-009-0015-2
• Alexander, Joshua and Jonathan M. Weinberg, 2007, “AnalyticEpistemology and Experimental Philosophy”,PhilosophyCompass, 2(1): 56–80.doi:10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00048.x
• Allman, John and Jim Woodward, 2008, “What are MoralIntuitions and Why Should we Care About Them? A NeurobiologicalPerspective”,Philosophical Issues, 18(1):164–185. doi:10.1111/j.1533-6077.2008.00143.x
• Alston, William P., 1986, “Epistemic Circularity”,Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 47(1): 1–30.doi:10.2307/2107722
• –––, 1993,The Reliability of SensePerception, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Appiah, Kwame Anthony, 2008,Experiments in Ethics,Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Arico, Adam, Brian Fiala, Robert F. Goldberg, and Shaun Nichols,2011, “The Folk Psychology of Consciousness”,Mind andLanguage 26(3): 327–352.doi:10.1111/j.1468-0017.2011.01420.x
• Bach, Kent, 2002, “Seemingly Semantic Intuitions”, inMeaning and Truth, Joseph Klein Campbell, MichaelO’Rourke and David Shier (eds.), New York: Seven Bridges Press,pages 21–33.
• Baras, Dan, 2020, “No Need to Get Up from theArmchair”,Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 23(3):575–590.
• Bealer, George, 1998, “Intuition and the Autonomy ofPhilosophy”, in DePaul and Ramsey 1998: 201–240.
• –––, 2002, “Modal Epistemology and theRationalist Renaissance”, inConceivability andPossibility, Tamar Szabo Gendler and John Hawthorne (eds.), NewYork: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 1992, “The Incoherence ofEmpiricism”,Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society(Supplemental Volume), 66: 99–138.doi:10.1093/aristoteliansupp/66.1.99
• Benacerraf, Paul, 1973, “Mathematical Truth”,TheJournal of Philosophy, 70(19): 661–679.doi:10.2307/2025075
• Bengson, John, 2013, “Experimental Attacks on Intuitions andAnswers”,Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,86(3): 495–532. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2012.00578.x
• –––, 2014, “How Philosophers Use Intuitionand ‘Intuition’”,Philosophical Studies,171(3): 555–576. doi:10.1007/s11098-014-0287-y
• –––, 2015, “The Intellectual Given”,Mind, 124(495): 707–760. doi:10.1093/mind/fzv029
• Bergmann, Michael, 2006,Justification Without Awareness: ADefense of Epistemic Externalism, New York, NY: Oxford UniversityPress. doi:10.1093/0199275742.001.0001
• Berker, Selim, 2009, “The Normative Insignificance ofNeuroscience”,Philosophy and Public Affairs, 37(4):293–329. doi:10.1111/j.1088-4963.2009.01164.x
• Block, Ned, 1978, “Troubles with Functionalism”, in C.W. Savage (ed.),Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy ofScience, 9: 261–325.
• Bogal, Harjit, 2023, “What’s the Coincidence inDebunking?”,Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,107(1): 147–167.
• BonJour, Laurence, 1998,In Defense of Pure Reason,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Bromberger, Sylvain, 1966, “Why-Questions”, inMind and Cosmos: Essays in Contemporary Science andPhilosophy, Robert Garland Colodny (ed.), Pittsburgh: Universityof Pittsburgh Press, pages 86–121.
• Buckwalter, Wesley and Stephen Stich, 2014, “Gender andPhilosophical Intuition”, in Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols(eds.),Experimental Philosophy (Volume 2), Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199927418.001.0001
• Cappelen, Herman, 2012,Philosophy Without Intuitions,New York: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199644865.001.0001
• Cath, Yuri, 2012, “Evidence and Intuition”,Episteme, 9(4): 311–328. doi:10.1017/epi.2012.21
• Christensen, David, 2007, “Epistemology of Disagreement: TheGood News”,Philosophical Review, 116:187–217.
• –––, 2009, “Disagreement as Evidence: TheEpistemology of Controversy”,Philosophy Compass, 4(5):756–767. doi:10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00237.x
• Chudnoff, Elijah, 2011a, “What Intuitions are Like”,Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 82(3):625–654. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2010.00463.x
• –––, 2011b, “The Nature of IntuitiveJustification”,Philosophical Studies, 153(2):313–333. doi:10.1007/s11098-010-9495-2
• Clarke-Doane, Justin, 2015, “Justification and Explanationin Mathematics and Morality”, inOxford Studies inMetaethics (Volume 10), Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), New York:Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198738695.003.0004
• Climenhaga, Nevin, “Intuitions are Used as Evidence inPhilosophy”,Mind, 127(505): 69–104.
• Cohen, Stewart, 1984, “Justification and Truth”,Philosophical Studies, 46(3): 279–295.doi:10.1007/BF00372907
• –––, 2002, “Basic Knowledge and theProblem of Easy Knowledge”,Philosophy and PhenomenologicalResearch, 65(2): 309–329.doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2002.tb00204.x
• Conte, Sebastian, 2022, “Are Intuitions Treated as Evidence?Cases from Political Philosophy”,Journal of PoliticalPhilosophy, 30(4): 411–433.
• –––, 2024, “The Trolley Problem andIntuitional Evidence”,Journal of Value Inquiry, 58(2):293–310.
• Cullen, Simon, 2010, “Survey-Driven Romanticism”,Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 1(2): 275–296.doi:10.1007/s13164-009-0016-1
• Cummins, Robert, 1998, “Reflections on ReflectiveEquilibrium”, in DePaul and Ramsey 1998: 113–128.
• Cuneo, Terence and Russ Shafer-Landau, 2014, “The MoralFixed Points: New Directions for Moral Nonnaturalism”,Philosophical Studies, 171: 399–443.
• DePaul, Michael Raymond and William M. Ramsey (eds.), 1998,Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role inPhilosophical Inquiry, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
• Deutsch, Max, 2009, “Experimental Philosophy and the Theoryof Reference”,Mind and Language, 24: 445–466.doi:10.1111/j.1468-0017.2009.01370.x
• –––, 2010, “Intuitions, Counterexamples,and Experimental Philosophy”,Review of Philosophy andPsychology, 1(3): 447–460.doi:10.1007/s13164-010-0033-0
• –––, 2015,The Myth of the Intuitive,Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Devitt, Michael, 2006, “Intuitions in Linguistics”,British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 57(3):481–513. doi:10.1093/bjps/axl017
• –––, 2011, “Experimental Semantics”,Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 82(2):418–435. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2010.00413.x
• –––, 2015, “Relying on Intuitions: WhereCappelen and Deutsch Go Wrong”,Inquiry, 58(7–8):669–699. doi:10.1080/0020174X.2015.1084824
• Dixon, Jonathan, 2024, “X-Phi Within its ProperBounds”,Philosophical Psychology, first online 22 Jun2024. doi:10.1080/09515089.2024.2369675
• Earlenbaugh, Joshua and Bernard Molyneux, 2009, “Intuitionsare Inclinations to Believe”,Philosophical Studies,145(1): 89–109. doi:10.1007/s11098-009-9388-4
• Faraci, David, 2019, “Groundwork for an ExplanationistAccount of Epistemic Coincidence”,Philosophers’Imprint, 19(4).Faraci 2019 available online.
• Feldman, Richard, 2007, “Reasonable ReligiousDisagreements”, inPhilosophers without Gods: Meditations onAtheism and the Secular Life, Louise M. Antony (ed.), Oxford:Oxford University Press, chapter 16.
• Field, Hartry, 1989,Realism, Mathematics and Modality,New York: Blackwell.
• Geddes, Alexander, 2018, “Judgments About ThoughtExperiments”,Mind 127: 35–67.
• Gettier, Edmund L., 1963, “Is Justified True BeliefKnowledge?”,Analysis, 23(6): 121–123.doi:10.1093/analys/23.6.121
• Goldman, Alvin I., 1989, “Metaphysics, Mind and MentalScience”,Philosophical Topics, 17(1): 131–145.doi:10.5840/philtopics198917115
• –––, 1992, “Cognition and ModalMetaphysics”, in Alvin I. Goldman,Liaisons: PhilosophyMeets the Cognitive and Social Sciences, Cambridge, MA: MITPress.
• –––, 1999, “A Priori Warrant andNaturalistic Epistemology”, in James E. Tomberlin (ed.),Philosophical Perspectives, 13: 1–28.
• –––, 2007, “Philosophical Intuitions:Their Target, Their Source, and Their Epistemic Status”,Grazer Philosophische Studien, 74, 1–26.
• Gopnik, Alison and Eric Schwitzgebel., 1998, “Whose Conceptsare they, Anyway?: The Role of Philosophical Intuition in EmpiricalPsychology”, in DePaul and Ramsey 1998: 75–92.
• Greene, Joshua, 2003, “From Neural ‘Is’ to Moral‘Ought’: What Are the Implications of NeuroscientificMoral Psychology?”,Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 4:847–850. doi:10.1038/nrn1224
• –––, 2007, “The Secret Joke ofKant’s Soul”, inMoral Psychology, Vol. 3: TheNeuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders, andDevelopment, W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Cambridge, MA: MITPress.
• Greene, Joshua D., R. Brian Sommerville, Leigh E. Nystrom, John M.Darley, and Jonathan D. Cohen, 2001, “An fMRI Investigation ofEmotional Engagement in Moral Judgment”,Science,293(5537): 2105–2108. doi:10.1126/science.1062872
• Grundmann, Thomas, 2007, “The Nature of Rational Intuitionsand a Fresh Look at the Explanationist Objection”,GrazerPhilosophische Studien, 74: 69–87.
• Grundmann, Thomas and Joachim Horvath, 2014a, “ThoughtExperiments and the Problem of Deviant Realizations”,Philosophical Studies, 170(3): 525–533.doi:10.1007/s11098-013-0226-3
• –––, 2014b, “Erratum to: ThoughtExperiments and the Problem of Deviant Realizations”,Philosophical Studies, 170(3): 535–536.doi:10.1007/s11098-014-0294-z
• Harman, Gilbert, 1977,The Nature of Morality: An Introductionto Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Horowitz, Tamara, 1998, “Philosophical Intuitions andPsychological Theory”, in DePaul and Ramsey 1998:143–160.
• Horowitz, Tamara and Gerald Massey (eds.), 1991,ThoughtExperiments in Science and Philosophy, Savage, MD: Rowman andLittlefield.
• Horvath, Joachim, 2015, “Thought Experiments andExperimental Philosophy”, inThe Palgrave Handbook ofPhilosophical Methods, C. Daly (ed.), London: Palgrave Macmillan,pages 386–418. doi:10.1057/9781137344557_16
• –––, 2023,“Gettier’s ThoughtExperiments”, inEpistemology of Modality and PhilosophicalThought Experiments, A. Vaidya and D. Prelevic (eds.), New York:Routledge, 302–326.
• Huemer, Michael, 2001,Skepticism and the Veil ofPerception, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
• –––, 2005,Moral Intuitionism, NewYork: Palgrave Macmillan.
• –––, 2007, “Compassionate PhenomenalConservatism”,Philosophy and PhenomenologicalResearch, 74(1): 30–55.doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2007.00002.x
• Ichikawa, Jonathan Jenkins and Benjamin W. Jarvis., 2009,“Thought Experiment Intuitions and Truth in Fiction”,Philosophical Studies, 142(2): 221–246.doi:10.1007/s11098-007-9184-y
• –––, 2013,The Rules of Thought, NewYork: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661800.001.0001
• Kagan, Shelly, 1989,The Limits of Morality, New York:Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0198239165.001.0001
• Kamm, F.M., 1998, “Moral Intuitions, Cognitive Psychology,and the Harming-Versus-Not-Aiding Distinction”,Ethics,108(3): 463–488. doi:10.1086/233822
• Kauppinen, Antti, 2007, “The Rise and Fall of ExperimentalPhilosophy”,Philosophical Explorations, 10(2):95–118. doi:10.1080/13869790701305871
• Klein, Gary A., 1998,Sources of Power, Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.
• Knobe, Joshua and Shaun Nichols, 2008, “An ExperimentalPhilosophy Manifesto”, in Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols (eds),Experimental Philosophy, New York: Oxford University Press,pages 3–14.
• Knobe, Joshua, 2021, “Philosophical Intuitions areSuprisingly Stable Accross both Demographic Groups andSituations”,Filozofia Nauki, 29: 11–76.
• Koksvik, Ole, 2011,Intuition, Ph.D. Thesis, AustralianNational University [Koksvik 2011 available from the author].
• Korman, Daniel and Dustin Locke, 2020, “Against MinimalistResponses to Moral Debunking Arguments”,Oxford Studies inMetaethics, 15: 209–332.
• Kornblith, Hilary, 1998, “The Role of Intuition inPhilosophical Inquiry: An Account with No UnnaturalIngredients”, in DePaul and Ramsey 1998: 129–142.
• Lewis, David, 1978, “Truth in Fiction”,AmericanPhilosophical Quarterly, 15(1): 37–46.
• –––, 1983,Philosophical Papers (VolumeI), New York: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/0195032047.001.0001
• Ludwig, Kirk, 2007, “The Epistemology of ThoughtExperiments: First Person versus Third Person Approaches”,Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 31: 128–159.doi:10.1111/j.1475-4975.2007.00160.x
• Lutz, Matthew, 2018, “What Makes Evolution aDefeater”,Erkenntnis 83(6): 1105–1126.
• Machery, Edouard, 2017,Philosophy Within its ProperBounds, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Machery, Edouard, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols, and Stephen Stich,2004, “Semantic, Cross-Cultural Style”,Cognition, 92(3): 1–12.doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2003.10.003
• Mallon, Ron, Edouard Machery, Shaun Nichols, and Stephen Stich,2009, “Against Arguments from Reference”,Philosophyand Phenomenological Research, 79(2): 332–356.doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2009.00281.x
• Malmgren, Anna-Sara, 2011, “Rationalism and the Content ofIntuitive Judgments”,Mind, 120(478): 263–327.doi:10.1093/mind/fzr039
• Nadelhoffer, Thomas and Eddy Nahmias, 2007, “The Past andFuture of Experimental Philosophy”,PhilosophicalExplorations, 10(2): 123–149.doi:10.1080/13869790701305921
• Nado, Jennifer, 2014, “Why Intuition?”,Philosophyand Phenomenological Research, 89(1): 15–41.doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2012.00644.x
• Nahmias, Eddy, D. Justin Coates, and Trevor Kvaran, 2007,“Free Will, Moral Responsibility and Mechanism: Experiments onFolk Intuitions”,Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 31:214–232. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4975.2007.00158.x
• Nahmias, Eddy, Stephen G. Morris, Thomas Nadelhoffer, and JasonTurner, 2006, “Is Incompatibilism Intuitive?”,Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 73(1): 28–53.doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2006.tb00603.x
• Nichols, Shaun and Joshua Knobe, 2007, “Moral Responsibilityand Determinism: The Cognitive Science of Folk Intuition”,Nôus, 41(4): 663–685.doi:10.1111/j.1468-0068.2007.00666.x
• Pryor, James, 2000, “The Skeptic and the Dogmatist”,Nôus, 34(4): 517–549.doi:10.1111/0029-4624.00277
• Pust, Joel, 2000,Intuitions as Evidence, New York:Garland/Routledge.
• –––, 2001, “Against ExplanationistSkepticism Regarding Philosophical Intuitions”,Philosophical Studies, 106(3): 227–258.doi:10.1023/A:1013356707899
• –––, 2004, “On Explaining Knowledge ofNecessity”,Dialectica, 58(1): 71–87.doi:10.1111/j.1746-8361.2004.tb00292.x
• –––, 2014, “Empirical Evidence forRationalism?”, inIntuitions, A. Booth and D. Rowbottom(eds.), New York: Oxford University Press, pages 50–67.
• Putnam, Hilary, 1967, “Psychological Predicates”, inArt, Mind and Religion, W.H. Capitan and D.D. Merrill (eds.),Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pages 37–48.
• Russell, Bertrand, 1912,The Problems of Philosophy,Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Russell 1912 available online]
• Saint-Germier, Pierre, 2021, “Getting Gettier Straight:Thought Experiments, Deviant Realizations and DefaultInterpretations”,Synthese, 198: 1783–1806.
• Schechter, Joshua, 2010, “The Reliability Challenge and theEpistemology of Logic”,Philosophical Perspectives,24(1): 437–464. doi:10.1111/j.1520-8583.2010.00199.x
• Scholl, Brian J., 2007, “Object Persistence in Philosophyand Psychology”,Mind and Language, 22(5):563–591. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0017.2007.00321.x
• Seyedsayamdost, Hamid, 2014, “On Gender and PhilosophicalIntuition: Failure of Replication and Other Negative Results”,Philosophical Psychology, 28(5): 642–673.doi:10.1080/09515089.2014.893288
• –––, 2015, “On Normativity and EpistemicIntuitions: Failure of Replication”,Episteme, 12(1):95–116. doi:10.1017/epi.2014.27
• Siegel, Susanna, 2010,The Contents of Visual Experience,New York: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305296.001.0001
• Silva, Paul Jr., 2013, “Epistemically Self-DefeatingArguments and Skepticism about Intuition”,PhilosophicalStudies, 164(3): 579–589.doi:10.1007/s11098-012-9870-2
• Smart, J.J.C., 1965, “The Methods of Ethics and the Methodsof Science”,Journal of Philosophy, 62(13):344–349.
• Sorensen, Roy A., 1992,Thought Experiments, New York:Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/019512913X.001.0001
• Sosa, Ernest, 1998, “Minimal Intuition”, in DePaul andRamsey 1998: 257–270.
• –––, 2007, “Experimental Philosophy andPhilosophical Intuition”,Philosophical Studies, 132:99–107(1). doi:10.1007/s11098-006-9050-3
• Stich, Stephen, 1988, “Reflective Equilibrium, AnalyticEpistemology and the Problem of Cognitive Diversity”,Synthese, 74(3): 391–413.
• Street, Sharon, 2006, “A Darwinian Dilemma for RealistTheories of Value”,Philosophical Studies, 127(1):109–166. doi:10.1007/s11098-005-1726-6
• Sturgeon, Nicholas L., 1984, “Moral Explanations”, inMorality, Reason and Truth: New Essays on the Foundations ofEthics, David Copp and David Zimmerman (eds.), MD: Rowman andLittlefield.
• Sunstein, Cass R., 2005, “Moral Heuristics”,Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(4): 531–542.doi:10.1017/S0140525X05000099
• Swain, Stacey, Joshua Alexander, and Jonathan M. Weinberg, 2008,“The Instability of Philosophical Intuitions: Running Hot andCold on Truetemp”,Philosophy and PhenomenologicalResearch, 76(1): 138–155.doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2007.00118.x
• Sytsma, Justin and Jonathan Livengood, 2011, “A NewPerspective Concerning Experiments on Semantic Intuitions”,Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 89(2): 315–332.doi:10.1080/00048401003639832
• Thomson, Judith Jarvis, 1976, “Killing, Letting Die, and theTrolley Problem”,The Monist, 59(2): 204–217.doi:10.5840/monist197659224
• Unger, Peter, 1996,Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusionof Innocence, New York: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/0195108590.001.0001
• van Inwagen, Peter, 1997, “Materialism and thePsychological-Continuity Account of Personal Identity”,Philosophical Perspectives, 11: 305–319.
• van Roojen, Mark, 1999, “Reflective Moral Equilibrium andPsychological Theory”,Ethics, 109(4): 846–857.doi:10.1086/233950
• Vogel, Jonathan, 2008, “Epistemic Bootstrapping”,Journal of Philosophy, 105(9): 518–539.doi:10.5840/jphil2008105931
• Weinberg, Jonathan M., Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich, 2001,“Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions”,PhilosophicalTopics, 29(1–2): 429–460.doi:10.5840/philtopics2001291/217
• Williamson, Timothy, 2007,The Philosophy of Philosophy,New York: Routledge.
• –––, 2009, “Replies to Ichikawa, Martinand Weinberg”,Philosophical Studies, 145(3):465–476. doi:10.1007/s11098-009-9406-6

Academic Tools

	How to cite this entry.
	Preview the PDF version of this entry at theFriends of the SEP Society.
	Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO).
	Enhanced bibliography for this entryatPhilPapers, with links to its database.

Other Internet Resources

• PhilPapers “Intuition” Category

Related Entries

a priori justification and knowledge |experimental moral philosophy |justification, epistemic: foundationalist theories of |mathematics, philosophy of: indispensability arguments in the |morality: and evolutionary biology |reflective equilibrium |reliabilist epistemology |thought experiments

Acknowledgments

For very helpful and patient critical comments on drafts of theoriginal 2012 version of this entry, I thank Joshua Alexander, SelimBerker, David Chalmers, Richard Feldman, Ole Koksvik, Anna-SaraMalmgren, and Sean Nichols.