Dictionary Entry

Just finished up an entry on 'experimental philosophy' for the Online Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind. Most of it is about the work of various contributors to this site.

Anyway, here is the full text:

--

Since the earliest days of analytic philosophy, it has been a common practice to appeal to intuitions about particular cases. Typically, the philosopher presents a hypothetical situation and then makes a claim of the form: ‘In this case, we would surely say....’ This claim about people’s intuitions then forms a part of an argument for some more general theory about the nature of our concepts or our use of language.

One puzzling aspect of this practice is that it so rarely makes
use of standard empirical methods. Although philosophers quite frequently make
claims about ‘what people would ordinarily say,’ they rarely back up those claims
by actually asking people and looking for patterns in their responses.
In recent years, however, a number of philosophers have tried to put claims
about intuitions to the test, using experimental methods to figure out what
people really think about particular hypothetical cases. This approach is sometimes
known as experimental philosophy.

Although experimental philosophy is a relatively new approach,
it has seen an explosion of interest in recent years. Thus far, research has
focused on four main areas:

• A series of studies have been concerned with cross-cultural differences. Asian subjects appear to differ from Americans both in epistemic intuitions (Weinberg, et al. 2001) and in intuitions about the reference of proper names (Machery, et al. 2004).
• An ever-growing mountain of research indicates that moral considerations
  can affect people’s application of certain folk-psychological concepts. So,
  for example, it appears that people’s intuitions about whether or not a behavior
  was performed intentionally can be affected by their beliefs about the moral
  significance of the behavior itself (Knobe 2003a; 2003b; 2004; Knobe &
  Burra forthcoming; Nadelhoffer forthcoming a; forthcoming b; Malle forthcoming;
  McCann 2004; Sverdlik 2004).
• It has often been claimed that people are ‘natural incompatiblists,’ i.e.,
  that people feel that an agent cannot be morally responsible for a behavior
  if that behavior was causally determined. A number of recent studies have
  challenged this claim. Thus, it has been shown that people think an agent
  can be responsible for a behavior even if that behavior was predicted by an
  all-knowing Laplacean computer (Nahmias, et al. 2004) and that, as long as
  the agent truly wanted to perform the behavior, people will regard her as
  responsible even if she was ineluctably compelled to perform it (Woolfolk,
  et al. 2004).
• A number of studies have examined people’s meta-ethical intuitions. It has
  been shown that young children are generally objectivists (Nichols & Folds-Bennett
  2003), that relativists still make the usual moral/conventional distinction
  (Nichols 2004), and that people are willing to ascribe moral beliefs even
  to agents who have no corresponding motivation (Nichols 2002).

Experimental philosophy remains a controversial approach. On one hand, it seems
that the use of naïve subjects allows researchers to get access to intuitions
that are not corrupted by theoretical preconceptions. On the other, it may be
felt that naïve subjects do not understand what is at stake in the cases they
are asked to evaluate and that their intuitions may therefore not be sensitive
to the full array of relevant considerations. Offering a compromise between
these two perspectives, Alfred Mele (2003) suggests that experimental philosophy
may be useful in those domains where we are particularly concerned with the
intuitions of the folk (e.g., in moral philosophy) but not in areas where we
seem to have a sophisticated theory that leaves the folk behind (e.g., in the
philosophy of physics).

The field of experimental philosophy is still in its infancy. With
any luck, discussion of these issues will grow increasingly nuanced and complex
in the years to come.

References

Knobe, J. (2003a). Intentional action and side effects in ordinary language. Analysis. 63, 190-193.

Knobe, J. (2003b). Intentional action in folk psychology: An experimental investigation. Philosophical Psychology, 16, 309-324.

Knobe, J. & Burra, A. (forthcoming). Intention and Intentional Action: A Cross-Cultural Study. Journal of Culture and Cognition.

Knobe, J. (2004). Intention, Intentional Action and Moral Considerations. Analysis, 64, 181-187.

Machery, E., Mallon, R., Nichols, S., & Stich, S. (2004). Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style. Cognition, 92, B1-B12.

Malle, B. F. (forthcoming). The Moral Dimension of Peoples Intentionality Judgments. Journal of Culture and Cognition.

McCann, H. (2004). More Evidence on Intentional Action and Intending. Unpublished manuscript. Texas A&M University.

Alfred Mele. (2003). Intentional Action: Controversies, Data, and Core Hypotheses. Philosophical Psychology, 16, 325-340.

Nadelhoffer, T. (forthcoming a). The Butler Problem Revisited. Analysis.

Nadelhoffer, T. (forthcoming b). Skill, Luck, Control, and Folk Ascriptions of Intentional Action. Philosophical Psychology.

Nahmias, E., Nadelhoffer, T., Morris, S., & Turner, J. (2004). Surveying Free Will: Folk Intuitions about Free Will and Moral Responsibility. Unpublished manuscript. Florida. State University.

Nichols, S. (2002). How Psychopaths Threaten Moral Rationalism: Is It Irrational to Be Amoral? The Monist, 85, 285-304.

Nichols, S.  (2004). After Objectivity: An Empirical Study of Moral Judgment. Philosophical Psychology, 17, 5-28.

Nichols, S. and Folds-Bennett, T. (2003). Are Children Moral Objectivists?  Childrens Judgments about Moral and Response-Dependent Properties. Cognition, 90, B23-32.

Sverdlik, S. (2004). Some Experiments Investigating the Commonsense Concepts of Moral Responsibility and Intentional Action. Unpublished manuscript. Southern Methodist University.

Weinberg, J., Nichols, S., & Stich, S. (2001). Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions. Philosophical Topics, 29, 429-460.

Woolfolk, R., Doris, J., & Darley, J. (2004). Attribution and Alternate Possibilities: Identification and Situational Constraint as Factors in Moral Cognition. Unpublished manuscript. Princeton University.

Other Web Resources

The Experimental Philosophy Blog (Thomas Nadelhoffer)

X-Philosophy: The Online Journal for Experimental Philosophy (Brandon Towl)

Experimental Work by Philosophers

Comments

[jeff glick]

Is it an accident that the majority of the philosophers referenced here have close ties to Steve Stich?

[Matt]

Is taking a survey of people's intuitions, even if you check it against some philsophical theories afterwards, _experimental_ in some important way? I'm not trying to be obnoxious here, but I'd be interested to see how this sort of data-gathering is different from more or less casual sociology as opposed to something more properly called "experimental". I understand that what, exactly, is an experiment is far from clear, but I'd like to hear more about why a study of cross-cultural differences on ethical views (or whatever) deserves the name of experimental, rather than sociological. (Some of the examples are more clearly experimental, but enough are not that I wonder if the term isn't being used more as an honorific than anything else.)

[tnadelhoffer]

Perhaps "empirically informed" rather than "experimental" would satisfy Matt's concerns (I almost called the blog the former). Either way, the motivation for using either of these terms--honorific or otherwise--is to highlight the fact that at least some philosophers take empirical data--both from the hard sciences and from the social sciences--quite seriously--so seriously that in the event that there is no relevant data, they are willing to get their hands dirty with preliminary empirical studies of their own. To get a feel for why the term "experimental" is apt, one need only read some of the posts on this site (including the recent one by Joshua Knobe). In any event, I think that the sort of research being done by both philosophers and psychologists in "experimental" philosophy is explicitly NOT "casual sociology"--that's what philosophers do who informally poll students. But even this method--with its obvious methodologicalk draw backs--is still an advancement over some of the purely speculative methods traditionally used by philosophers--especially when they are avowedly developing conceptual analyses of ordinary concepts.

[tnadelhoffer]

I should also have added another reason why the sort of research done under the rubric of "experimental philosophy" is properly called experimental--viz., the claims made by philosophers about layperson's intuitions are treated as hypotheses and predictions about how ordinary people (i.e. non-specialists) would respond to certain scenarios, etc. These hypotheses and predictions are then tested to see whether or not they are supported (or in most cases falsified a la Popper) by the empirical evidence. If this is not "experimental" in some broad sense, then I am unsure what is. Of course, if "experimental" is to be defined in terms of labs, telescopes, microscopes, etc., then of course this sort of work is not experimental. But then neither are any other social sciences (social psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, etc.). I suppose any debate about the appropriateness of the application of the term "experimental" to the sort of work being done by the contributors of this site should begin with a tentative definition of the term. I would certainly enjoy the debate that would ensue. Hopefully, others are equally interested in the important question that Matt has raised.

[Matt]

Thanks for the furhter clarification- It's helpful. Let it be clear that I'm pretty sympathetic the the program, at least in the abstract, and rather hostile to a priori theorizing. I guess my biggest worry about some of the types of activities described is that it seems to me to be very hard to set up the questions in such a way that the result isn't quite unstable. That is, it's fairly easy to get a different result from slightly changing the question, which ought to make one nervous about drawing very strong conclusions. My other main worry would be that much of the most famous work on, say, rationality and reasoning (like that Stitch draws on in Fragmentation of Reason) is open to some pretty serious methedological worries. For an nice discussion of some of the problems in this area, especially w/ relation to problems in the law (but also relevant to philosophical discussion)I recommend Gregory Mitchell, Taking Behavioralism Too Seriously? The Unwarranted Pessimism of
the New Behavioral Analysis of Law, 43 WM. & MARY L. REV. 1907 (2002)

[Matt]

Just in case it's not clear (it wasn't clear to me when I first encountered it) the "behaviorism" in the above-noted article title has nothing to do w/ Skinner and Watson and the like- it's a reference to "behavioral law and economics", which attempts to critique traditional law and economics on the grounds of findings from psychology, especially rationality. An unfortunate choice of names, to my mind.

[Eddy Nahmias]

For the record I've always favored "empirically informed philosophy" rather than "experimental philosophy" for (at least) three reasons. First, it better captures the main aim of these research programs--to ensure that philosophical claims are informed by the best available empirical evidence (whether that evidence is gathered in explicitly 'experimental' ways or not). Often this evidence will be sociological or psychological and many of the relevant research papers deal with folk concepts and intuitions (for reasons Joshua nicely lays out). Surveys are not the only or perhaps even the best way to probe such concepts and intuitions for various methodological reasons (see previous posts), but they are well suited for at least one task--getting data about non-philosophers' judgments about scenarios, including thought experiments, that philosophers often present to support their views (usually by claiming that some judgment is commonsensical or obvious).

Second, this so-far favored method, surveys, are *not* experiments. Here's a standard definition of "experiment":
"A method of research which permits the inference of cause and effect. At least two groups of subjects are treated exactly alike in all ways except one, the independent variable. Differences in the behaviour of the Experimental and Control group which cannot be accounted for by experimental error are then attributed to the effect of the experimental treatment."
That is, experiments require a "treatment" (manipulated factor) on one group and not another (the control group) and then a measurement of the effect of that manipulation. Strictly speaking, our surveys do not do this, though they are usually measuring the differential effects on subjects' judgments in response to different scenarios.

Finally, I don't like the name "experimental philosophy" because it may suggest that we are going to do philosophy in some quirky untried way--like without the notion of validity or by reading great philosophers' works backwards to see what they meant. Now, some may argue that surveying folk intuitions is experimental in this pejorative sense, but I don't want our label to lead people to think this way before they've actually considered what it is we have to say.

[tnadelhoffer]

Eddy and I have already had this discussion in private, but at least one thing is worth mentioning here: there is one important difference between "empirically informed" and "experimental" that clearly--at least in my eyes--suggests that the latter is more appropriate than the former--viz., there have always been philosophers interested in empirical data (especially in the philosophy of mind), but only recently have philosophers started getting their hands dirty with empirical work themselves. This difference is *not* captured by "empirically informed" and is captured by "experimental"--hence my preference for the latter. Hopefully, some of the psychologists who read this blog will weigh in on Eddy's way of carving out "experiment"--which I take to be far too restrictive (although I am open to hearing more about the non-experimental philosophy that would ensue). But, since I am on vacation--I will leave it to others to hash out the details for now. I will be happy to post something about this once I return--assuming, of course, that the insightful readers of this blog have not already settled the matter.

[tnadelhoffer]

I also wanted to thank Matt for the reference. I will certainly read the paper once I get back into town. Hopefully, it will serve as more fodder for the readers of the blog.

[peter "the sheriff" yoon]

This constant debate about what is and what is not philosophy or empirical or analytical is a clear sign that the once great art of philsophy is irrevocably transmuting into an ossified practice for intellectual dandies, or, in everyday parlance - a big ole dinosaur.

[tnadelhoffer]

I find it curious that anyone would look at the debate about the proper relationship between philosophy and science and conclude that philosophy is "ossified." Indeed, I think that anyone familiar with the history of philosophy since the "death" of positivism and the "birth" of naturalized epistemology, reductionism, cognitive science, etc., would expect precisely these kinds of debates to unfold. Nevertheless, I would appreciate some clarification from our friendly sheriff: when you refer to the long-lost "great art of philosophy," what do you have in mind? If you mean that few people are constructing far-sweeping unified metaphysical theories--you are obviously correct (although David Lewis comes to mind). But there are good reasons why contemporary philosophers feel that this kind of system building is no longer necessary (or perhaps even possible). However, none of these reasons are the result of ossification.

[peter "the sheriff" yoon]

I'm thrilled to see a dignified and informed response to what may have been seen as a rather impertinent remark. It wasn't made lightly, nor with a sense of gratification; no, the ossification of the art of philosophy is observed with great sadness. Yes, the metaphysical, unified metanarratives are limited and could, empirically, be considered ossifed. Why is that regretable? Because issues that can't be conclusively treated by Radical Empiricism, nor its ugly brother, Skepticism, such as diverse spiritual perspectives, comparative religions, teleology, a plethora of cultural values, and conscience to name just a few - vital concerns after 9/11 in a society at war with Islamic nations - get short shrift. And that creates a vacuum within society, which is left without enlightened models to sort through all the complex ambiguities.