Philosophical Criticisms of Experimental Philosophy

The philosophical relevance of experimental psychology is hard to dispute. Much more controversial is the so-called negative program’s critique of armchair philosophical methodology, in particular the reliance on ‘intuitions’ about thought experiments. This chapter responds to that critique. It argues that, since the negative program has been forced to extend the category of intuition to ordinary judgments about real-life cases, the critique is in immediate danger of generating into global scepticism, because all human judgments turn out to depend on intuitions. Recently, some proponents of the negative program have tried to demarcate the target of their critique more narrowly. However, their attempts are still far too indiscriminate, and over-generate scepticism. Nevertheless, once experimental philosophy has refined its own methodology, it may contribute to the refinement of the methodology of mainstream philosophy, by filtering out the effects of cognitive bias, although it offers no prospect of doing without judgments on real or imaginary cases.