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Cognitive Miracles: When Are Fast Processes Unreliable?

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1. Ethical judgements are explained by a dual-process theory, which distinguishes faster from slower processes.

2. Faster processes are unreliable in unfamiliar* situations.

3. Therefore, we should not rely on faster process in unfamiliar* situations.

4. When philosophers rely on not-justified-inferentially premises, they are relying on faster processes.

5. We have reason to suspect that the moral scenarios and principles philosophers consider are unfamiliar situations.

6. Therefore, not-justified-inferentially premises about particular moral scenarios, and debatable principles, cannot be used in ethical arguments where the aim is knowledge.

‘genetic transmission, cultural transmission, and learning from personal experience [...] are the only mechanisms known to endow [fast] processes with the information they need to function well’

Greene 2014, p. 714

unfamiliar* problems = ‘ones with which we have inadequate evolutionary, cultural, or personal experience’

‘it would be a cognitive miracle if we had reliably good moral instincts about unfamiliar* moral problems’

‘The No Cognitive Miracles Principle:

When we are dealing with unfamiliar* moral problems, we ought to rely less on [...] automatic emotional responses and more on [...] conscious, controlled reasoning, lest we bank on cognitive miracles.’

Greene, 2014 p. 715

The No Cognitive Miracles Principle is tricky to apply

Is how to win a chess match an unfamiliar problem?

Chess players are supposed to rely on faster processes, although it is seems initially reasonable to speculate that how to win a chess match is an unfamiliar problem.

unfamiliar* problems = ‘ones with which we have inadequate evolutionary, cultural, or personal experience’

Another illustration ...
ethical vs physical Compare processes underlying representational momentum Driven by principles So correct in at least two kinds of unfamiliar* cases

Compare the physical case.

Fast processes are characterised by principles of Impetus mechanics

which yield correct predictions in some unfamiliar* cases, including

point-light displays, and

(principles still work, despite unfamiliarity*)

cartoons

(stimuli are reverse-engineered to make the processes work)
Are these really unfamiliar?

unfamiliar problems (or situations): ‘ones with which we have inadequate evolutionary, cultural, or personal experience’

Inadequate for what? If we mean, ‘inadequate’ for learning about situations of that type, then the argument works formally, but it becomes a nontrivial issue whether the situation of Drop really is unfamiliar.
Challenge: Can we characterise ‘unfamiliarity’ independently of knowing how the faster processes operate, and in such a way that cartoons and point-light displays come out as familiar?
Or should we think that cartoons are actually unfamiliar situations? They are not situations in which our faster processes function reliably; it’s just that artists select those particular cases where the faster processes give the result they want even though, in a sense, the faster processes are giving an incorrect answer (cartoons are illusions).
But does this mean we must reject the No Cognitive Miracles Principle altogether?

‘The No Cognitive Miracles Principle:

When we are dealing with unfamiliar* moral problems, we ought to rely less on [...] automatic emotional responses and more on [...] conscious, controlled reasoning, lest we bank on cognitive miracles.’

Greene, 2014 p. 715

unfamiliar* problems = ‘ones with which we have inadequate evolutionary, cultural, or personal experience’

1. Unfamiliarity* depends on inadequacy [by definition]

2. We do not not which evolutionary, cultural, or personal experience is inadequate (unless we know how the faster processes work)

3. Therefore, we do not know which problems are unfamiliar [from 1, 2]

4. Therefore, we can make no practical use of the No Cognitive Miracles Principle [from 3]

How can we make progress? By considering how researchers have considered this problem.

wicked learning environments

‘When a person’s past experience is both representative of the situation relevant to the decision and supported by much , trust the intuition; when it is not, be careful’

(Hogarth, 2010, p. 343).

This is based on situations where statistical inference is possible.

action at a distance

weapons of mass destruction (Thomson, 1976)

...

Contrast chess.

1. Unfamiliarity* depends on inadequacy [by definition]

2. We do not not which evolutionary, cultural, or personal experience is inadequate (unless we know how the faster processes work)

3. Therefore, we do not know which problems are unfamiliar [from 1, 2]

4. Therefore, we can make no practical use of the No Cognitive Miracles Principle [from 3]

Essentially the same idea ....

‘The recognition model implies two conditions that must be satisfied for an intuitive judgment (recognition) to be genuinely skilled:

First, the environment must provide adequately valid cues to the nature of the situation.

Second, people must have an opportunity to learn the relevant cues.’

(Daniel Kahneman & Klein, 2009, p. 520)

1. Unfamiliarity* depends on inadequacy [by definition]

2. We do not not which evolutionary, cultural, or personal experience is inadequate (unless we know how the faster processes work)

3. Therefore, we do not know which problems are unfamiliar [from 1, 2]

4. Therefore, we can make no practical use of the No Cognitive Miracles Principle [from 3]

We can use the No Cognitive Miracles Principle even without being able to say which situations are unfamiliar.
This line of argument walks right into Railton on learning.

fully-informed disagreement about what to do
as a proxy for unfamiliarity

Greene argues that it is reasonable to suppose that where there is fully informed disagreement about what to do, we are likely to be in an unfamiliar situation:
> ‘we can use disagreement as a proxy for lack of familiarity*. If two > parties have a practical moral disagreement--—a disagreement about what > to do, not about why to do it---it’s probably because they have conflicting > intuitions. This means that, from a moral perspective, if not from a > biological perspective, at least one party’s automatic settings are going > astray. (Assuming that both parties have adequate access to the relevant > nonmoral facts.) Absent a reliable method for determining whose > automatic settings are misfiring, both parties should distrust their > intuitions’ > (Greene, 2014, p. 716).

It is true that faster processes are unreliable in unfamiliar* situations.

We do not know which situations are unfamiliar* (unless we know how the faster processes operate).

But we can still make use of the No Cognitive Miracles Principle.

So where are we?

1. Ethical judgements are explained by a dual-process theory, which distinguishes faster from slower processes.

2. Faster processes are unreliable in unfamiliar* situations.

3. Therefore, we should not rely on faster process in unfamiliar* situations.

4. When philosophers rely on not-justified-inferentially premises, they are relying on faster processes.

5. We have reason to suspect that the moral scenarios and principles philosophers consider are unfamiliar situations.

6. Therefore, not-justified-inferentially premises about particular moral scenarios, and debatable principles, cannot be used in ethical arguments where the aim is knowledge.