Can We Trust What Seems Obvious?

Most people trust their intuitions. But is that reasonable?

People often speak about intuitions, which I take to be various non-inferential “seemings”—that is, things that just seem to be the case. Or, to put it polemically, a sort of warm inner tingle that something is true. (A philosophical Spidey sense?)

Quite obviously, we base many of our beliefs on the sorts of intuitions we have, and—equally obviously—we feel quite warranted in doing so. After all, we have intuitions about lots of things that seem (seem!) super-duper obvious: the external world (that we’re not brains in vats), that other people have minds (that my wife isn’t just a cleverly programmed android), about identity through time (that I am substantially the same self-person today that I was ten years ago), about contingency (that certain things could have been otherwise—or not at all), about possibility and impossibility (that I could possibly work at Jersey Mike’s, but could not have been an ostrich), about causality, logic—and, of course, various moral matters as well (that murder is wrong and ought not be done).¹

Intuitions are quite a large lot, with some, of course, being stronger (more phenomenologically forceful) than others. And because of their basicness and prevalence, it’s difficult to see how intuitions could not be afforded a certain privileged status in epistemology. After all, to suggest that they’re unreliable across the board would itself rely on beliefs that are, at some point or other, delivered via intuitions. It would be like saying our senses aren’t reliable because people sometimes sense things that aren’t there (like a wavy-looking road on a hot day). But of course, the only reason we know our senses sometimes fail is because we use our senses to detect and discern the error. That is, to make reasonable judgments about when our senses go wrong assumes a background of their general reliability. And something similar must—and should—be said about intuitions, of course. Even when our intuitions are off, that’s rationally decidable only because they aren’t generally off.

All to say: we know that hardcore skepticism leaves us intellectually paralyzed. We really can’t get around in the world from a position of general doubt or skepticism about what our faculties are delivering to us. So, a much better epistemological posture is just to assume that what generally seems to be the case probably is the case—unless we have some good reason to think otherwise. But a posture like that needs some ultimate backing. We need a story about why that assumption itself is warranted. Ultimately, anyway.

This brings me back to one of my more basic cases for classical theism, which is that—to my mind—it seems the worldview best suited to make sense of our strongest intuitions. What I mean is that, all along the chain of my classically theistic commitments, I detect no obvious weak link that would compel me to cast serious doubt on any of my more phenomenologically forceful seemings—or on the general posture of assuming that what seems to be delivered via such intuitions is probably correct. (And that just isn’t the case when I try to think through other competing theories—especially naturalistic ones, though plenty of theistic ones, too—which would absolutely cause me to question the reliability of a good number of my strongest intuitions, if I ascribed myself to those positions.)

There are a few different epistemological theories that can be put to work here, if only to illustrate the point—proper functionalism, for example, would be one of them. The basic idea behind PF (same abbreviation as my name, which is why I like it, even though I don’t fully endorse it²) is that we are beings with a certain design plan—one that’s generally aimed at truth and has an objectively high probability of getting to the truth in the relevant contexts, that is, at least when functioning properly in the right environment.³ Whatever else one might say about PF, it’s certainly a nice epistemological model for justifying our basic intuitive beliefs. For example: if, upon hearing a gruesome story about domestic abuse, the belief that “that is evil and wrong” is just immediately occasioned in me, then I have good reason to think that belief is warranted—truth-tracking, of course—insofar as my faculties are functioning properly and the environment is suitable (both of which I assume are currently the case).

In fact, on this account, I can very much say that I know such an act is evil and wrong—since warrant, after all, is just that special quality (“whatever it is”) that transforms mere justified true belief into knowledge. I don’t need any further arguments. I can just take what seems to be true to me to be the case—unless someone can provide strong arguments to the contrary.

Importantly, however, PF is really just a theory about propositional knowledge. It ranges over what the scholastics would classify as knowledge in the realm of judgment (composition or division), not, say, simple apprehension. And there’s also an obvious catch—one that very few people talk about.⁴ Namely, that for PF to be an adequate account of our knowledge, it already presupposes someone who knows things. Things like how to set up a certain kind of environment, or how to fashion faculties such that certain beliefs are caused in certain ways, in a generally reliable fashion, and so on.⁵ But that someone can’t know things by the PF model.

That someone is God.

Surely—just think about this for a moment—no theist should want to say that God is designed, or that He operates in some environment for which He was intended to function. Moreover, does a theist really want to say that any of God’s knowledge is caused in Him? I mean, all of that runs completely counter to what is traditionally meant by “God.”

So, it seems to me that if PF is ultimately going to stay afloat (or at least not just perpetually kick the epistemological can down the road) it has to be backed up by some fundamental entity that not only knows things, and knows things not just in an uncaused way, but in a totally different mode altogether—that is, in a way that involves no complexity, no moving parts, no “inner operations” at all whereby various beliefs are (presumably reliably) produced, acquired, achieved, or attained.

In other words, the same sorts of considerations that arise when asking what kind of entity could ground all beings caused in their existence also arise when asking what kind of entity could ground all beings caused in their knowledge. And what I’m suggesting is that there’s a very strong parallel answer: namely, the ultimate ground of being is that in which there is no distinction between essence and existence; likewise, the ultimate ground of knowing is that in which there is no distinction between essence and knowledge. (Which ultimately amounts to saying that God just is His essence, just is His being, just is His knowledge—which is, of course, what classical theists have always claimed.)

My usual readers at this point will no doubt suspect where I’m going: once again toward the doctrine of divine simplicity. Of course, how something could ever be identical with its knowledge is a curious matter. But on a certain metaphysic—one where knowledge already involves a degree of immateriality and simplicity (traditionally, we’re said to know something when we possess its form formally rather than materially—which is just to say, immaterially), and, moreover, where knowledge is not just an activity but a plausible candidate for a property that might admit of a limit-case instance (that is, an instance of knowledge involving no passivity, and thus no bound, whatsoever)—there’s a way of making some good conceptual sense of this.⁶ Or at least of saying that it’s not outright implausible, even if we’re rather in the dark about what this mode of knowledge is actually like (which, of course, isn’t surprising—since that isn’t our mode of knowledge. No different than how we’re in the dark about God’s mode of necessary existence, which obviously isn’t ours either!).

But I’ll refrain from pushing any further in that direction, for the time being (for what it’s worth, I have much more to say about these matters in my dissertation), and will simply return to the more original point and try to connect it with a more practical one.

Intuitions are not something we can entirely discard if we’re to avoid a paralyzing skepticism—which I think we should aim to do. This means taking an epistemological posture of general optimism—of generally trusting, rather than doubting, what our faculties deliver, unless and until we have some good reason to doubt them. But this posture needs a story—a plausible one that can underwrite it.

For my money, classical theism is the best on offer—though of course I’m not saying no other theory could offer some help here. I am saying, though, that if the current story—the worldview someone holds—can’t underwrite this posture, then the problem isn’t with our trust in intuitions. It’s with the theory. And maybe it’s time to go find a better one.

1. I want to make a quick qualification that will only become relevant later—namely, with respect to intuitions operating in an appropriate environment. Obviously, if we’re outside the usual environment, we have some reason to be a bit suspicious of the reliability of certain intuitions—for example, how things appear when we’re submerged deep underwater, or even, I should say, when thinking about some very “far out” moral scenarios.

All this, of course, is a topic for another post, but it’s something worth keeping in mind—and something anyone offering an account of the reliability of intuitions needs to account for as well (which, for example, proper functionalists do through qualifications about the environment).

2. I incline more toward an Aristotelian/nature-based epistemology.

3. Of course, every account of knowledge and intuition needs to give some story about error—and how our susceptibility to error doesn’t undermine the general reliability of our faculties. With respect to proper functionalism, Plantinga has a lot to say about this. For example, he’ll talk about the difference between operations in “maxi” versus “mini” environments, and how getting things wrong in mini environments isn’t all that surprising—and certainly not devastating to his case for general reliability. So, if you're interested in all that stuff, I recommend consulting his work on these matters.

4. So maybe it’s not all that obvious after all? I mean, I think it is, but… whatever.

5. I am, of course, here assuming Plantinga’s work that PF really on flies on theism, not naturalism.

6. I commend the work of Bernard Lonergan here, particularly Insight, where (in chapter 19) he argues that the simple God just is the unrestricted act of understanding, understanding itself.