Robust Intuitions, Experimental Ethics, and Experimental Economics: Bringing Reflective Equilibrium into the Lab

Abstract

Among the recent proposals for philosophical reform, none has generated as much controversy as experimental philosophy. Despite its originality and the suggestiveness of some of its results, experi-mental philosophy has been criticized almost from its very beginnings. In this chapter, we focus on a methodological objection due to Antti Kauppinen (Kauppinen, 2007). According to Kauppinen, experimental philosophy (in any of its possible formulations) would not be able to identify the robust conceptual intuitions of speakers. In this chapter, we counter Kauppinen’s criticism by highlighting the relevance of experimental economics to identify the behavioral dimension of our conceptual competence. To the extent that experimental economics is particularly well equipped to identify the behavioral aspect of our conceptual competence, experimental ethics would do well in enriching its methodology (based on questionnaires and vignettes, and an overly linguistic bias) with behaviorally-oriented experiments. This would permit us to more clearly define the contours of our conceptual competence in the contexts that are relevant for our discussion — attribution of moral responsibility, fairness, etc. Importantly, experimental work on this behavioral dimension of our conceptual competence will also contribute to experimentally modeling processes of reflective equilibrium that would justify our princi-ples and normative standards.