can we test the experience machine?

Can We Test the Experience Machine?

Basil SmithSaddleback College, USA

ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES 18, no. 1(2011): 29-51.© 2011 by European Centre for Ethics, K.U.Leuven. All rights reserved. doi: 10.2143/EP.18.1.2066212

ABSTRACT. Robert Nozick famously asks us whether we would plug in to an ‘experience machine’, or whether we would insist upon ‘living in contact with reality’. Felipe De Brigard, after conducting a series of empirical ‘inverted’ experience machine studies, suggests that this is a false dilemma. Rather, he says, “…the fact is that people tend to prefer the state of affairs they are in currently,” or the status quo. In this paper, I argue that these studies are a test case for ‘experimental philosophy’ as such. Specifically, I argue that De Brigard offers a series of faulty studies, and so, reaches unfounded conclusions. More generally, I argue that certain philosophical thought experiments cannot be tested empiri-cally at all, and this limits what experimental philosophy can do.

KEYWORDS. Robert Nozick, experience machine, moral intuitions, experimental philosophy

I. INTRODUCTION

Philosophers often define philosophy in such a way as to make the special sciences such as psychology almost irrelevant to it. Thomas

Nagel, for instance, suggests that unlike science and mathematics, phi-losophy “…does not rely on experiments or observation, but only on thought” (1987, 6). With the advent of ‘experimental philosophy’, how-ever, philosophy can no longer afford such isolationist sentiments.1 Add-ing to this point, Mark Johnson notes that

[…] we cannot know how best to act unless we know something about the details of our mental activity, about how our concepts are formed, what their structure is, what constrains our inferences, etc (1996, 49).

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ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES – MARCH 2011

Such ‘details’, Johnson says, are the details of our unique psychology. If we ignore the findings of psychology, then we will misunderstand our motives, our reasoning, and normative relations between our mental states. In short, we will create mythologies out of our mental lives.

Following the lead of experimental philosophers Joshua Knobe, Shawn Nichols and others, Felipe De Brigard applies ‘the methods of cognitive science’ or ‘experimental psychology’ to test Robert Nozick’s experience machine thought experiment. Specifically, he argues that the experiment does not isolate any intuition to choose reality. In the present contribution, I suggest that De Brigard may be correct in his experimental approach, generally speaking. I also argue, nevertheless, that he offers a series of faulty studies in this instance and thus reaches unfounded conclusions.

Moreover, I argue that this case reveals a limitation to experimental philosophy. Advocates of this approach repeatedly claim to scientifically test philosophical thought experiments, and thereby the intuitions they evoke. Primarily these ‘methods’ are surveys, where subjects answer either ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or give a score on a Likert scale. When such philosophers have tested subjects, they claim they have found that “people do not think about these things in any way that philosophers have assumed” (Knobe and Nichols 2008, 3). Have these philosophers always shown that we think differently, that we have different intuitions? No. Unlike thought experiments in science, many philosophical thought experiments are untestable in practice (Sorensen 1992, 32-35; Gendler 2000, 150; Peijnen-burg and Atkinson 2003, 320).

Lastly, I will argue that certain philosophical thought experiments (e.g. the experience machine, the trolley problem, etc.) ask subjects to make decisions from the position of confronted agents, or those who have entered a specific state of mind. But when taking surveys (answering either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or giving a score on a Likert scale), subjects are not in that state of mind, nor can they imagine it. Therefore, when experimental philosophers claim they have tested certain philosophical experiments (and thereby the intuitions they evoke) we have reason to believe they have not.


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SMITH – CAN WE TEST THE EXPERIENCE MACHINE?

II. THE INVERTED EXPERIENCE MACHINE

De Brigard sets out to test Robert Nozick’s experience machine. In his critique of psychological hedonism, Nozick asks us to consider whether we would step into a machine that would produce in us a pleasant yet fictitious life, such as “…writing a great novel, making a friend…” etc., or whether we might refuse to do so, and insist upon “living in contact with reality” come what may (Nozick 1974, 42).2 Either we admit that only the content of our experiences matters to us (i.e. independently of their ‘correspon-dence’ to reality), or we insist upon reality. Famously, Nozick holds that the experiential option is “…a kind of suicide,” and so says we should choose reality. No matter what we choose, however, most philosophers agree that these two options – experiences or reality – exhaust our choices (Silverstein 2000, 291; Darwall 1997, 178; Brink 1989, 223-224; Crisp 1997, 51).

De Brigard, however, disputes this consensus. In particular, he says, the experience machine thought experiment is ineffective, for it “…does not provide support for the claim that people prefer not plugging in because they value being in touch with reality” (2010, 44). The experience machine, it seems, does not isolate the intuition it is designed to. Rather, De Brigard says:

I contend that although people seem to value, at least to some extent, both pleasure as well as being in contact with reality, it is also true that, given the right circumstances they are willing to give up either of them (2010, 49-50).

De Brigard insists, nevertheless, that these ‘right circumstances’ are any circumstances. Specifically, he says that what determines our choices is not pleasure or reality, but rather “…the fact that people tend to prefer the state of affairs they are currently in” come what may (2010, 50).3

In support of this thesis, De Brigard conducted a series of three ‘inverted’ experience machine studies. In these studies, he invited three sections of 24 college students each (all UNC Chapel Hill undergraduates ‘…with no previous exposure to philosophy’) to imagine the following:




Neutral Vignette:

It is a Saturday morning and you are planning to stay in bed for at least another hour when all of a sudden you hear the doorbell. Grudgingly, you step out of bed to go to the door. At the other side there is a tall man, with a black jacket and sunglasses, who introduces himself as Mr. Smith. He claims to have vital information that concerns you directly. Mildly troubled but still curious, you let him in. “I am afraid I have some disturbing news to communicate to you,” says Mr. Smith. “There has been a terrible mistake. Your brain has been plugged by error into an experience machine created by super-duper neurophysiologists. All the experiences you have had so far are nothing but the product of a computer program designed to provide you with pleasurable experi-ences. All the unpleasantness you may have felt during your life is just an experiential preface conducive toward greater pleasure (e.g. like when you had to wait in that long line to get tickets for that concert, remember?). Unfortunately, we just realized that we made a mistake. You were not supposed to be connected; someone else was. We apol-ogize. That is why we would like to give you a choice: you can either remain connected to this machine (and we will remove the memories of this conversation taking place) or you can go back to your real life.”

Importantly, although each section of students read the above inverted experience machine, the last two sections of students also read one of the following respective addendums each.

Negative Vignette:

By the way, you may want to know that your real life is not like your simulated life. In the real world, you are prisoner in a maximum secu-rity prison in West Virginia.

Positive Vignette:

By the way, you may want to know that your real life is not like your simulated life. In the real world, you are a multimillionaire artist living in Monaco.




One group of students thus read a neutral scenario, one read a nega-tive one, and one section read a positive one. Students had to choose to either stay connected to the experience machine or to return to reality, and then had to explain their answer.

De Brigard says that the results were ‘quite surprising’. The neutral and positive results will concern us here (see figure 1, below).

Figure 1

Students, as De Brigard notes, did not seem to display much disposi-tion to choose reality, even when it got better (the positive option). This is especially odd in the positive case, since they were supposedly going to get more pleasure upon their return. Still, students in the positive scenario actually chose to return to reality less.

Before concluding, De Brigard responds to two potential objections to his results. First, one might object that student choices of the remark-ably similar neutral and positive tallies reveal that they had at least some disposition to choose reality (as though 54 or 50 percent still makes the case that we have a natural disposition to choose reality). De Brigard responds that even if we had some such disposition, it is not enough to infer anything significant (2010, 48).




Second, one might object that the results of the positive scenario (where students had to imagine a life in Monaco) only reveal that students did not see it as positive. If they had seen it as positive, so the argument goes, they would have chosen it more. De Brigard admits that it is pos-sible that some students did not see his positive option as positive, but insists that “the point I am making is independent of whether there is or is not such an example” (2010, 56).4

De Brigard concludes that what mobilizes student responses is that they (and we) harbour a “…psychological bias toward maintaining their status quo” come what may (2010, 50). Specifically, he notes, “people do not want to abandon the life they know, the life they have lived so far, the life they are familiar and comfortable with” (2010, 52). In other words, just because a good, practice, or state of affairs is already owned by us, we place a higher value on it – higher than we would otherwise do.5 If we are already hooked up to the experience machine, we will privilege what-ever life we have already lived there.

III. METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

Is De Brigard correct? Can student responses to the inverted experience machine thought experiment – and perhaps other thought experiments – really be explained by status quo bias? Disregarding the response (e.g. from Nagel, cited above) that philosophy, as a discipline, should leave empirical studies to other disciplines, there are still a host of problems. As Antti Kauppinen, Simon Cullen and others have argued, De Brigard and experimental philosophers generally assume that philosophical intu-itions can be simply read off from survey responses, with few worries (Kauppinen 2007, 100; Cullen 2010, 279). Unfortunately, as we shall see, this is not the case.

Consider three methodological problems. First, De Brigard faces problems concerning how the experiment was conducted. Just asking




24 students what they think – verbally or electronically – allows for all sorts of bias. Could these students, perhaps, have been led to certain answers, by the way the experiment was presented, by how its main ques-tions are framed, how its questions were ordered, or by the fact that students were asked to predict their own future behaviour (Sinnott-Arm-strong 2008, 60; Nadelhoffer and Feltz 2010, 141)? Since we are given no details, we cannot say. But such lack of detail hardly adheres to the meth-ods of cognitive science or experimental psychology, as such.

Many experimental philosophy studies also test philosophical thought experiments by polling students – be they about intentionality, semantics, freedom, or any number of other philosophical issues (Knobe 2003; Machery, Mallon, Nichols and Stich 2001; 2004, and Nichols 2006, respectively).6 However, such methods are ripe with opportunities for leading students, conveying unwanted information, and inadvertently manipulating results. De Brigard, Knobe, etc. cannot demand any unearned credit here, as though we should believe – with no detail – that their studies were (and will be) conducted in a way that eliminated such biases.

Second, De Brigard faces problems about whether or not 24 students from North Carolina are representative of the population as a whole.7 Imag-ine the same inverted experience machine study conducted with Christian religious leaders, with Japanese internet gamers, or with World War Two veterans. Would anyone think – for a moment – that these results would generalize? Moreover, did these students not tacitly select themselves? It may be that such students had no previous exposure to philosophy, but they were philosophy students. By taking a philosophy class – a class in the humanities – they surely had a unique set of interests, desires, and expectations. Therefore, for these reasons, any intuitions these students offer were probably not representative of the population as a whole.

Experimental philosophers agree. When they have tested thought experiments (e.g. about epistemology, semantics, etc.) across cultures, the results seem to show that subjects have different intuitions in different




places (Weinberg, Nichols and Stich 2001; Machery, Mallon, Nichols and Stich 2004, respectively). Research is still ongoing, but perhaps the same differences will be found with respect to inverted experience machine intuitions. Since experimental philosophers have found evidence that the intuitions of 24 students from North Carolina, or any single university for that matter, are not representative of the population as a whole, and to assume that they are is premature, to put it mildly.

Lastly, De Brigard must face problems concerning whether or not his students adequately understood the inverted experience machine experi-ment. Of course, such understanding is important, since if they did not understand, it is hard to see how their responses in such a survey about it could be relevant. However, De Brigard surveyed his students in what-ever state of mind they found themselves, answering for whatever reasons they found salient.8 In fact, he inadvertently reveals that his students did not understand the thought experiment, as such. Upon being introduced to the original experience machine thought experiment, he notes, students insisted that they mainly preferred reality, but still

[…] gave reasons that had nothing to do with their preferences for a real life over a virtual one. Many said the computer program could not predict everything they wanted, or that they would feel unhappy if they were to plug in by themselves without friends or relatives. Some par-ticipants even expressed qualms concerning the continuity of their memories and identities (2010, 45).

De Brigard insists that the lack of unanimity of these responses ‘raises doubts’ about the experience machine. Rather, these responses reveal that his students did not understand the task at hand. Since the worries students cited here (e.g. whether the program could predict their future happiness, or whether they would be the same persons) have already been stipulated away; those who said these things did not get it (Silverstein 2000, 285). However, if these students did not understand the inverted experience machine thought experiment, any intuitions they had about it were irrelevant.




Again, experimental philosophers also survey their students (i.e. in whatever state of mind they find themselves, answering for their own reasons) about intentionality, semantics, or freedom, or any number of other philosophical issues. When such philosophers conduct these sur-veys, they too assume students understand the experiments and issues they address. But most students have not heard of the relevant thought exper-iments or the issues before, nor have they thought about them. Perhaps these students too do not understand the thought experiments or issues they address, rendering their intuitions about them irrelevant. Experimen-tal philosophers, by assuming that their students understand such thought experiments and issues they address, render many of their results uncer-tain (Kauppinen 2007, 101, 105; Cullen 2010, 281).

IV. A LIMITATION ON EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY

However, serious as they are, I propose we waive these three method-ological problems. In this section, rather, let us consider the deeper phil-osophical problem of whether or not the inverted experience machine thought experiment (as well as certain others) can be tested at all. As we shall see, the inverted experience machine, as well as other similar such experiments (e.g. justified theft dilemmas, questions of torture, the trolley problem, etc.) have a unique set of characteristics that make it impossible to gather together the right subjects to test. Therefore, in practice, these thought experiments are impossible to test.

Consider the following. Just what were these students being asked to imagine in these studies? De Brigard postulates “Suppose someone tells you that, unbeknownst to you, you have been living in an experience machine for your entire life” (2010, 46). Students, apparently, were meant to imagine that their entire lives (i.e. their childhood experiences, education, employment, their relationships, etc) had all been fabricated.9

Crucially, though, what students were asked to choose between in these inverted experience machine studies was not like the choices we face




in the original thought experiment. In the original experiment, we are asked to choose between a pleasant yet fake world, and the real world. By contrast, in these three inverted scenarios – neutral, negative, and positive – students chose between two entirely different sets of experiences: a known fake world, or a real world the details of which are largely unknown (see figure 2, below).

Figure 2

In other words, in these three scenarios, students had to choose between two entirely different lives (i.e. they had to choose between a known fake world, and an unknown neutral, negative, or good world, respectively). Since this is so, even to understand their choices, students had to imagine being confronted by all of this, and so, also imagine their resultant confusion, incre-dulity, fear, panic, remorse, depression, and worry about another mistake – perhaps in that order. Moreover, students also had to imagine their epis-temic position, or their uncertainty about choosing between the known fake world and an unknown real neutral, negative, or positive world. Perhaps it goes without saying, but these students were given a difficult task.

De Brigard insists that confronted agents may not react with confu-sion, incredulity, fear, etc., and with uncertainty. Even if agents learned that they were in the experience machine, he says, he is still not sure “…that this piece of information would affect, per se, their judgments on their own happiness” (2010, 46). But this is implausible. The reason why agents would react with confusion, incredulity, fear, etc., and with uncer-tainty is because, if they chose the fake option, they would anticipate the loss of the reality of their childhood, education, employment, relation-ships, etc.10 And if they chose to return, they would then anticipate the loss of having to start their lives again, without anyone or anything they knew in the past. Either way, agents would anticipate loss.




Students, then, were supposed to make their decision from the position of a confronted agent (with confusion, incredulity, fear, etc., and with uncer-tainty), as such. Did they? This seems unlikely. Students, after all, would have none of the affective response of such agents, which would have made it difficult to estimate their own future responses. Moreover, students would have suffered from the universal gap between their ideal choices (i.e. their responses to the survey), as opposed to what actually governs their behaviour (Sorensen 1998, 23-25).11 Furthermore, the closent stu-dents (or we) will ever get to the experience machine is the survey expe-rience itself. Since this is so, we cannot compare the responses subjects give on a survey with their reactions to the real event. But if the students were not in the position of confronted agents, can their responses really be relevant? I suggest that confronted agents would have responded quite differently. Therefore, De Brigard did not gather together the right subjects to test.

De Brigard, on the other hand, would have us believe that, since in his neutral and positive scenarios, students did not choose reality, “…the variable contact with reality was not as critical as the original thought experiment suggests” (2010 48). However, as we have seen, since they would have anticipated loss in either case, his neutral and positive options were not neutral and positive, but were both quite negative. But since the neutral and positive options were both negative, there is no way for us to distinguish cases of status quo bias, as opposed to anticipation of loss. Since we can-not tease apart these two motives – status quo bias or anticipation of loss – the results of these inverted experience machine studies do not allow us to conclude anything definite about bias.

In sum, De Brigard does not prove anything with his inverted expe-rience machine studies. Even disregarding the methodological problems cited above, his studies demanded that his students be in the state of confronted agents, which they were not. Moreover, De Brigard presented students with neutral and positive statements about reality that were both negative. Therefore, these inverted experience machine studies do not allow us to draw any conclusions.




V. MORE INVERTED EXPERIENCE MACHINE STUDIES

To show why the inverted experience machine thought experiment is untestable in practice, I conducted two studies of my own. In conducting these studies, I used a ‘between-subjects’ design.12 I conducted nine sur-veys in four locations: Richmond Virginia, Southern California, London England, and Cardiff Wales (N =184, with 99 women and 85 men). Moreover, I chose subjects with different professions (e.g. students, wait-ers, lawyers, etc), who hold different ideologies, and are of different ages (M = 31.222, from 18 to 67). Lastly, I conducted these experiments in very different social contexts (see figure 3, below).

Place-Selection Average Age

Men Women Total Subjects

Richmond, Virginia: Students, from John Tyler Community College

20 10 19 29

Richmond, Virginia: Literature Book Club Members

47 5 17 23

Southern California: Secular Humanist Group

52 7 11 18

Southern California: Hiking Group 42 7 9 15London, England: Strangers in Trafalgar Square

27 13 8 21

London, England: Philosophy Club Members, meeting at Public House

53 21 9 30

London, England: Attendees, Westminster Abbey Sunday Service

40 7 10 17

Cardiff, Wales: Students, Cardiff University

19 10 8 18

Cardiff Wales: Plaid Cymru, the Party of Wales

29 5 8 13

Figure 3




Next, I attempted to ensure that my subjects were in the position of confronted agents. To this end, I gave subjects specific instructions about their choice, as well as time to make it:

The following is a philosophical thought experiment. In this experi-ment, you must make an important choice between two alternative lives. However, to make this choice, you must imagine that you are in the position of a confronted agent. Now, this may be difficult to do. But to really make this choice, you must do so. Take your time, and care-fully envision the details of each of your options.

Lastly, I changed the speech Mr. Smith gives. De Brigard, recall, has Mr. Smith say that his company had mistakenly attached his addressee to the experience machine, and had not detected this until now. But the mere mention of such a mistake would discourage many to return to reality, simply out of fear of another mistake. To eliminate this fear, Mr. Smith now says:

It is a Saturday morning and you are planning to stay in bed for at least another hour when you hear the doorbell. Grudgingly, you step out of bed to go to the door. At the door is a tall man, with a black jacket and sunglasses, who introduces himself as Mr. Smith. He claims to have vital information that concerns you directly. Mildly troubled but still curious, you let him in. “I have some news to communicate to you” says Mr. Smith. “You are a client of my corporation. Decades ago, you employed our super-duper neurophysiologists to plug your brain into an experi-ence machine. All the experiences you have had so far are nothing but the product of a computer program designed to provide you with plea-surable experiences. All the unpleasantness you may have felt during your life is just an experiential preface conducive toward greater pleasure (e.g. like when you had to wait in that long line to get tickets for that concert, remember?). Of course, you do not remember employing us. Regardless, every decade, we offer our clients the option of either remaining connected to this machine (and yes, we will remove your memories of this conversation), or you can go back to your real life.”

Given these changes, my two inverted thought experiments run as follows. Subjects in all locations (i.e. Richmond, California, London and




Cardiff) read the neutral scenario from Mr. Smith, above. Next, the groups divided into two. One group read a pretend neutral scenario (which is really negative) and the other read one that was actually neutral.

Pretend Neutral Vignette:

Please understand that, if you choose to return to the real world, your entire life up to this point has been fabricated. So, if you choose to return, you will be starting life anew, without any of the relationships, employment, or domestic circumstances of this life. Since all of this was fabricated, none of it ever existed. Therefore, if you do so choose, we can give you counselling, and can offer you a comparable future. But you will begin anew.

Neutral Vignette

Please understand that, if you choose to return to the real world, your entire life up to this point has been fabricated. However, this will not affect you, and you will not know about it. Scientists have sifted through your memories (i.e. our computer files), copied them, have cloned all your relations, created your exact job, and have rebuilt your domestic circumstances. If you choose to return to reality, we will erase your memory of this conversation, and your life will continue as before.

Subjects in the first group, then, chose between the life they know in the experience machine and a new life, without any of the relation-ships, circumstances, etc. of their prior lives. By contrast, subjects in the second group chose between the life they know in the machine and life in the real world, with all the circumstances of their lives rebuilt. Both groups of subjects took time to make up their minds, and explained their answers.

The results (see figure 4, below), so it seemed to me, were predictable.




Figure 4

In the first group, subjects were faced with specific losses. Since they did not want to face these (and said so), they chose to stay connected (71.112% of them chose to stay connected). In the second group, subjects did not face any such losses. Unlike the first group, only 26.596% of them chose to stay connected.

In my first group, the subjects seemed to be motivated to stay con-nected by their fear of specific losses. In fact, the clearer these losses were to them, the more motive they had to stay. However, my second group is important here. In this group, the subjects did not anticipate any losses. Since they did not anticipate losses, they chose to return to reality. In other words, when subjects were presented with a truly neutral scenario, they chose to be in contact with reality, without qualification. Now this result does not yet answer the question of why subjects (or anyone) might have this disposition, or whether it is rational. But we do seem to have it.13

Do these results show that De Brigard is wrong, or that we prefer reality without qualification? Perhaps these experiments did not suffer from the three methodological problems, cited above. Moreover, subjects




in these experiments understood their options, that they suffer loss or do not. But De Brigard and I were both forced to assume that subjects chose as confronted agents, with all the confusion, incredulity, fear, panic, remorse, depression, and worry, as well as the uncertainty that this requires. Unfortunately, even with my specific instructions, my subjects had none of these affective responses, and were not able to imagine them. More-over, subjects answered with their ideal choices (i.e. their answers in the survey), which can easily differ from what governs their behaviour. Con-fronted agents, it seems, would have responded differently. It follows that my experiments did not gather together the right subjects to test. There-fore, in practice, the inverted experience machine is impossible to test.

Experimental philosophy studies that address thought experiments about moral dilemmas (e.g. justified theft dilemmas, questions of torture, trolley problems, etc.) are also impossible to test. To see this, recall that when the facts of such moral scenarios are held constant, yet when circumstances are framed differently, questions ordered differently, or the perspective and/or actors are changed, subjects exhibit radically different moral intuitions (Sinnott-Armstrong 2008, 60; Nadelhoffer and Feltz 2010, 141). Moreover, when subjects attempt to explain their moral judg-ments, they are emotionally driven, say incoherent things, and refuse to change their minds upon questioning (Haidt 2001, 830; Bucciarelli, Khemlani and Johnson-Laird 2008, 135).14 Subjects (and us, generally) are quite confused about morality, to put it mildly.

Yet, experimental philosophers still conduct studies of thought experi-ments about moral dilemmas (e.g. trolley problems). In these studies, sub-jects are asked to envision a unique case, where they themselves are confronted, and then they make a decision. Consider a basic version of the trolley prob-lem (Bleske-Reckek, Nelson, Baker, Remiker and Brandt 2010, 117).

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a madman. Fortunately, you can flip a switch that will lead the trolley down a different track to




safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Would you flip the switch?

In this scenario, subjects must envision themselves as confronted agents, with all the confusion, incredulity, fear, etc., as well as uncertainty this requires. Do they? Subjects do not have these affective reactions, nor can they imagine them. Moreover, when subjects respond (offer their survey answers), they do so as they see themselves, and this may not be a good guide to their future behaviour. In fact, the closest most subjects (or we) ever get to the reality of the problem (or to the reality of similar dilemmas) is the survey experience itself. Since this is so, experimental philosophers cannot compare the responses subjects give on a survey with their reactions to a real event (Milgram 1974, 180). But without this comparison of present subject responses and future subject reactions, such philoso-phers can say little of interest. Therefore, in practice, certain philosophi-cal thought experiments are impossible to test.

VI. OBJECTIONS

How might De Brigard, Knobe, and other experimental philosophers respond to this argument? Concerning the three methodological prob-lems cited above (i.e. worries how their tests are conducted, problems of how representative samples are, and about subject understanding), exper-imental philosophers typically respond that, given their manipulative checks, repetition of experiments, and their rigorous use of statistics, their methods are reliable (Alexander and Weinberg 2007, 70; Nadelhoffer and Nahmias 2007, 135). However, given the practice of experimental philoso-phers, this is rhetoric. Typically, we are given almost no details about the conduct of their experiments, and the details we are given cast doubt on the results. In effect, experimental philosophers ask us to take their meth-odology (and so results) on trust. Clearly, this does not adhere to the




methods of cognitive science or experimental psychology. Therefore, experimental philosopers are not doing science (Cullen 2010, 281).

Second, experimental philosophers may deny that their subjects need to respond as confronted agents to be reliable. Perhaps subjects need not feel confusion, incredulity, fear, panic, remorse, etc., nor even uncertainty, to respond. Rather, subjects can respond reliably from their current posi-tion, and for their own reasons (De Brigard 2010, 46). Moreover, asking more of subjects excludes all subjects from any study. But this is implau-sible. Consider any similar case. Imagine being confronted by the loss of a leg or the loss of life, for example. How would we react in such cases? Typically, we would choose out of confusion, incredulity, fear, panic, etc., and out of uncertainty. Imagine that we take all this away, as when we are acting. When acting, do we have these affective reactions? No. Would we know how we would react, in practice? If subjects were really confronted with the inverted experience machine, or the trolley problem, they may well think and react differently (Milgram 1974, 180).

Lastly, De Brigard, Knobe, and other experimental philosophers may admit that this argument is plausible, but insist that it only applies to a few of their studies. Perhaps it applies to experimental philosophy studies where subjects must choose as confronted agents, but most such studies – on intentionality, semantics, or freedom – are not like this. Even exper-imental philosophy studies about moral dilemmas can be run on subjects who are not confronted agents, since they can answer for others (e.g. what should the trolley conductor do?) Therefore, this argument does not apply to most experimental philosophy studies. Yet, context is important here. In experimental philosophy studies on intentionality, semantics or freedom, or even on moral dilemmas, subjects are confronted in different ways, to different degrees. Subjects may still anticipate their own futures to some extent, or attempt to identify with the moral decisions of others, to some extent. Perhaps the proper conclusion to draw here is that this argument applies just to the degree subjects are forced to respond as con-fronted agents. Of course, we may not know what these degrees are in




any individual case, but that does not alter the point that this argument suggests a limit on what can be tested.

VII. CONCLUSION

Experimental philosophy empirically tests philosophical thought experi-ments. In this role, experimental philosophy is a valuable tool for investigating our intuitions about intentionality, semantics, freedom, etc. However, as we have seen, De Brigard failed to test the inverted experi-ence machine thought experiment. Moreover, my improved tests did not do so either. Subjects cannot respond as confronted agents, as they have none of the proper affective reactions, cannot imagine having them, and because they misinterpret their own future behaviours (Sorensen 1992, 23-25). Given all this, we cannot compare actual survey responses and (never occuring) confronted reactions. Generally, this suggests that exper-imental philosophy is limited, in that certain thought experiments cannot be tested at all. Perhaps this result entails that these thought experiments are themselves useless, and serve only to mislead. But the point here is simply that experimental philosophy should recognize this limit.

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NOTES

1. Joshua Knobe and Shawn Nichols argue in “An Experimental Philosophy Manifesto” that using the methods of experimental psychology and testing philosophical thought experiments has “[…] challenged philosophical assumptions, showing that people do not actually think about these issues in anything like the way philosophers had assumed” (3). Shawn Nichols insists, more-over, that this method “[…] provides a manifestly superior framework for uncovering the psycho-logical underpinnings of philosophical intuitions” (66).

2. In his experience machine thought experiment, Nozick allows that “You can pick and choose from their large library or smorgasbord of experiences, selecting your experiences for, say, the next two years. After two years have passed, you will have ten minutes or ten hours out of the tank, to choose your experiences for the next two years” (1974, 43).

3. Joshua Knobe, in his online Psychology Today blog called “Would You Be Willing to Enter the Matrix?” defines status-quo bias as follows. “People have a bias toward choosing options that allow everything to stay the same as it was.”

4. De Brigard is surely wrong about this last point, at least in the way he sets things up. Maybe he would personally see his “positive” scenario as positive, such that he likes the idea of living as millionaire in Monaco, but he gave this survey to twenty-four freshmen from North Carolina (and thereabouts). Now, such freshmen may like money, but would know little of Monaco, except that it is a French speaking country. De Brigard, therefore, chose an example that was guaranteed to get the result he wants. This positive scenario would have been less obviously rigged if the students got to pick their own perfect future.

5. Clearly, this is irrational, although De Brigard seems reluctant to call it such. Specifically, he says that bias may not be irrational “from a moral, or even psychological” point of view (2010, 54). This is mysterious. Not only do all other theorists call status quo bias irrational, but really, that is why we call it bias. Even so, it is worth saying what irrationality is, here. In “Paradoxes of Irrational-ity”, “Deception and Division” and other papers, Donald Davidson argues that irrationality occurs




when we violate our “principle of total evidence” and “principle of continence” respectively. In other words, we disregard evidence we know to be relevant, or we act not in accordance with our best assessment of what to do. But why do we do this? Of course, we have all sorts of reasons (such as avoiding a painful truth, etc). Generally, though, these reasons are just mental causes that are not also reasons to abandon these principles. In such cases, it is unjustified to abandon evidence or continence. That said, status quo bias is clearly irrational in this defined sense.

6. This experimental philosophy practice of surveying very small groups of subjects (typi-cally, students) is ubiquitous. Of course, there are exceptions, but not many. Consider just a few examples of this:

Intentionality: “Subjects were 20 people spending time in a Manhattan public park” (Knobe and Mede-low 2004, 255.

Semantics: “40 undergraduates at Rutgers University and 42 undergraduates from the University of Hong Kong participated in the study” (Machery, Mallon, Nichols and Stich 2004, B4).

Free Will and Moral Judgment: “Participants were 30 undergraduates in an introduction to philosophy class at the University of Charleston” (Nichols 2006, 68).

However, surveying small groups (typically, of students) invites problems concerning how the test is presented, concerning the fact that small samples are not representative of the popula-tion as a whole, and concerning subject understanding.

7. Bart Ehrman, who is Chair of Religious Studies at Chapel Hill, notes in From Jesus to Constantine that most of his students are conservative, religious, and quite sheltered. Students in North Carolina do not even generalize to the rest of the students in America, let alone to students generally, or to others.

8. In “The Rise and Fall of Experimental Philosophy”, Kauppinen notes that in experimen-tal philosophy studies, competence is important, because “[…] what incompetent users of a concept say about a given case does not tell us anything about the concept we are interested in” (101). Unfortunately, experimental philosophers typically assert but do nothing to show that their subjects are competent. In “Survey Driven Romanticism”, Cullen notes that this fact “[…] under-mines their claim to be doing science […] and leaves the philosophical significance of their find-ings unclear” (279).

9. De Brigard has Mr. Smith say the same. “All the experiences you have had so far are nothing but the product of a computer program designed to provide you with pleasurable experiences” (47).

10. De Brigard, it seems, does not see this. “Suppose someone tells you that, unbeknownst to you, you have been living inside an experience machine your entire life; that, you are a brain in a vat, as it were. Would you feel then that your life is less preferable to a life outside the machine? Would you feel your life has less value to you?” De Brigard answers that “it is not clear people would pre-fer reality,” and adds that “I am not even sure whether this piece of information would affect, per se, their judgments on their own happiness” (46). But if what I have said is true, then of course people would feel that their lives are less valuable, and would affect judgments about their happiness.

11. Stanley Milgram, in Obedience to Authority, famously reports that in those rare cases when we can compare survey responses and real behaviour (e.g. in his authority experiments, where subjects ‘shock’ strangers) the two are quite different. Given this, it was (and is) not surprising that subjects




are themselves shocked at the difference. Speaking to young people across the country, he says

[…] I faced young men who were aghast at the behavior of experimental subjects and proclaimed that they would never behave in such a way, but who, in a matter of months, were brought into the military and performed without compunction actions that made shocking the victims seem pallid (180).

Of course, this is the point. Subjects respond that they would never act in one way (e.g. shock a stranger with electricity), yet, in practice, do so.

12. In between-subjects designs, each subject participates in one and only one group. The results from each group are then compared to each other.

13. Even if De Brigard is correct to some extent, the usual psychologically hedonistic responses to the experience machine still hold. Matthew Silverstein, for example, notes that, typically, we assess reality because of its typical prudential value. Contact with reality has always brought more goods, benefits, etc. So, when we are asked to choose between reality and the experience machine (the latter being unreal) “we recoil in horror” (2000, 297). In other words, as we react, we allow our prudence to guide our choice. Silverstein notes that we forget that in this case, prudence gets us no more goods, benefits, etc. Therefore, even if we suffer from bias to some extent, we are primarily motivated by our misapplication of prudence in this case.

14. Of course, explaining why we reason so poorly when it comes to moral issues is a con-tentious matter. Perhaps, Humeans and emotivists claim, our passions rule our reason, and our moral deliberations are their mere after effects (Haidt 2001, 2008). Or, as Kantians and rationalists claim (e.g. Chomsky 1995), we are host to an innate moral grammar, which can be misinterpreted, but still provides a role reason to play in moral deliberations. Either way, though, in practice our moral reasoning is typically incoherent. Perhaps the way in which we are irrational is predictable, but as individuals, we are still irrational. See Bucciarelli, Khemlani and Johnson-Laird 2008, for an overview of this debate.


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