A Philosophical Experiment

 There is a new movement in analytic philosophy known as experimental philosophy, which seeks to use rigorous psychological experimentation to test our intuitions about moral and conceptual issues. While I find much of interest in this new literature, in the end I don’t think it will bring us closer to solutions to any of the “perennial problems.” Perhaps that is not its intent anyway. Indeed, perhaps its value is that it demonstrates in a particularly striking way exactly why we can expect no such solutions, namely, precisely because rigorous experiment shows that our intuitions are all over the place, and so if these are the data of philosophy, then of course we cannot expect them to support one, correct solution. 

However that may be, perhaps the new movement has indirectly motivated me to do some “experimenting” of my own, though hardly in a rigorous fashion, but more to stimulate our thinking … for its own sake, but also, I hope, because this will somehow improve our thinking about practical matters, or maybe just make us more humble about our own ideas (and preferences) and more respectful of others’. 

Here then is one of my little efforts -- Public Service Announcement-- which you might want to watch before reading on, since the video asks you to make a choice, and I don’t want to influence your choice by what I have to say below about the experiment.

 

 

All but one of the people who viewed the video and expressed a preference preferred either Option 1 or Option 2. Option 1 certainly has an immediate appeal to the rational mind. I had intended Option 2 to appeal more to feelings, and Option 3 to moralists; but, as Mitchell Silver pointed out to me, all three options appeal to reason. A more fine-grained analysis, therefore, is as follows. Option 1 is an appeal to self-interest in that it gives a reason why being pro-mask can work to one's personal benefit. Option 2, by contrast, appeals to one's self-esteem as a considerate person ... or even just to the self-image one wants to project even if one isn't naturally generous or one doesn't give a damn about others. Thus, a person's ego can be implicated in ways other than self-interest narrowly conceived. But the reason for wearing a mask given in Option 2 could also appeal directly to a person’s generous or caring feelings. Finally, Option 3 gives a reason that would appeal to someone who cares about the welfare of all or who is motivated by principle. 

My original intention was to illustrate the (relative) attractiveness of Option 2, as part of the more general case I want to make for amoralism. My point or argument is that one need neither calculate (like the rational egoist who responds to Option 1) nor think in abstract and objective terms (like the moralist who responds to Option 3) in order to be motivated to behave in a way that morality (or, more precisely, the kind that encourages the sort of public-spirited behavior I myself approve) would generally endorse. For a person responding (as intended) to Option 2 need only be compassionate, or at least liable to having compassion induced or elicited … though, as noted, other motives are possible, but even those need not be either moralistic or egoistic (in the strict sense of concerning one’s own welfare).

The final practical lesson to draw, however, is, I think, that which option to choose will depend on the "audience" you are addressing and trying to persuade. My hunch, or my hope, is that more people would respond to 2 than to 1 or 3. But I'd have to do a real experiment to confirm that, and, frankly, what would be the point, since it doesn't matter what works "the most" but what works in the particular circumstance. Well, that's not really true either, is it. If you were going to mount a general campaign you'd want to choose the appeal that was effective for the most people. But my meta-point is that there may not even be a "most." There are so many variables, even in addition to the audience. And isn't that the whole point of targeted marketing and facebook's business plan etc. and why they have been so successful?

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