Thinking and Deciding

DEVELOPMENT OF NORMATIVE MODELS 51
People may well disagree on their standards, so we will have different normative
models for different people. Also, we will have no guidance for people who are genuinely
puzzled about what their standard ought to be. It is also possible that people
have naive theories about normative standards, just as they have naive theories about
physics.
We might try to save this perspective by using some sort of criterion of what
is “generally accepted.” Thus, if most people accept the idea that luck shouldn’t
matter, we should feel safe in evaluating others according to that standard. General
acceptance is an unclear standard, though. Of the various normative models discussed
in this book, most people accept logic, fewer accept probability, fewer still
accept expected-utility theory, and fewer still, probably a minority of those who have
thought about it, accept utilitarianism. Yet, I shall argue for all these standards. The
majority can be wrong, and the majority has been wrong repeatedly throughout history
with respect to moral issues in particular. (This must be true. Once most people
thought that slavery was fine. Now practically nobody thinks this.) There must be
some other way of settling the issue other than appeal to general acceptance. Without
any other way, general opinion would self-reinforcing.
Another approach is “reflective equilibrium.” Rawls (1971, p. 47) argued that
moral philosophy could follow the model of linguistics, as developed by Noam
Chomsky. Chomsky argued that we develop a theory of grammar on the basis of
our intuitions about what is grammatical. By “intuition,” I mean a judgment made
directly without looking for reasons. Our intuition tells us that the sentence “The
apple was red and they broke” is wrong, so we think that there is a rule about agreement
of pronouns and the nouns they stand for. On the other hand, the sentence “The
subject read the item, and then they responded” isn’t so bad. (It avoids the need for
“he or she.”) In this case, the typical copy editor would decide that the rule wins, and
they would declare this to be ungrammatical. In some other case, grammarians might
allow an exception to the rule, explicitly. Rawls argues that we can do philosophy
like this. We go back and forth between our intuitions and a theory of our intuitions,
declaring the intuitions to be wrong only when we decide that the theory is too good
to mess up.
This view of normative theory is widely accepted. Notice, though, that it contains
a hidden assumption, which is that a system underlies our intuitions and the
system has a claim to truth or correctness. This assumption makes sense in linguistics.
Language, we may assume, evolved to fit our psychological makeup. The basic
psychological principles of language are expressed in grammar. Languages that go
against these rules are, thus, in a sense, incorrect. Yet, in matters of decision making,
especially those that involve morality, we cannot assume that the psychological
principles that lie behind our thoughts are the best ones. At least we must be open to
the possibility that they are not.
Our intuitions are not infallible. A conflict between intuition and principle does
not always mean that the principle is wrong, for there may be other relevant arguments,
or there may be no better alternative. Although most of our intuitions about
thinking and decision making are probably held for good reason, some of them prob-