Restrictionism and Reflection

Abstract

It has become increasingly popular to respond to experimental philosophy by suggesting that experimental philosophers haven't been studying the right kind of thing. One version of this kind of response, which we call the reflection defense, involves suggesting both that philosophers are interested only in intuitions that are the product of careful reflection on the details of hypothetical cases and the key concepts involved in those cases, and that these kinds of philosophical intuitions haven't yet been (and possibly cannot be) adequately studied by experimental philosophers. Of course, as a defensive move, this works only if reflective intuitions are immune from the kinds of problematic effects that form the basis of recent experimental challenges to philosophy's intuition-deploying practices. If they are not immune (or at least sufficiently less vulnerable) to these kinds of effects, then the fact that experimental philosophers have not had the right kind of thing in their sights would provide little comfort to folks invested in philosophy's intuition-deploying practices. Here we provide reasons to worry that even reflective intuitions can display sensitivity to the same kinds of problematic effects, although possibly in slightly different ways. As it turns out, being reflective might sometimes just mean being wrong in a different way.