AR & Counterfactual Hypotheticals

[cmdownes]

Ayn Rand and many Objectivists seem to have a problem with counterfactual hypothetical statements and questions. This becomes particularly evident in discussions of normative ethics, where Objectivists often dismiss the usefulness of the intuition pumps/thought experiments that are the bread and butter of the field in contemporary philosophy. My question is, what's the reason for this attitude? Is it a semantic issue with counterfactuals, an epistemic heuristic, or something else?

[DavidOdden]

Ayn Rand and many Objectivists seem to have a problem with counterfactual hypothetical statements and questions.

I don't know what you're referring to in terms of Rand "having a problem with". If that is based on something that you're read of hers, it would help to give the quote.

I don't put any credence in a "many Objectivists" claim, but again if you want to name names and whip out the quotes, that would be useful.

My question is, what's the reason for this attitude?

Often it is because the hypothetical actually contradicts reality, so granting the hypothetical suppresses recognition of a contradiction. For example there was a recent discussion based on a "ten identical men" hypothetical, which is logically invalid. A conclusion derived from that hypothetical would be invalid. More generally, a hypothetical must be possible, and many hypotheticals simply don't pass that test. Rather, they are filtered through a really weak test of being "imaginable", and I don't know what it would be, n modern philosophy, to be "unimaginable" except, I suppose, insisting on the primacy of existence.

Decent counterfactuals are perfectly fine, and when based on valid propositions are good sources of knowledge.

[Capitalism Forever]

I don't know what it would be, n modern philosophy, to be "unimaginable" except, I suppose, insisting on the primacy of existence.

LOL, good one!

I concur with your answer: counterfactuals are a very useful tool, as long as they serve to explore the realm of the possible--but there is nothing useful or even meaningful about a hypothetical relating to the arbitrary.

[noumenalself]

Ayn Rand and many Objectivists seem to have a problem with counterfactual hypothetical statements and questions. This becomes particularly evident in discussions of normative ethics, where Objectivists often dismiss the usefulness of the intuition pumps/thought experiments that are the bread and butter of the field in contemporary philosophy. My question is, what's the reason for this attitude? Is it a semantic issue with counterfactuals, an epistemic heuristic, or something else?

Ignore what Odden says. The problem with counterfactuals isn't that they "contradict reality." That's of course what makes a counterfactual a counterfactual. In fact AR makes prominent use of a very contrary-to-reality counterfactual in the presentation of her metaethics: see her example of the immortal, indestructible robot in "The Objectivist Ethics."

The problem isn't with the counterfactuality of ethical counterfactuals. The problem is with the kinds that are usually chosen. Take you standard "trolley car" counterfactual: suppose you could choose the path of a careening trolley car. On its current track, it will kill 5 people. If you switch the track, it will kill just one fat man. What do you do? Your intuitions are supposed to tell you to kill the fat man, the experimental philosophers say.

But a trolley car-type hypothetical is useless for the purpose of constructing an ethical theory. There are countless cultural, idiosyncratic reasons why many people might think the way they do about it. They're probably influenced by popular utilitarian cliches. So the fact that people happen to think this way in response to the thought experiment isn't to be taken as *data*. Beliefs and emotions are not data, particularly when they're beliefs about an abstract philosophical question.

(Incidentally, I think that the answer to the question of whether you should switch tracks depends entirely on whether or not the fat man is your friend or lover. Strange how most of the time the thought experiment is framed, it's never put that way.)

Counterfactual thought experiments are useful when they deal with questions relating to facts that are closer to perceptual reality. Example: Galileo's thought experiments about frictionless surfaces. Galileo wanted to know about the physical interactions of bodies in motion on inclined surfaces. He knew that friction played a factor, and wanted to abstract away from it. Now he had background knowledge, derived from observation, that suggested that as the friction on a surface decreased, motion on the surface became easier. The thought experiment simply abstracted out the limiting case of this background knowledge.

The same is true of AR's immortal robot thought experiment. In fact I think that the experiment is non-essential to her overall argument. Her conclusion, that such a robot would not have values, can also be reached by considering the real difference between animate and inanimate beings. The only difference is that whereas the animate/inanimate distinction brings out the fact that values apply only to beings that ACT in the face of an alternative, the living/immortal distinction brings out the fact that values apply only to beings that act IN THE FACE OF AN ALTERNATIVE. Once again, our background knowledge about the factual source of value concepts is already in play in the thought experiment. Like Galileo's thought experiment, the robot example merely abstracts a limiting case for that knowledge.

[Qwertz]

If by "intuition pumps/thought experiments" you mean situations involving runaway streetcars or surgeons in need of transplantable organs, one problem with many of these life-or-death situations is that they ask participants to make complicated normative judgments without the appropriate, necessary context. Such hypotheticals may occasionally be useful in discussing broad ethical principles, but they cannot be answered, at least not in the way most ethics professors I've encountered want them answered, without knowledge of the full context of the situation.

-Q

[JMeganSnow]

It doesn't help that when you bring in a hypothetical to a discussion everyone becomes stuck on arguing the myriad concrete details of the hypothetical rather than thinking in principles. Hypotheticals give concrete situations that may or may not reflect the essentially important issues present in actual ethical issues.