The core virtue of empirical science, and the wellspring of its magnificent success in recent human history, is that it formulates questions to nature that can be definitively answered by observation. Scientific questions lie at the opposite end of the spectrum from questions of value, which concern not what is, but what ought to be, and which have the following logical form: Which possibilities should we pursue? Observing the actual world cannot answer such questions, and so non-terminating philosophical debates are our only recourse. The scientific spirit is philosophically repelled by such endless debate: its interest is just the facts and only the facts. Animated by this essential scientific goal, Elqayam & Evans (E&E) attempt to draw the fine line beyond which true science, and in particular, the science of human thinking (“higher mental processing – reasoning, judgement, and decision making”; target article, sect. 1, para. 2), must not venture. It should embrace “descriptivism” and reject “normativism” – which, as they show in considerable detail, has tainted much of the work in the field.
Put baldly, E&E's initiative is crucially important if psychology is ever to become a true natural science (like, paradigmatically, physics). Let us pass but quickly over the quasi-paradox that E&E's essay is philosophical rather than scientific: Rather than merely observing what psychologists in fact do, they make a case for what psychologists should do. Let us simply accept that science is a goal-directed activity, and therefore that its philosophical foundation must define that goal, hence say what scientists should do (or must do in order to be scientists, etc.). Let us simply recognize that roughly four centuries ago, scientists self-consciously decided they would accept only efficient causes (whatever in the past or present makes things happen), and reject final causes (whatever future end-states, or goals, make things happen), the vexatious (because not empirically determinable) “causes” of Aristotelian science. In this way, science would concern just the facts, and only the facts.
But psychological science now wants to consider how it is that human beings pursue and achieve their goals – in other words, how a future goal affects present behavior. Can this be done without venturing beyond the facts and into values? In theory, yes. E&E therefore stand squarely in the mainstream of science when they issue their two-part philosophical prescription for psychological science (see sect. 7): (1) It may employ normativism, but only in the supporting roles of inspiring, formalizing, constraining, or evaluating purely descriptive theories. (2) Psychological theory must be distinct from psycho-therapy.
The paradigm of a science that shuns normativism and is purely descriptive is physics. It is therefore instructive to observe a crucial disparity between psychology and physics, namely that therapy has a role in psychology, but not in physics. All processes obey the laws of physics, whether they are the processes of, for example, a watch that keeps perfect time or one that loses an hour a day. Human thought processes also obey the laws of physics – and those of biochemistry and biophysics as well – whether they are perfectly sound or completely out of touch with reality. E&E's proposal, then, is that the “psychology of reasoning and JDM (judgement and decision making)” should describe reasoning and JDM, rather than take a normative position on it: “The object is not to judge such behaviour, but to understand and predict it” (sect. 8, para. 5).
Personally, I am in complete agreement with the motivations and goals of this proposal, for I, too, would like to see the growth of a proper, value-neutral, science of human reasoning. But I think the problems faced by descriptivism go deeper that E&E might suspect, for in the end the question becomes: What is it this science is supposed to describe? What is referred to by E&E's phrase “such behaviour,” that this science should understand and predict rather than judge? Humans have a huge variety of behaviors in which they come to some conclusion, and which might be called reasoning, some of which are models of rationality, and some of which are not merely irrational but perverse, bizarre, crazy – so much so, that they may not truly count as reasoning at all. The elephant in the room, completely ignored by E&E as they conduct their excellent review of the literature, is that they rely on a tacit, unstated definition of rationality and JDM. But that means that we are still in the dark when it comes to just what the subject of our science is – what it must observe and where it must find its data.
The problem faced by descriptivism may be brought into focus by means of the following argument:
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1. Intelligence is a competence.
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2. Competence is a normative concept.
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3. Therefore: No account of intelligence can be entirely descriptive, that is, entirely non-normative.
Various processes can be identified in the brain, from fundamental cellular metabolism to information processing. The science of rationality and JDM is about some subset of information processing; namely, those processes that are rational and/or result in decisions. Leaving aside for now the thorny issue of rationality, what makes a process count as information processing? After all, every brain process is metabolic. Why do we take some part or aspect of brain metabolism and say that this part or aspect is information processing? The answer is that this part or aspect solves some particular problem faced by the organism: that is, it provides the organism with a competence, the ability to act in a smart, not a stupid, way. But competences come in many degrees and forms: whether or not something counts as a competence always comes down to whether or not it provides some good for the organism. But the very concept of good is normative. Therefore, no account of intelligence can be entirely descriptive – for the simple reason that we cannot identify any observable phenomenon as intelligent unless we see it as contributing somehow to the good of the organism.
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The core virtue of empirical science, and the wellspring of its magnificent success in recent human history, is that it formulates questions to nature that can be definitively answered by observation. Scientific questions lie at the opposite end of the spectrum from questions of value, which concern not what is, but what ought to be, and which have the following logical form: Which possibilities should we pursue? Observing the actual world cannot answer such questions, and so non-terminating philosophical debates are our only recourse. The scientific spirit is philosophically repelled by such endless debate: its interest is just the facts and only the facts. Animated by this essential scientific goal, Elqayam & Evans (E&E) attempt to draw the fine line beyond which true science, and in particular, the science of human thinking (“higher mental processing – reasoning, judgement, and decision making”; target article, sect. 1, para. 2), must not venture. It should embrace “descriptivism” and reject “normativism” – which, as they show in considerable detail, has tainted much of the work in the field.
Put baldly, E&E's initiative is crucially important if psychology is ever to become a true natural science (like, paradigmatically, physics). Let us pass but quickly over the quasi-paradox that E&E's essay is philosophical rather than scientific: Rather than merely observing what psychologists in fact do, they make a case for what psychologists should do. Let us simply accept that science is a goal-directed activity, and therefore that its philosophical foundation must define that goal, hence say what scientists should do (or must do in order to be scientists, etc.). Let us simply recognize that roughly four centuries ago, scientists self-consciously decided they would accept only efficient causes (whatever in the past or present makes things happen), and reject final causes (whatever future end-states, or goals, make things happen), the vexatious (because not empirically determinable) “causes” of Aristotelian science. In this way, science would concern just the facts, and only the facts.
But psychological science now wants to consider how it is that human beings pursue and achieve their goals – in other words, how a future goal affects present behavior. Can this be done without venturing beyond the facts and into values? In theory, yes. E&E therefore stand squarely in the mainstream of science when they issue their two-part philosophical prescription for psychological science (see sect. 7): (1) It may employ normativism, but only in the supporting roles of inspiring, formalizing, constraining, or evaluating purely descriptive theories. (2) Psychological theory must be distinct from psycho-therapy.
The paradigm of a science that shuns normativism and is purely descriptive is physics. It is therefore instructive to observe a crucial disparity between psychology and physics, namely that therapy has a role in psychology, but not in physics. All processes obey the laws of physics, whether they are the processes of, for example, a watch that keeps perfect time or one that loses an hour a day. Human thought processes also obey the laws of physics – and those of biochemistry and biophysics as well – whether they are perfectly sound or completely out of touch with reality. E&E's proposal, then, is that the “psychology of reasoning and JDM (judgement and decision making)” should describe reasoning and JDM, rather than take a normative position on it: “The object is not to judge such behaviour, but to understand and predict it” (sect. 8, para. 5).
Personally, I am in complete agreement with the motivations and goals of this proposal, for I, too, would like to see the growth of a proper, value-neutral, science of human reasoning. But I think the problems faced by descriptivism go deeper that E&E might suspect, for in the end the question becomes: What is it this science is supposed to describe? What is referred to by E&E's phrase “such behaviour,” that this science should understand and predict rather than judge? Humans have a huge variety of behaviors in which they come to some conclusion, and which might be called reasoning, some of which are models of rationality, and some of which are not merely irrational but perverse, bizarre, crazy – so much so, that they may not truly count as reasoning at all. The elephant in the room, completely ignored by E&E as they conduct their excellent review of the literature, is that they rely on a tacit, unstated definition of rationality and JDM. But that means that we are still in the dark when it comes to just what the subject of our science is – what it must observe and where it must find its data.
The problem faced by descriptivism may be brought into focus by means of the following argument:
1. Intelligence is a competence.
2. Competence is a normative concept.
3. Therefore: No account of intelligence can be entirely descriptive, that is, entirely non-normative.
Various processes can be identified in the brain, from fundamental cellular metabolism to information processing. The science of rationality and JDM is about some subset of information processing; namely, those processes that are rational and/or result in decisions. Leaving aside for now the thorny issue of rationality, what makes a process count as information processing? After all, every brain process is metabolic. Why do we take some part or aspect of brain metabolism and say that this part or aspect is information processing? The answer is that this part or aspect solves some particular problem faced by the organism: that is, it provides the organism with a competence, the ability to act in a smart, not a stupid, way. But competences come in many degrees and forms: whether or not something counts as a competence always comes down to whether or not it provides some good for the organism. But the very concept of good is normative. Therefore, no account of intelligence can be entirely descriptive – for the simple reason that we cannot identify any observable phenomenon as intelligent unless we see it as contributing somehow to the good of the organism.