This is how I explain it to scientists who don’t understand how philosophical thought experiments work:
The reason the settings of thought experiments differ from the real world is the same reason lab experiments differ from the real world. Just like you're trying to isolate a variable in a natural system, we're trying to isolate a variable in a belief system.
My big complaint is when thought experiments displace other thinking. My middle-schooler had to engage with the trolley problem to a ridiculous degree without the words “utilitarian”, “deontology”, “commission”, let alone “Kant” being anywhere in the lessons. The unintentional takeaway for the kids was that the *starting* point for ethical/moral analysis is artificial extreme situations, rather than those serving as a later fallback in the discussion.
I'm a bit of a modal skeptic, but I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that the middle-school teacher in question did, in fact, make a wise choice, when they decided not to mention the word "Kant" in their lesson on the trolley problem.
It would also be nice if you could write a follow-up article expanding on the problems with thought experiments.
Specifically,
1. Non-analagous thought experiments. What knowledge is required to know if a thought experiment is analagous or not? Is it intuitive knowledge? Because in that case we want thought experiments to clarify intuitions but then the only way to clarify those intuitions would be based on agreeing to another set of intuitions.
2. Similar to the first point, is it always possible to isolate for independent variables to test moral intuitions. A lot of variables may be context-dependent and impossible to isolate. For example, most people's view of the trolley problem changes based on how you set it up (ex. train tracks vs. fat man vs. hospital).
3. Lastly, can thought experiments actually muddy waters instead of clarifying them. It is possible that we have intuitions that are incompatible with reality and this then leads to weird contradictions. For example, it is likely that time only goes forward and this is a natural law. Just because we have intuitions/thoughts contrary to this and can come up with thought experiments + create paradoxes doesn't mean much. In fact thought experiments may be more harmful than helpful in these instances and thinking about them would just lead us down blind alleys.
It doesn't make sense to criticize the lay person about thought experiments when they are definitely not as rigorous as scientific experiments and many are often flimsy.
This is how I explain it to scientists who don’t understand how philosophical thought experiments work:
The reason the settings of thought experiments differ from the real world is the same reason lab experiments differ from the real world. Just like you're trying to isolate a variable in a natural system, we're trying to isolate a variable in a belief system.
My big complaint is when thought experiments displace other thinking. My middle-schooler had to engage with the trolley problem to a ridiculous degree without the words “utilitarian”, “deontology”, “commission”, let alone “Kant” being anywhere in the lessons. The unintentional takeaway for the kids was that the *starting* point for ethical/moral analysis is artificial extreme situations, rather than those serving as a later fallback in the discussion.
I'm a bit of a modal skeptic, but I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that the middle-school teacher in question did, in fact, make a wise choice, when they decided not to mention the word "Kant" in their lesson on the trolley problem.
It would also be nice if you could write a follow-up article expanding on the problems with thought experiments.
Specifically,
1. Non-analagous thought experiments. What knowledge is required to know if a thought experiment is analagous or not? Is it intuitive knowledge? Because in that case we want thought experiments to clarify intuitions but then the only way to clarify those intuitions would be based on agreeing to another set of intuitions.
2. Similar to the first point, is it always possible to isolate for independent variables to test moral intuitions. A lot of variables may be context-dependent and impossible to isolate. For example, most people's view of the trolley problem changes based on how you set it up (ex. train tracks vs. fat man vs. hospital).
3. Lastly, can thought experiments actually muddy waters instead of clarifying them. It is possible that we have intuitions that are incompatible with reality and this then leads to weird contradictions. For example, it is likely that time only goes forward and this is a natural law. Just because we have intuitions/thoughts contrary to this and can come up with thought experiments + create paradoxes doesn't mean much. In fact thought experiments may be more harmful than helpful in these instances and thinking about them would just lead us down blind alleys.
It doesn't make sense to criticize the lay person about thought experiments when they are definitely not as rigorous as scientific experiments and many are often flimsy.