Justification Through Intuition

Sui generis intuition as a legitimate basis to justify beliefs.

Intellectual strikings. Image created by Midjourney.

Dispelling Misconception

When philosophers talk of intuition–especially on the subject of justified beliefs–they seldom mean anything like the common usages of the term. If you look up synonyms for intuition on the internet you’ll find words like hunch, instinct, and natural inclination. But this is a far cry from what philosophers are referring to–they’re not suggesting that hunches, instinct and/or natural inclinations can be an adequate basis for the forming of beliefs.

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What Then, Are Intuitions?

What is meant by philosophers when they say “intuition” is something in the neighbourhood of an intellectual striking or intellectual presentation–a type of mental experience.¹ I feel this notion captures the experience had when, upon contemplation–or going about your day–that you’re struck a certain way by some proposition being true. It’s presented to you as being true. For instance, when contemplating whether to pull the switch or not in a trolley problem case, you may be struck that one ought to flip the switch (or not). It may be presented to you that pulling a switch to save 5 people at the expense of killing 1 person is morally required (or not). Intuitions aren’t limited to ethical cases. For instance, when considering whether identity is transitive (If A is identical to B, and B is identical to C, then A is identical to C), you’re (hopefully) struck by it being so. It’s presented to you that identity is transitive. You ‘have the impression’ that identity is transitive.²

Intuitions are often compared to perceptual experiences. In relevant respects the two are very alike. As the philosopher John Bengson identifies, they’re both states that are…

1. Non-factive–in that they’re fallible.

2. Conscious–in that it’s a type of experience we can only have when we’re conscious.

3. Contentful–in that they have content.

4. Non-doxastic–in that they’re not beliefs.

5. Representational–in that they represent the world as being a certain way.

6. Presentational–in that they present the world as being a certain way.

(Bengson, 2015, 715-17)

One of the most relevant similarities between intuitions and perceptual experiences is that of being presentational states / presentations.

Presentational states / presentations are…

1. Baseless–in that they’re not consciously formed.

2. Gradable–in that their quality differs depending on the matter in which they represent, e.g. how clear or hazy they are.

3. Non-voluntary–in that it’s not something you can choose to have happen to you.

4. Compelling–in that they tend to incline us to accept their contents via the forming of beliefs, because they present the world as being a certain way.

5. Rationally assenting–in that they make the forming of such beliefs fitting, justifiable, and reasonable.³

(Bengson, 2015, 720-23)

It’s this presentationality that differentiates intuitions from things that are merely contentful (e.g. imaginings), merely representational (e.g. beliefs, judgements and opinions), and merely speculations (e.g. hunches).⁴

The main point to highlight here, as Bengson identifies, is that ‘intuitions are like perceptual experiences in being presentations’.⁵ It’s on this point that we can begin to consider how intuitions could act as justifiers for belief.

How Intuitions Provide Justification

Suppose you have a perceptual experience of a red apple on a table. You are presented with it being the case that there is a red apple on the table. It seems that on this basis alone we can justifiably form the belief that there is in fact a red apple on the table (supposing we don’t have something like a defeater).⁶

When faced with the question of what non-epistemic feature/s perceptual experiences have that make it justifiable to use them in the formation of beliefs about the world, one can plausibly appeal to their feature of presentationality.⁷

In his paper, The Intellectual Given, 2015, Bengson puts forward the following thesis–which underlies this (Bengson’s) view.

Presentationalism
Given the nature of presentations, so long as x lacks reason to question x’s presentation, then x has at least some prima facie justification for believing that things are the way they are presented as being.⁸

In having a perceptual experience as if P, the world is presented to you non-voluntarily as being a certain way–namely, that P is the case). This is how things appear from your point of view–and in such a way as to seem worthy of belief to you.⁹ As a result, it seems, at least, prima facie unreasonable to condemn and/or criticise you as doing something unjustifiable and improper if you form the belief that P is the case on the basis of the perceptual experience in question (absent adequate reason to so believe).¹⁰

In it being presented to us that P, we have, at least, prima facie justification for believing that P, absent defeaters.

We then have a clear answer to how intuitions can provide justification for beliefs. Namely, as presentational states / presentations, they confer, at least, prima facie justification to form beliefs. In having the intuition that Q, it’s non-voluntarily presented to you that Q, and in such a way as to make it seem worthy of belief to you.¹¹ Just like in the case of perceptual experiences, it would be improper to criticise and/or condemn you if you were to form the belief that Q is the case on the basis of the intuition in question (absent adequate reason to so believe).¹²

I want to conclude this section by pointing out that this is only one possible way to argue that intuitions can be a legitimate source of justification.

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Objections & Queries

1. The Floodgate Worry

In my experience, the primal concern with an intuitionist picture is that of the floodgate worry. One might worry that if we accept that one’s intuitions can justify forming certain beliefs, that almost anything is on the table. For instance, someone might have the intuition that invisible witches–that cannot be discovered by empirical investigation–exist. Lets call this intuition W. We would presume that such a belief is unjustified, even if someone has the intuition that it is the case.

Something to keep in mind here, is that if one utilises this thought experiment in an attempt to undermine Presentationalism, they cannot rely on how it presents this thesis to them (e.g. as being false). One cannot undermine Presentationalism utilising presentations.¹³ However, if one takes the presentation of Presentationalism being false as conferring justification to believe it is so, then the view would be self-defeating. In that case, we ought not to trust that presentation.

Putting this aside, there are a few additional ways to address this concern. For starters we can inquire about how clear W is, and whether it clashes with any of their other beliefs. Recall that Presentationalism doesn’t say that one must form a belief on the basis of an intuition (clear or not). We are simply inclined towards belief in most cases. But if an intuition sufficiently clashes with other intuitions and beliefs, we will judge that we would be unjustified in forming a belief on the basis of the suspect intuition. This is only one story about how there can be good reason to doubt W, and thus undermine its ability to confer justification. There may very well be all sorts of additional stories to tell that further undermine W. But I won’t explore that line of thought any further here.

Instead, I will digress into another response–namely that perceptions are similarly (if not just as) “guilty” here. For instance, suppose someone enjoys a clear perceptual experience of a troupe of witches flying around on broomsticks who then appear to use an invisibility spell to hide themselves from sight and empirical investigation. Now, there may very well be a defeater for this perceptual experience. For instance, it may not jibe with stronger perceptual experiences / intuitions that contradict the experience in question–it may have also been a hallucination.¹⁴ But ruling these options out, it doesn’t seem outrageous to me to think that the perceiver would be justified in forming the respective belief, other things being equal.

All things considered; this doesn’t strike me as a compelling consideration against the view that in simply being presentational we can justifiably form beliefs on the basis of our perceptual experiences (absent defeaters). But if that’s right, then the same goes for intuitions.

2. Why Do Things Like Complicated Science? Just Intuit!¹⁵

One might worry that if we have intuition, why bother doing complicated and expensive tasks like science?¹⁶

First off, we may lack the intuitions in question. Thus, we would want to do scientific investigation.

Secondly, it seems that doing science helps to elucidate certain aspects of reality. We come to identify some new aspect of reality and it is presented to us as being the case–for instance we rely on sensory perceptions to interact with scientific findings, and such perceptions are presentational.

In addition, we can falsify / cast doubt on certain views through scientific inquiry. Say everyone had the intuition that Mars is exactly a billion kilometres from Earth.¹⁷ Even if we wanted to say that we’d all be justified in the belief that Mars is such a distance away on that basis, there would still be merit in going out and checking. After all, intuitions are non-factive, and thus can be wrong. Going out and measuring the distance between Earth and Mars is something we can do to attempt to reaffirm / defeat the belief and intuition. Though, as mentioned prior, we would still be relying on another presentational state to reaffirm / defeat this belief.¹⁸ For example, the experiences of reading the scientific data and consulting experts.

3. Questions of Intuitional Success & Knowledge

How do we know if an intuition is successful?
How do we know if an intuition confers knowledge?

This is a subtle change in subject, as I’m exploring the possibility of justifying beliefs rather than acquiring knowledge–but it’s an aside I’ll gladly brush over.

Intuitions are successful iff they represent reality aright, i.e. when you have an intuition that P, and P is true.

The question of knowledge is tricky. First, we’d likely have to identify what knowledge consists in. This is notoriously tricky, and it may even be impossible. But, if we begin with two necessary conditions of knowledge, that of justified belief and true belief, then we’d already have an answer to what would satisfy these two necessary conditions of knowledge. Namely it would refer to whenever we’re justified in believing that the content of an intuition was true, when the intuition in question was successful.

One might ask the further question of, how do we know when an intuition is successful? I won’t try to answer that question here. However, I will point out that a similar question can be asked of perceptual experiences–namely, a perceptual experience is successful when it represents reality aright. But how do we know when that is? How do you know if you know something?¹⁹

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Overall

I think there is a plausible story to tell about how intuitions can confer justification for beliefs. Considering how the presentationality of perceptual experiences is sufficient to justify the forming of various beliefs based on them (absent adequate reasons for doubt) we can appreciate how intuitions can similarly confer justification for beliefs. Given the nature of presentations / presentational states, it seems hard to accuse someone of doing something unjustified and epistemically improper²⁰ if they come to believe that P on the basis on an intuition or perceptual experience of P being the case (absent something like a defeater).²¹ I concluded by responding to a handful of objections–the floodgate worry and the concern of abandoning practices like science in the face of intuitionism. I’ve argued that both can be sufficiently addressed.

If you’re interested in reading further on this subject, I recommend reading Bengson’s full paper which you can find in the references below.

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References:

1. Bengson, J. (2015). ‘The Intellectual Given’. Mind, 124 (495):707-760.

1. This is a sui generis account of intuitions.

2. Bengson, 2015, 719.

3. For instance, it being presented that there is a red apple on a table makes it fitting and rational (for the haver of the perception) to form the belief that there is an apple on the table (absent something like a defeater).

4. Bengson, 2015, 716.

5. This is Bengson’s Core Quasi-perceptualist Thesis.
Bengson, 2015, 725.

6. Bengson, 2015, 738.

7. Bengson, 2015, 738.

8. Bengson, 2015, 741.

9. Bengson, 2015, 738.

10. Bengson, 2025, 738.

11. Bengson, 2025, 739.

12. Bengson, 2025, 739.

13. The exception would be undermining presentationalism whilst holding onto a close cousin–where presentations can still be confer justification. However, it’s not clear how this close cousin would be able to eliminate intuitions as being able to confer justification without being arbitrary.

14. An additional story to tell could be that nobody else has seen this occur. This could be a good story to defeat the perceptual experience. But it’s not clear how plausible a story this would be if we assume that the event in question was very rare. But no matter which way we go, it seems a similar story could be told for intuitions!

Though, the lack of other people have a certain presentation may only be a strong defeater for perceptual experiences and not intuitions–especially if we accept a causal story for perceptions and not intuitions. There may still be room for it to be a defeater, but it would be less strong than it would be in the case of perception.

15. This one in particular was inspired by a note written by Lance Bush (also known as Lance Independent).

16. In what follows, I’m going to assume that intuitions can, in at least some cases, provide justification to believe certain things that science (also) presumably justifies.

17. Though, if everyone had this intuition, that may be evidence that something strange in going on!

18. Though, this may not have as much pull if one denies the Presentationalism thesis.

19. Perhaps we don’t have to provide an answer to this question.

20. Especially if the presentation is clear.

21. Bengson, 2025, 738-9.