Ways of Knowing Act and Instinctive Judgments - Essay Example

Topic: Lecturer: Presentation: “Ways of Knowing are a Check on Our Instinctive Judgment” To What Extent Do You Agree with this Statement? Introduction As Albert Einstein put it, “the only real valuable thing is intuition.”1 The question asks us to discuss the extent to which knowledge produced through instincts is affected by other ways of knowing. In order to address this question, I am going to focus on intuition, emotion, reason, language and sense perception ways of knowing through use of ethics, human sciences and natural sciences areas of knowledge. I will argue that ways of knowing act as checks and also aid our instinctive judgment. To begin with, the key words used in this title need to be understood in order to justify the position taken. Next, a discussion of intuition as a way of knowing will discussed followed by a discussion of how the other ways of knowing reinforce and control our instinctive judgment; that it, their benefits as well as their flaws in shaping instinctive judgment. These will be discussed through their application in the various areas of knowledge. By the end of the essay, I hope to conclude that ways of knowing are a check on our instinctive judgments. The first word that needs explaining is “instinctive.” Going by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word instinctive is derived from “instinct” and refers to “natural tendency for people and animals to behave in a particular way using the knowledge and abilities they were born with rather than thought or training.”2 One may have an instinct for fear, business or anything else. It is also a feeling that makes one do or believe that something is true, even though it is not based on facts or reason; in other words, intuition. In this case, instinctive judgment is equated to intuition. What we get from this definition is that one judges something without having to reason or give facts; it is a strong feeling that something is going to happen but we cannot be able to explain why. For example, women do have maternal instincts such that when something is going to happen to their child, they know it before hand or they can feel it but cannot explain what exactly is going to happen. Another case is when one is about to have an accident such as plane crash; one can feel it or there is a strong inner voice which tells you something bad is going to happen and you can act based on this instinct. As such, it is a way of knowing and justifying that knowledge even if it is not through conscious reasoning. If that something does happen, then we can prove our instincts right. In this sense, other ways of knowing such as reasoning act as verifiers to what we already know. This prompts the questions; to what extent can intuition be used as a reliable way of knowing? How do ways of knowing make up our instinctive judgment? Check in this title will be used to mean to verify, regulate or control. To verify is to show or confirm that something is true or accurate. For example, if your instinct tells you that there is someone else in the room, and then you can use your sense of vision to observe if that is true or you can reason out. To regulate is to put measures, limit or constrain our instinctive judgments so that we do not act on impulse or form wrong judgments. This prompts the question; how do we know whether our judgments are a combination of various ways of knowing? Ways of knowing are “how we acquire knowledge about the world around us, and figure out our relationship with it.”3 They include: emotion, faith, imagination, intuition, language, memory, reason and sense perception. Each of these ways leads us to gain knowledge in various areas but they are not exclusive as they interact with each other in various in producing this knowledge. As stated earlier, instinctive judgment will be equated to intuition as a way of knowing. Intuition is “the ability to understand something instinctively without need for conscious reasoning.”4 However, unlike emotion it does not involve entering another psychological state hence it is purer than emotion. Another characteristic of intuition is that it is inborn or innate knowledge thus it does not depend on the environment. When we come to human sciences, sociologists like Friedrich Nietzsche5 and well known psychologists like Sigmund Freud6 assert that human beings are born with many instincts or what they call drives that lead us to action. These instincts are uncontrolled and are the ones which often make people aggressive. According to Freud, these instincts are found in the id or the unconscious memory and often seek immediate gratification. As such, when developing knowledge through intuition no conscious memory or thinking is needed. These instincts are often linked to ethics as they help to know instinctively the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to behave. For example, when we meet someone badly injured on the road our first instinct is sympathy and this drives us to help that person. Failure to do so would lead to guilty conscience and would be considered wrong. As such, in most of the ethical decisions that we make, we use our intuition to make such judgments. It does not requires to engage in reasoning to know that something is right or wrong, some moral principles or actions according to Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative are virtuous or not.7 For example, telling lies or murder is wrong and our instincts tell us so. He asserts that there is knowledge we acquire independent of experience or through intuition which he refers to as “a priori truths” and Pollock and Cruz call this ethical intuitionism.8 These truths are self-evident and we have power to intuit they are true. However, ethical decisions are ridden with moral issues. For example, should abortion be legalised or not? Is euthanasia acceptable? Who should be given ZMapp experimental drug for treatment of Ebola? Though our intuition tells us what decisions are wrong, we cannot solely on our intuition to decide on these issues. For example, there are cases where abortion would be good if it was to save the life of the mother and wrong if there is no genuine reason to abort. Can intuition therefore be a reliable way of knowing given all these moral issues? Gilbert Dan (1957- ) asserted that intuition can lead us to wrong decisions.9 For example, our first instinct tells us that abortion is bad hence should not be carried out. But what if further information shows that the life of the mother is at risk due to the pregnancy? Making decisions based on our intuition could up resulting in the loss of life of the mother and this would be wrong. However, Pollock and Cruz defend this by asserting that the self-evident moral truths can be used to defend other truths.10 Aristotle also asserted that intuition is internal, inherent truth which cannot be challenged or evidenced otherwise it would lead to a cyclical process of asking. The problem arises due to the fact that there is no agreement of existent of psychological faculty of moral intuition. As concerns making wrong decisions, let us consider another area of knowledge: human sciences. Intuition is of benefit to human scientists especially advertisers as their work is to appeal to peoples’ emotions. They give us too much data to absorb hence we end up relying on our intuition to judge what is true or good for us. Sometimes these intuitions may not be reliable and we end up making wrong decisions. If intuition cannot be reliable in making decisions, are all other types of justification reliable? How can such knowledge claims be justified? One way to justify what our intuition tells us is by verifying using other ways of knowing such as reasoning, emotions, language and sense perception. We get more information from WOK to make informed judgments although this can lead to confirmation bias whereby we only seek information that aligns with our intuitions and disregard other important information.11 For example, should we sell our kidneys? Our intuition would tell us that we should not sell our kidneys since it is morally wrong. However, if given additional information such as why the kidney is needed and why we should sell it; say to save someone else’s life, and then our instinctive judgment would be controlled. One of the methods to get this information is through sense perception. This involves getting knowledge through our five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. Human sciences depend on empirical observation to predict behaviour. Sense perception is thus very crucial in human sciences as it gives the experience needed to make judgments in future instead of relying on our intuitions every time we encounter a problem. Intuitions in this case according to David Hume are “items presented in sense perception and introspection to conscious subjects.12 For example, one may have an instinct for business but unless one indulges in a kind of business, he/she will never know whether he/she is good in doing business. Our personal experience can thus help us to shape and verify our instinctive judgment. However, there is a lot of debate as to whether we can trust our senses. Rationalists such as Rene Descartes, and Plato as well as sceptics believe senses cannot be trusted to give us knowledge while empiricists such as John Locke, Aristotle and Hume believe our mind is a blank slate or ‘tabula rasa’ and formed through all our experience.13 Sense perception thus helps to check and also aids our instinctive judgment by providing us with real evidence. Another WOK that aids instinctive judgment is emotion. Emotion is a strong feeling or an instinctive feeling but deeper than intuition.14 It is what is used by most advertisers to attract them into buying their products. For example, they package goods in attractive bags, use trusted celebrities and models for their brands and often target vulnerable audiences. Once we see such adverts, our first reaction is based on intuition but emotions can aid us in making judgment. Emotional intelligence in this case is crucial as it helps us to control our emotions hence make sound judgments. Intuitions on the other hand, make us produce an emotional response one we encounter a stimuli. For example, if our instinct is fear, then our emotional response would be to run hence in this case the emotion aids us to make right decision. However, in other cases, our emotions may hinder instinctive judgment. When advertising, we cannot know what is in the mind of others hence we may make wrong decisions or misguide the instincts. Another way to check instinctive judgment is through reason. Natural sciences use deductive reasoning to reach their conclusion hence evidence is shaped by instinctive judgment. The scientific process involves making hypothesis based on intuition and then engaging in discovery to confirm or reject such hypothesis. As such, it confirms our intuitions and rejects others thus checking our instincts. For example, the person who discovered that the world has 9 planets first had an intuition that such worlds exist but had to confirm this knowledge through scientific process.15 Reason allows us to assess the outcome of our actions regardless of our emotions as it is objective in nature. Emotions on the other hand, check our behaviour even if reason is applied. According to Somatic Marker Hypothesis, emotion and reason complement each other; we start with emotion and intuition, use reason to modify the feelings and language to express them. 16 Conclusion In this essay, I have argued that ways of knowing act as checks on our instinctive judgments. Some such as reason control and verify our intuitions, emotions help in making instinctive judgments while sense perception acts as a check and aid. All ways of knowing interact to produce knowledge in various areas hence none of them works in isolation. Intuition and emotion begin the search for knowledge while reason is used to modify these feelings. Reason also depends on sense perception to come up with logical conclusions. References Cherry, Kendra (2015), Freudian Theory. About.com. Available at: http://psychology.about.com/od/sigmundfreud/a/freudian-theory.htm [Accessed 15 Feb 2015). Dicker, Georges. (2004), Kant’s theory of knowledge: an analytical introduction, New York: Oxford University Press. Dunn, Michael. (2015), May 2015 Theory of Knowledge Prescribed Essay Titles, Theoryofknowledge.net. Available at; http://www.theoryofknowledge.net/tok-essay/may-2015-tok-essay-titles/[Accessed 18 Feb 2015]. Einstein, A. (2015), Albert Einstein’s quotes, Availabe at:http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins.htm[Accessed 18 Feb 2015]. Lagemaat Richard Van De (2011), Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma, Cambridge University Press. Lemos Noah (2007), An Introduction to the theory of knowledge, Cambridge. Nietzsche, Friedrich. (2007). On the genealogy of morality, Edited by Keith Ansell-pearson, Trans. Carol Diethe. New York: Cambridge University Press Pollock John L and Cruz Joseph. (1999), Contemporary theories of knowledge, 2ed, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & littlefield. Oxford English Dictionary. . Read More