Experimental legal Philosophy at Universität Bochum

What do they do? Do surveys, try to find out about intuition about what knowledge is 

= is a philosophy which engages in empirical research to address philosophical questions.

„to practice experimental philosophy...is to systematically collect and analyze empirical data in attempting to answer philosophical questions or solve philosophical problems”

before: Physics: gravity, medicine, universe old experimental philosophy 

Today: new experimental philosophy: moral questions, psychological

Analytical: Concepts: freedom, responsibility, happiness 

Guys try to find out about these problem experimentally 

They say its nothing new, old analytical philosophers were also experimenting 

Breaking down a complex into simpler elements 

Basic methods of analytics philosophy 

e.g. concept of a bachelor:
- being a man, being not married 

• Abstract objects (ideas)
• Abilities {to comprehend concepts}
• Mental representations 

Narrow (restricted) conception of X-Phi as involved with the empirical research on people’s intuitions in addressing philosophical questions

- questions are mainly addressed by the appeal to intuitions 

Broad conception of X-Phi as involved with empirical research broadly speaking in addressing philosophical questions.

- questions are not necessarily addressed by the appeal to intuitions 

Concepts are psychological entities, ways of thinking about certain things (e.g., a concept of a tree is a way of thinking about trees). 

They contain a referent or what they refer to (e.g., trees), and a content (e.g., bodies of information about the trees).

The content of the concept is retrieved from memory by default : 

- Quickly
- Automatically (without control)
- Independently of the context (in all circumstances)

people do not have a direct access to their concepts, and can even have inaccurate beliefs about their concepts

Study of the conceptes typically involves asking people to use the concepts, not asking about them directly. This way we can learn about the content of the concept.

• They are short, fictional stories that describe certain situations

• These situations typically have philosophically relevant features

• The addressee is invited to form a judgment about these stories in connection with the philosophically relevant feature

she has a belief that X, her belief that X is true, and she is justified in having the belief that X

the person in the stories have a justified true belief which is (arguably) not knowledge

-> objectively not true information but all three elements -> belief, justification and true belief are fulfilled

Thought experiment: 

Machine that you can program so all my wishes come true —> Nozick:

Nozick says nobody would like the happy machine, because we want 

(1) to do things, and not only experience that we do these things

(2) Everyone wants to define himself, be a certain sort of person, but we cannot achieve this in the experience machine

(3) In the machine we will limit our experience to artificial reality that is completely created by humans, and we detach ourselves from the deeper reality

the happy machine would make us sad

So by this experiment he found out that hedonism, life only with pleasure isn’t what we wish for.

Changing the switch to let the trolley kill one or five people 

Or chucking someone in front of the train yourself to save five people 

Philosophical intuitions are opinions or judgments that are triggered by thought experiments or other philosophically relevant hypothetical cases