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554 BURKARD
living together in small groups. ‘Impersonal’ forms of violations such as throwing a switch to
set a train in motion that will kill someone were not available at that stage and so no such
emotional dispositions towards them were developed. It is not surprising, Singer contends,
that pulling a switch to redirect the train in the first scenario is judged permissible by many.
For in such impersonal cases, widely shared rational insights like “five deaths are worse than
one” are not distorted by emotional reactions (cf. Singer 2005: 347-351; the direct quote is
from 350). This assessment seems to gain further support from measurements of the reaction
times of the subjects. The few who judged that it is permissible to push the big man from the
footbridge apparently took significantly longer to come to this conclusion than those who
judged it impermissible; this is taken to indicate that during the longer reaction time subjects
‘overcame’ their spontaneous emotional reaction (cf. ibid.). 11 Singer’s position can be restated
as follows:
P1
P2
C
The best explanation for most people’s intuitive reactions to up-close and personal
cases is that they result from evolved emotional dispositions that used to be advantageous
in earlier stages of human development.
Evolved emotional dispositions that used to be advantageous in earlier stages of
human development have nothing to do with the truth or correctness of people’s
intuitive reactions to up-close and personal cases.
People’s intuitive reactions to up-close and personal cases are not justified or trustworthy.
12
How should we evaluate this debunking attempt? Both premises of the argument are controversial;
we can first question whether the offered explanation for the intuitive reactions
really is the best. The empirical studies purportedly showing this have received much critical
attention that cast doubt on the claim. The second premise can be questioned as well, for it is
far from clear that emotional dispositions need to be regarded as distorting influences in
moral judgments. 13 However, we may also find that Singer’s debunking argument is plausible.
We could try to support his position by defending a strong version of cognitivism, for example,
and thereby underpin the second premise.
Abstracting from the example, we can identify the following three ways of reacting to local
debunking arguments. First: To defend an intuition (or a subset of intuitions) against debunking
attempts, one may question the explanation given in the first premise of such arguments
by offering an alternative, non-undermining or vindicating explanation for the
judgment in question.
Second: Alternatively, one could accept the explanation but reject the epistemic standard
used in the second premise, e.g. the assumption that evolved emotional dispositions
necessarily distort moral judgments.
And third: We may also accept the debunking attempt because we find both premises convincing.
If the debunking concerns a subset of moral intuitions, then an intuitionist can take
that as a reason to exclude those intuitions or intuitions of that type from her positive account
of moral justification. Although debunking arguments are usually formulated with a sceptical
11
The distinction between ‘up-close and personal’ and ‘impersonal’ cases of violation was introduced by
Joshua Greene and colleagues in one of the empirical studies Singer relies upon. The footbridge case
belongs in the former category, the switch case in the latter (cf. Greene et al. 2001: 2106). Elsewhere
Greene argues like Singer that the empirical findings support a consequentialist ethics (cf. Greene
2008).
12
As noted above, on an internalist understanding of justification we would have to add a premise about
people being in a position to know about P1 and P2.
13
Cf. Berker 2009 and Tersman 2008 for criticism of both types. Cf. Kahane et al. 2012 for more recent
empirical studies of intuitive responses to trolley cases and other, less extreme scenarios, which also
question the empirical data Singer relies on.