Research reveals individuals experience conflicting intuitions in philosophical thought experiments, suggesting complexities beyond mere individual differences.
Research on intuitions about philosophical thought experiments shows a striking pattern. Often, there are powerful intuitions on one side and also powerful intuitions on the exact opposite side. A question now arises about how to understand this pattern. One possible view would be that it is primarily a matter of different people having different intuitions. I present evidence for the view that this is not the correct understanding. Instead, I suggest, it is primarily a matter of individual people having conflicting intuitions. That is, it is primarily a matter of individual people having an intuition on one side and also having an intuition on the opposite side.
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Joshua Knobe (2026) studied this question.
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