What Is the Role of Fast Processes In Not-Justified-Inferentially Judgements?
Philosophy is thinking in slow motion (Campbell). But then how could fast processes be relevant? Fast processes have little or no direct influence over non-justified-inferentially judgements. Despite this, they may dominate through indirect influence where knowledge is absent. For fast processes give rise to appearances (and high subjective confidence). These appearances provide material for reflection. In the absence of knowledge, reflection on how things appear is likely to determine how you judge them to be. In this way, fast processes can dominate, albeit indirectly, even glacial not-justified-inferentially judgements.
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Notes
Glossary
automatic : On this course, a process is _automatic_ just if whether or not it occurs is to a significant extent independent of your current task, motivations and intentions. To say that _mindreading is automatic_ is to say that it involves only automatic processes. The term `automatic' has been used in a variety of ways by other authors: see Moors (2014, p. 22) for a one-page overview, Moors & De Houwer (2006) for a detailed theoretical review, or Bargh (1992) for a classic and very readable introduction
cognitively efficient : A process is cognitively efficient to the degree that it does not consume working memory and other scarce cognitive resources.
fast : A fast process is one that is to some interesting degree automatic and to some interesting degree cognitively efficient. These processes are also sometimes characterised as able to yield rapid responses. Since automaticity and cognitive efficiency are matters of degree, it is only strictly correct to identify some processes as faster than others. The fast-slow distinction has been variously characterised in ways that do not entirely overlap (even individual author have offered differing characterisations at different times; e.g. Kahneman, 2013; Morewedge & Kahneman, 2010; Kahneman & Klein, 2009; Kahneman, 2002): as its advocates stress, it is a rough-and-ready tool, not the basis for a rigorous theory.
not-justified-inferentially : A claim (or premise, or principle) is not-justified-inferentially if it is not justified in virtue of being inferred from some other claim (or premise, or principle). Claims made on the basis of perception (_That jumper is red_, say) are typically not-justified-inferentially. Why not just say ‘noninferentially justified’? Because that can be read as implying that the claim is justified, noninferentially. Whereas ‘not-justified-inferentially’ does not imply this. Any claim which is not justified at all is thereby not-justified-inferentially.
References
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Moors, A. (2014). Examining the mapping problem in dual process models. In Dual process theories of the social mind (pp. 20–34). Guilford.
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