Philosophical Expertise Put to the Test

The so-called expertise defence against sceptical challenges from experimental philosophy has recently come under attack: there are several studies claiming to have found direct evidence that philosophers’ judgments in thought experiments are susceptible to erroneous effects. In this paper we distinguish between the customary ‘immune experts’ version of the expertise defence and an ‘informed experts’ version. On the informed expertise defence, we argue, philosophers’ judgments in thought experiments could be preferable to the folks’ even if it were true that philosophers’ judgments are no less immune to confounders than the folk’s. We present results from an experimental study comparing philosophers and non-philosophers (n=484), which, we argue, supports this version of the expertise defence.