The Sensory Imagination Theory 116 

The theory that I have in mind can be stated as follows: THE SENSORY IMAGINATION THEORY

Everything else being equal, the higher the degree to which a person has sensorily imagined the morally relevant features of an act, the higher is the epistemic trustworthiness of her moral intuitions about this act.

To see how this theory applies to a concrete case, consider a prison guard who must decide whether to put a prisoner in solitary confinement. Before deciding what to do with the prisoner, the guard sensorily imagines the fear, loneliness, and anxiety which would be caused by confinement. After this episode of im- agination, the guard has a moral intuition that it is wrong to put the prisoner in confinement. If the sensory imagination theory is true, the guard’s moral intuition gives her more reason to believe that this act is wrong than it would had she not sensorily imagined the prisoner’s suffering.

The sensory imagination theory must be clarified and qualified in several ways. First, I will assume that the added epistemic trustworthiness from sen- sory imagination can go beyond learning non-moral facts. Accordingly, if we compare the first prison guard with a second guard – who knows the same non-moral facts, but has only propositionally imagined what it is like to be in solitary confinement – the first guard will have more trustworthy moral intui- tions. That is, I assume that sensory imagination can improve the trustworthi- ness of moral intuitions over and above helping us learn non-moral facts.

Thus, sensory imagination helps us not only see more of a case, but to see a case more clearly. (That being said, my arguments are likely relevant to de- fending utilitarianism even if sensory imagination only helps us learn new non-moral facts.)

Second, the sensory imagination theory is compatible with an episode of sensory imagination on the whole subtracting from the epistemic trustworthi- ness of a moral intuition. The theory only claims that the epistemic trustwor- thiness is increased everything else being equal. For example, suppose that you visualize a terrible murder. You may be so shaken by this visualization that you cannot “think straight” and so reflexively condemn the murder. In this case, your moral intuition that the murder is wrong might on the whole be less epistemically trustworthy because you sensorily imagined it. But the use of sensory imagination as such still adds to the epistemic trustworthiness of the intuition. What epistemic weight is added by the sensory imagination is simply cancelled out by an unintended side effect: your inability to think straight. This is also true for other distorting influences that can be prompted by the use of sensory imagination, such as overwhelming emotional bursts of empathy, anger, sadness, and love. Similarly, to improve one’s perceptual conditions (e.g., by taking a closer look at an object) might bring about strong emotional reactions. These reactions might lower the epistemic trustworthi- ness of our perceptual sightings on the whole, even if the improved perceptual conditions as such still improve their trustworthiness.

Third, the sensory imagination theory is not only relevant to thought exper-

imentation. For example, suppose that an animal activist knows all the facts

about how animals suffer in factory farms. Compare her to a second activist with the same knowledge, but who has additionally read a book that vividly describes the conditions in factory farms. Reading the book prompted her to sensorily imagine what it is like being an animal in a factory farm, including the pain, depression, and boredom from isolation. Intuitively, the second ani- mal activist’s moral intuitions are more trustworthy in this case, even if she did not carry out a thought experiment. The sensory imagination theory ac- counts for this improved trustworthiness.

Fourth, the sensory imagination theory states that sensory imagination of

morally relevant features of acts increases the trustworthiness of moral intui-

tions about those acts – not just any sensory imagination will do. For example, sensorily imagining the details of a murderer’s shoelaces makes no difference. Moreover, it is sensory imagination of morally relevant features of acts that is needed, as a feature may be morally relevant in a thought experiment even if it is not a morally relevant feature of an act being imagined in that thought experiment.

Fifth, in formulating the sensory imagination theory, “morally relevant fea- tures” refer solely to fundamental and non-derivative morally relevant fea- tures. For example, whether the prisoner in the above case is adequately clothed is a non-fundamentally morally relevant feature of the case. It is non-

fundamentally morally relevant because it is morally relevant only in so far as it brings about something that is morally relevant, such as pleasure or the ab- sence of pain. Therefore, to sensorily imagine the prisoner’s clothes will typ- ically not improve the epistemic trustworthiness of the guard’s intuition. But there is one exception: the sensory imagination theory should be understood as allowing for two ways of sensorily imagining fundamental and non-deriv- ative morally relevant features. On the one hand, one can directly sensorily imagine such features, as when the guard sensorily imagines the pleasure and pain felt by the prisoner. On the other hand, one can indirectly sensorily im- agine these features by directly sensorily imagining features that are, by the imaginer, closely associated with the morally relevant features. For example, the guard can sensorily imagine facial expressions signaling pain or screams of pain from the prisoner, and this will let her indirectly sensorily imagine the prisoner being in pain. Similarly, to sensorily imagine the prisoner being ade- quately clothed may constitute a way for the guard to indirectly sensorily im- agining the prisoner feeling well and comfortable, and may so increase the epistemic trustworthiness of the guard’s moral intuition.

Sixth, we may ask when the relevant sensory imagination has to take place, relative to the formation of the moral intuition, in order to increase the epis- temic trustworthiness of that intuition. The sensory imagination clearly needs to be in the present or past – not in the future. But how far in the past does sensory imagination count? For example, suppose that the prison guard sen- sorily imagined what solitary confinement is like ten years ago, and only now forms the intuition that confinement of a prisoner is wrong. Does that episode of sensory imagination increase the trustworthiness of her intuition? Some kind of causal criterion seems reasonable in this case. For example, we might say that the sensory imagination counts only if it is part of the (immediate or close) cause of the moral intuition.129