The Inadequacy of Instinct and the Importance of Intuition

    Both Bruce Charlton and William Wildblood have written much about intuition.  The following are four good posts: "The Loss of Intuition," "The Overturning of the Natural Order," "Intuition, the Only True Knowledge," " Three basic possible ideal ways of 'being'. "  A useful taxonomy that they have both used is to distinguish instinct, intellect, and intuition.  Instinct is unconscious desires, intellect is our normal conscious thinking, and intuition might be called spiritual perception.  Another way we can view these three is as the sub-rational (instinct), the rational (intellect), and the super-rational (intuition).    

    In our current day and age, most people only acknowledge the intellect and the instinct.  And in practice, instinct is primary because the intellect is viewed as the slave of the instincts.  This viewpoint is so pervasive it is not argued for, just assumed as the only basis to begin discussion.  Many, many analyses of society have been written from this perspective.  Numerous plans have been constructed for manipulating instincts to form a better society.  However, human beings are more than just instincts.  The intuition is not something extra that can be tacked on as needed.  It is essential.  

    In previous times, the place of the intuition was taken by tradition.  To make strategic, long-term decisions about life, people could use tradition to "think for them."  As an example, consider what the Biblical writings must have been for the people of Jesus' time.  They were not just a list of rules, they were a living reality that people had absorbed into their thinking.  Our task now is to develop intuition.  But, without tradition and without intuition, many people are utterly helpless to make good life decisions.  And by good, I simply mean ones that conform to the basic human realities that existed for millenia.  Despite what moderns think, human life was not always the way it is now.  

    The bonds of religion, family, and community held society together and despite that these are subtle things, they are not any the less real for being so.  And, these bonds were given concrete form in various rituals and traditional practices.  But, it is a mistake to think that the practices of tradition gave rise to the bonds of society.  No, it's the other way around.  Without these bonds, the traditions would have been empty.  Now these bonds are as weak as they have ever been.  

    So, what is the solution of many people?  Well, they say, the only purpose of those traditions was to manipulate people's instincts for socially useful purposes so if we just make up other ways to manipulate instincts, then everything will work out.  But it never works.  The reason is because instinct alone is too changeable.  By itself it does not provide a powerful enough principle of cohesion.  

    One reason is that the means of manipulating instincts must be applied constantly or else it will not work.  And even then, if some contrary instinct comes about, then the attempt may still fail.  For example, suppose there is a person whose instinct is to steal.  But, they refrain from stealing because of fear of punishment.  If that truly is the only reason this individual does not steal, then the fear of punishment must constantly be in place or the person will steal.  Or, suppose the individual gets drunk and then temporarily loses the fear of punishment.  Then, they will steal.  Numerous other examples could be imagined, but the point is that manipulating instincts does not, by itself, lead to social cohesion.  

    Also, if we throw out intuition and do not acknowledge the super-rational then there is no reason to choose one means of manipulating instincts over another except for social utility.  But, first of all, how can we definitively determine social utility because different people have different preferences?  Even if we could agree, it can be very difficult if not impossible to determine which means of instinct manipulation is best because of all the unforseen circumstances that can arise.  C.S. Lewis makes a similar argument in The Abolition of Man.  Once you throw out what is above the mind, all you are left with is instinct and that means all that you choose is just whatever you happen to irrationally want (at that time).  

    Bruce Charlton raises similar points in the context of evolution in his article: "Reconceptualizing the metaphysical basis of biology":

    "In sum; natural selection is much more rapidly and powerfully dis-integrative than integrative. Yet, nonetheless, these transitions did actually occur in evolutionary history. For example, in a multi-cellular organism, the dividing component cells are constantly being naturally-selected for neoplastic (e.g. cancerous) change – such that they cease to cooperate with and contribute to the organism, and instead exploit it as a ‘host’ environment (Charlton, 1996a). How, then, did multicellular organisms evolve the many integrative systems (e.g. nervous, paracrine, hormonal and immune systems) designed to impose cooperation of specialized cells and suppress non-functional and actively parasitic (e.g. mutated) cell variants; bearing in mind that all such integrative systems are themselves intrinsically subject to neoplastic evolution (as well as loss of function from cumulative damage)?

The same phenomenon and problem must (according to the theory of natural selection) apply to the genetic organelles of the complex cell (such as chloroplasts and mitochondria; Charlton et al, 1998); and also to the individual organisms in a social organization (such as human society). Yet eukaryotic cells actually did arise – despite their innate and intractable tendency to self-destruct; and there are numerous highly evolutionarily-successful social animals among (for instance) insects, birds and mammals. 

...

The general problem is therefore that the net effect of natural selection is to break down the major transitions of evolution before they can be established – unless (as I will argue later) this tendency is overcome by some as-yet-unknown purposive (and indeed cognitive) long-termist, integrating and complexity-increasing tendency. "

    So, that is the importance of intuition.  Intuition puts us in touch with the spiritual, which is most powerful source of social cohesion.  If we regard the evolution of consciousness as real, then we need to get back to the cohesion of society as it was under tradition, but in a different way.  Everyone must develop intuition for themselves.  I cannot see exactly how this would work, but we need the super-rational, so we must try for it.   

    Our current society is inhuman.  It is missing important, vital things that existed for millenia.  At this point, we have had a generations of attempts to manipulate instincts for people's benefit that have all failed.  So, why not try intuition?