Intuitions and Ecological Rationality

Abstract

Through an ecological approach, it can be said that a person tries to identify the optimal action for him- or herself by a set of different possible actions through intuition. The debate about the ‘dual process theories’ takes up this idea and postulates two different ways to evaluate decision possibilities: A logical-analytical path and an intuitive (Magrabi and Bach, 2013). Predominantly, it is assumed that the logical-analytical path is related to rationality and therefore the path to strive for in rational decision-making. However, in science it has been shown that bounded rationality is to be assumed. Therefore, the question of the extent to which emotions or feelings, and in this context also intuitions, are rational has come to the fore (De Sousa, 1987; Evans and Cruse, 2004).  In this paper, intuitions are considered as a feeling with intentionality: Intuitions always refer to an appropriate environment and are directed toward a decision that results in an action. With Damásio (1994, 2013) it can be shown that an intuition is a feeling that excels in acting as a cue or signal. With the assumption of an ecological rationality (Gigerenzer, Todd and ABC Research Group, 1999; Todd and Gigerenzer, 2012; Todd and Brighton, 2016), it can be shown that intuitive decisions are based on experiential knowledge and implicit structure recognition (Magrabi and Bach, 2013). Accordingly, with the approach of an ecological rationality it can be shown that an intuitive decision is rational in the sense that a person interacts quickly and energy-efficiently successfully adapted with his or her environment and thereby identifies the individual optimal action for him- or herself. This may then be recognized as a ‘gut feeling’ or ‘intuition’. Two challenges will be outlined explained in this paper: The influence of a negative environment on intuitive decisions, and the confusion of an intuition with an emotion or other feeling.