Thinking is not always thinking, at least not in the sense of rational analysis. Thinking can be an after the fact process, a narrative we create in order to explain our actions, preferences, and motivations. This is not the result of the mysterious caldron of the Freudian and Jungian unconscious, but is actually the result of non-symbolic thinking using analogy and heuristics. These cognitive heuristics come into our awareness more as an intuition than rational thought and difficult to ignore or alter.

The assumption that human beings are rational and will make decisions based on maximizing benefit is only occasionally true. Psychologists have identified various cognitive biases indicating that many decisions and judgments are made without any contemplation. Our lack or rational contemplation and the existence of decision-making biases suggest that we are often acting in the world based on what we might call our intuitive judgment. This non-deliberative judgment arises outside of awareness through learning and conditioning, familiarity, and moral judgment, tied to the normative cultural values. Whatever their source, being able to reflect on our intuitive judgments will enhance our decision making adaptability.

Through learning and conditioning, we create heuristics that allow us to make quick decisions. These heuristics function like rules of thumb in order to help us make decisions quickly. Heuristics work by attending to a limited aspect of the event horizon. This speeds up the process because it generates a decision or action based on the most salient aspects of applicable situations. Heuristics are fast because they ignore a lot of contextual information. If the ignored information is irrelevant then the heuristic is likely to generate a good outcome; however, if the ignored information is highly relevant the heuristic will fail.

Heuristics are not inherently accurate or inaccurate. “Heuristics is a decision procedure, not a criterion of rightness,” according to moral psychologist Julia Driver. Their accuracy is determined by the quality of the learning and conditioning that gave rise to the heuristic as well as how well they discriminate between similar and dissimilar situations. Gerd Gigerenzer has a concept he calls ecological rationality that defines our capacity to identify structures in our environments in which a given heuristic succeeds and fails. Through careful reflection, we can understand the features of our situation that will trigger certain heuristics.

Unfortunately, heuristics are rarely reflected upon and are often acquired with only limited experience. This has led researchers such as Daniel Kahneman to focus on their error proneness. Other researchers stress the utility inherent to a heuristic decision-making process. For example, Gerd Gigerenzer focuses on trying to determine what makes for a good heuristic and what makes for a bad one. Case Sunstein, in Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, illustrates how to use heuristics to incrementally shift our behavior into healthy and adaptive directions.

Heuristics are better suited to certain types of decision-making. Heuristics appear better in making decisions based on complex, nonlinear information, including crisis response or moral decisions. When we are making financial investments, we might not want to rely on our intuitive judgment; whereas when we face a moral dilemma or an immediate crisis, intuitive judgment might be the only way to make a decision. Enhancing the skills needed to acquire adaptive heuristics will generate more accurate heuristics as well as help us discriminate between situations that require more reflection and those situations that necessitate intuitive judgment.

A heuristic is an automatic, cognitive process that searches and organizes information according to pragmatic categorizations. The heuristic utilizes previously developed strategies in similar situations. This highly automated reasoning process functions to solve problems that seem familiar in a manner similar to the solutions used previously. The original parameters generating the heuristic will determine the pragmatic utility of the heuristic and its viability in the current context. For example, the parameters we set up to manage linear fact-driven situations would need to be distinguished from the parameters we would use in non-linear situations. For example, the parameters we might use to make an employment decision are different from the ones used to select our friends.

Moral judgment heuristics would optimally emerge from deliberations conducted with reflective equilibrium and moral emotional coherence. Reflective equilibrium would generate heuristics that would approximate what Emanuel Kant described as self-created maxims to guide moral behavior. Maxims, or heuristics, would allow us to act from a moral center in life even when we are unable to reflect on the entire context or consequences of a pressing moral decision. The process of reflective equilibrium does not determine the content of moral judgment. Research in moral psychology indicates that multiple, complex elements determine the content of our moral deliberations, including: psychobiology, normative socio-cultural influences, situational determinants, developmental conditions, and psychological functioning.

Although the specific content of the heuristics emerges from experience, our various heuristics arise within our psychobiological motivational systems. Evolutionary psychology indicates that we have inherent tendencies to form evaluations within certain categories. These categorizations facilitate the acquisition of our heuristics. The combination of evolutionarily-determined needs and motivations with the quickly acquired, powerful nature of heuristics, underscores the need for committed self-reflection when we act from our intuitions. Advances in moral psychology show how understanding our social intuition and moral judgment can help us recognize the activation of our moral heuristics by specific circumstances.