ASEBL Journal – Volume 13 Issue 1, January 2018
and so on. And as I say, ex hypothesi, M’ s outward behaviour, beautiful from the start, in no way alters.( Murdoch 1999 p. 312-3)
M doesn’ t come to see new features of D that she had previously ignored. Rather, her accomplishment is that she has come to see D in a certain light, or with a loving gaze. It is similar to the case of someone who with some effort comes to see the duckrabbit as a duck. Nothing new is seen, but there is a new way of seeing. This kind of perception, according to Murdoch, is a morally relevant goal and is something worth aiming at, quite apart from how it affects our actions. Sometimes Murdoch even suggests that coming to see other people and the world at large correctly or lovingly is the only goal of the moral life and that notion of‘ exercising the will to act rightly’ is a philosopher’ s fiction. But whether or not we accept this more extreme view, we can recognize that the mother-in-law has accomplished something morally significant and that many of us wish to accomplish similar things in our own lives.
What is important about these cases of morally relevant perception is that neither needs to be understood as the perception of moral properties. Both cases were specifically concerned with perception of certain non-moral properties, either as a precursor to moral deliberation and action or as a morally significant goal in itself. But many who defend the idea of moral perception will often cite the importance of these morally relevant kinds of perception as evidence that we can perceive moral properties. They mistakenly take the reasonable claim that perceptual capacities are relevant to moral thinking to support the much less reasonable claim that we can perceive moral properties themselves.
Take Lawrence Blum’ s example of John and Joan, who are riding a train together. 5 When a lady carrying heavy bags enters the train, Joan but not John notices her discomfort. Since Joan is able to perceive a morally relevant feature of the situation( the lady’ s discomfort), she is better able to make a decision about giving up her seat. She has a morally relevant perceptual capacity that John lacks. Blum puts this point by saying“ a morally significant aspect of situations facing John fails to be salient to him, and this is a defect in his character.” But, almost immediately, Blum reframes the point by saying that“[ John ] misses something of the moral reality confronting him.” In a sense, this is true. John doesn’ t know that he ought to give up his seat. But the reason he doesn’ t grasp this moral fact isn’ t because he fails to see his obligation, it’ s because he fails to see the woman’ s distress. It’ s not the moral reality that John is‘ missing,’ it’ s the morally relevant reality. The perceptual capacity he lacks isn’ t a capacity to see the propriety of giving up his seat; it’ s the capacity to see that the woman needs to sit down.
In another of Blum’ s cases, Theresa, an administrator, is dealing with Julio, an employee, who has a painful disability that requires accommodation. Theresa fails to fully appreciate Julio’ s disability and his pain and therefore fails to take the needed steps to accommodate him. Blum writes that“ Theresa is failing to perceive or acknowledge something morally significant.” One paragraph later, however, Blum characterizes the same shortcoming of Theresa’ s as“ the failure to be in touch with part of the moral reality.” Again, we needn’ t understand the situation as a failure of moral perception. There is available a perfectly good explanation of Theresa’ s shortcoming that only
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