ASEBL Journal – Volume 13 Issue 1 , January 2018
that doesn ’ t mean I can literally see the implication itself .
The authors we ’ ve been discussing all think that an account of moral knowledge that leans heavily on a distinctively moral form of perception can better capture the experiences of mature and sensitive moral agents . What I have been trying to show is that we needn ’ t posit a capacity to perceive moral properties to make sense of their examples . But there is one additional thing to notice about the aspirations of these authors . If it turned out that we could perceive moral properties , then our ability to perceive morally relevant properties would be much less important than it is normally taken to be . The central and least controversial way in which perception can be morally relevant is by supplying the materials we need to deliberate and act well . But , if we could just see the injustice of a certain action then we wouldn ’ t need to see the features that make the action unjust . In the same way , if we could just see that it is going to rain tomorrow , we wouldn ’ t need to be able to detect empirically all the things that are normally taken to be evidence for upcoming rain . The ability to perceive moral properties directly would provide a kind of shortcut that would make the perception of morally relevant properties extraneous .
This , I ’ d like to suggest , is an unwelcome result . The relationship between moral properties and the non-moral properties on which they are consequent is unlike the relationship between , for instance , a property like ‘ being angry ’ and the microphysical properties on which it is consequent . If someone were to judge that you were angry without an awareness of the microphysical properties on which your anger is consequent , that wouldn ’ t be at all problematic . But if someone were to judge that you were , for instance , cowardly without awareness of the non-moral properties on which that moral property is consequent that would be problematic even if we grant that they really do perceive your cowardliness directly .
Maybe the best way to see why it ’ s problematic is to think about the ways the following conversation might resolve . Someone – maybe a romantic partner – says , “ You ’ re the best .” And you ask , “ Why am I the best ?” If they have an answer – you ’ re so considerate , you supported me in this way , you exhibited this or that admirable quality , you did this excellent deed – then all is well and good . They know what they ’ re talking about . But suppose they can ’ t give a reason . They just see it . How does that feel ?
Suppose Joan perceives that she ought to give up her seat on the train without noticing the elderly lady ’ s need to sit down . Suppose Levin knows that he ought not hire men under bond , but he can ’ t say what it is about hiring men under bond that makes it illadvised . Something isn ’ t right . Sensitive moral thinkers should be sensitive to a broad array of non-moral facts , and they should be able to say why various actions are right and others wrong . But the thesis that we can perceive moral properties seems to controvert this fact . No doubt perception is morally relevant in a variety of important ways , but this does not mean we perceive moral properties .
Bibliography
Antonaccio , M . . Picturing the Human : The Moral Thought of Iris Murdoch . Oxford University Press . 2000 .
Audi , Robert . Moral Perception . Princeton University Press , 2013 .
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