judgment can simply compare the situation to other similar experiences
and see quite simply that there is not a moral conflict at issue. Kant’s
own analysis of examples (Kant, 2014, pp.71-77) implies that the
conscious determinative judgment is only brought into play when the
agent wishes to undertake an action but knows it would violate a moral
precept (Herman, 1985, p.418). In cases where no such violation is at
stake, the procedure of the categorical imperative is unnecessary and so
outcomes such as the agent giving the child their lost toy without having
to apply the categorical imperative is conceivable and non-contradictory.
This moral action, then, resulted from the strategies of the reflective
judgment, as it accurately identified the morally salient features, and,
comparing to previous experiences as well as the agent’s cognitive
power, was able to determine that no moral conflict necessitating the
determinative judgment was necessary, as no violation of moral precepts
was required.
To conclude, I have argued that the phenomenon of moral perception
does not cause difficulties for principle-based ethical theories. I have
outlined the problem by contextualising the terms moral judgment and
moral perception, before deriving four main problems posed to principle-
based ethics; the ignorance of morally significant features, the failure
to recognise morally significant features as morally significant, action
derived from moral operations prior to ethical principles and the goodness
of moral perception itself. I have attempted to deal with these problems
by outlining the Kantian conception of judgment as made up of reflective
and determinant judgment. I have argued that reflective judgment has
the capacity to recognise morally salient features by drawing on the
agent’s past experience, cognitive power and the employment of general
maxims. I have attempted to provide an explanation of the foundational
moral experience required by reflective judgment through RMS, which
due to its mutual relationship with reflective judgment, does not cause
contradictions with principle-based ethics. I have explained the perceived
innate goodness of accurate moral perception by attributing this
goodness instead to the accuracy of the reflective judgment in identifying
morally significant features of a situation. Finally, I have attempted to
show that moral action taken without invocation of moral principles and
procedure does not cause a problem for principle-based ethics, as this
can be explained by the use of those moral principles themselves: their
invocation is necessary only when an agent’s intended action may violate
a moral precept. In other words, in morally unambiguous situations, it is
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