scholarly journals Doubts about Moral Perception

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pekka Väyrynen
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Moral Experience ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Properties

This chapter defends doubts about the existence of genuine moral perception, understood as the claim that at least some moral properties figure in the contents of perceptual experience. The doubts are local: even if perceptual experiences generally can be cognitively penetrable and rich, standard examples of moral perception are better explained as habitual implicit inferences or transitions in thought. The chapter sketches a model on which the relevant transitions in thought can be psychologically immediate depending on how readily and reliably non-evaluative perceptual inputs, jointly with the subject’s background moral beliefs, training, and habituation, trigger the kinds of phenomenological responses that moral agents are disposed to have when they represent things as being morally a certain way. It is then argued that this rival account of moral experience explains at least as much as the moral perception hypothesis but is simpler and (at least by one relevant measure) more unified.

Moral Perception: Causal, Phenomenological, and Epistemological Elements

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Belief ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Do So

This chapter analyzes how perception is a kind of experiential information-bearing relation between the perceiver and the object perceived. It argues that even if moral properties are not themselves causal, they can be perceptible. But the dependence of moral perception on non-moral perception does not imply an inferential dependence of all moral belief or moral judgment on non-moral belief or judgment. This kind of grounding explains how a moral belief arising in perception can constitute perceptual knowledge and can do so on grounds that are publicly accessible and, though not a guarantee of it, a basis for ethical agreement. The chapter also shows how perceptual moral knowledge is connected not only with other moral knowledge but also with intuition and emotion.

Moral Perception and the Contents of Experience

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Preston J. Werner
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Philosophy Of Perception ◽  
Normal Individuals ◽  
Moral Properties

I defend the thesis that at least some moral properties can be part of the contents of experience. I argue for this claim using acontrast argument, a type of argument commonly found in the literature on the philosophy of perception. I first appeal to psychological research on what I call emotionally empathetic dysfunctional individuals (eedis) to establish a phenomenal contrast betweeneedis and normal individuals in some moral situations. I then argue that the best explanation for this contrast, assuming non-skeptical moral realism, is thatbadnessis represented in the normal individual’s experience but not in theeedi’s experience. I consider and reject four alternative explanations of the contrast.

Conclusion

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Moral Property ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Natural Properties ◽  
Necessary Truth ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Perceptual Capacity

This concluding chapter explains how the theory of moral perception takes full account of the causal element in perception but does not require naturalizing moral properties. However, the theory does require that moral properties have a base in the natural world. They are anchored in the natural world in a way that makes possible moral knowledge and the ethical objectivity that goes with it. The bridge from their naturalistic base to moral judgment often has the intelligibility of the self-evident, and under some conditions it has the reliability of necessary truth. Seeing that an act or a person has a moral property may itself be a manifestation of an intuitive perceptual capacity that has considerable discriminative subtlety regarding descriptive natural properties.

scholarly journals Moral sense by Charles Darwin

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-59
Author(s):  
Drago Djuric
Keyword(s):  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Descriptive Ethics ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
And Behaviors

At the beginning of this paper Darwin's approach to science will be presented. This will be illustrated with his own modality of his main claims and modesty he had shown in evaluating the worth of his theory. Than we shall present his four suppositions important for preservation and evolution of moral sense. After that we will consider the issue of relation between inherited and acquired moral properties and main characteristics which according to Darwin, make difference between social instinct in lower animals and moral sense in man. At the end some we shall present some arguments for thesis that in evolutionary scientific approach to ethics there is no room for unbridgeable gap between facts and values, 'ought' and 'is', and some arguments for thesis that from the point of view of the theory of evolution we can have descriptive ethics, but not any prescriptive or normative ethics except predictions that some moral beliefs and behaviors can be evolutionary successful.

Rational Feelings and Moral Agency

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ido Geiger
Keyword(s):  
Moral Agency ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Effective Force ◽  
Moral Feeling

AbstractKant's conception of moral agency is often charged with attributing no role to feelings. I suggest that respect is the effective force driving moral action. I then argue that four additional types of rational feelings are necessary conditions of moral agency: (1) The affective inner life of moral agents deliberating how to act and reflecting on their deeds is rich and complex (conscience). To act morally we must turn our affective moral perception towards the ends of moral action: (2) the welfare of others (love of others); and (3) our own moral being (self-respect). (4) Feelings shape our particular moral acts (moral feeling). I tentatively suggest that the diversity of moral feelings might be as great as the range of our duties.

Which Moral Properties Are Eligible for Perceptual Awareness?

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 290-319
Author(s):  
Preston J. Werner
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Perceptual Awareness ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Open Question ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

Abstract: Moral perception has made something of a comeback in recent work on moral epistemology. Many traditional objections to the view have been argued to fail upon closer inspection. But it remains an open question just how far moral perception might extend. In this paper, I provide the beginnings of an answer to this question by assessing the relationship between the metaphysical structure of different normative properties and a plausible constraint on which properties are eligible for perceptual awareness which I call the Counterfactual Strengthening Test. Along the way I consider and reject a few other possible constraints on perceptual awareness. I defend the view that moral perception is restricted to the perception of evaluative and pro tanto deontic properties. I conclude with a few gestures toward what this limitation on moral perception may mean for broader moral epistemology.

Moral Perception Defended

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
Perception And Action ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Cognitive Penetration ◽  
Aesthetic Perception ◽  
Natural Properties ◽  
Moral Sensibility ◽  
Structural Analogy ◽  
Moral Properties

This chapter extends Robert Audi's theory of moral perception and answers some objections from the literature. It distinguishes the perceptible from the perceptual; develops a structural analogy between perception and action; explains how moral perception can be causal; clarifies respects in which moral perception is representational; and indicates how it can ground moral knowledge. The presentational character of moral perception is described, particularly the phenomenological integration between moral sensibility and non-moral perception of the natural properties that ground moral properties. The question whether moral perception is inferential is approached by clarifying the notion of inference and pursuing an analogy between moral perception and perception of emotion. Aesthetic perception is also considered as instructively analogous to moral perception. The final sections explore cognitive penetration in relation to moral perception, conceptual and developmental aspects of moral perception, and the latitude Audi’s account of it allows in the epistemology and ontology of ethics.

scholarly journals Moral Value, Response-Dependence, and Rigid Designation

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brad Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Value ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Rigid Designation ◽  
The Future ◽  
Epistemological Obstacles ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Response Dependence

It is part of our notion of moral properties (certain forms of relativism to the contrary) that they are in some sense independent of our moral beliefs. A murderer cannot make his action moral simply by believing that it is so. Slavery was immoral even if a large number of people once believed that it was permissible, and it would remain so in the future even if every person came to believe that it was morally acceptable. But views that take moral properties to be objective and thoroughly mind-independent constituents of reality face familiar metaphysical and epistemological obstacles.

scholarly journals Is Moral Perception Essentially Rule-Governed? A Critical Assessment of Generalism and a Limited Defense of Particularism

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (156) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Shiu-Hwa Tsu
Keyword(s):  
Essential Role ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
The Way

Moral perception, for the purposes of this article, is taken to be the perception of moral properties, unless contexts dictate otherwise. While both particularists and generalists agree that we can perceive the moral properties of an action or a feature, they disagree, however, over whether rules play any essential role in moral perception. The particularists argue for a ‘no’ answer, whereas the generalists say ‘yes’. In this paper, I provide a limited defense of particularism by rebutting several powerful generalist arguments. It is hoped particularism can thus be made more attractive as a theory of moral perception. Positive arguments for particularism will also be provided along the way

Pollyanna Realism: Moral Perception and Moral Properties

2002 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Watkins ◽  
K.D. Jolley
Keyword(s):  
Moral Perception ◽  
Moral Properties
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document