Perception and the myth of the moral given

pp. 56-82

in: Benedict Smith, Particularism and the space of moral reasons, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

Abstract

Particularism often incorporates a perceptual model of moral knowledge. McKeever and Ridge suggest that this is partly because moral knowledge is often seemingly unlike rule-governed activities such as following a recipe, and that a natural way of describing our moral experience and the justification of moral judgements is in perceptual terms (McKeever and Ridge, 2006, p.76). We see that Robert is cruel, or that a certain action is kind, just as we see that the tree is there. The thought is that there need be no principles which serve to rationalize our moral perceptions or constitute the basis of inferences to moral knowledge. Rather, moral knowledge is enjoyed through exercising an awareness which does not need to be articulated by invoking principles.¹ In a stronger version, such knowledge cannot be articulated in a principled way. The strong version raises an immediate concern: if this sort of bald perceptualism were true, then in what sense can the relevant sort of knowledge be articulated? The worry is that it might be very difficult to make sense of how such knowledge is shared — how it is passed on to children, for example.