According to contentful moral perception (CMP), moral properties can be perceived in the same sense as tables, tigers, and tomatoes. Recently, Heather Logue (2012) has distinguished between two potential ways of perceiving a property. A Kantian Property (KP) in perception is one in which a perceiver’s access involves a detection of the property via a representational vehicle. A Berkeleyan Property (BP) in perception is one in which a perceiver’s access to the property involves that property as partly constitutive of the (...) experience itself. In this paper, I set aside generalized arguments in favor of one view or another, and instead ask whether proponents of CMP have reasons to understand moral perception as Kantian or Berkeleyan. I explore three possible explanatory differences—(a) explaining the intrinsic motivating force of moral perceptions, (b) providing a metasemantics for moral properties, and (c) providing an epistemology of the normative authority of moral properties. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Moral perceptualism is the theory that perception and perceptual experience is attuned to moral features in our environment. This idea has received renewed attention in the last 15–20 years, for its potential to do theoretical work in moral epistemology and moral psychology. In this paper, I review the main motivations and arguments for moral perceptualism, the variety of theories that go under the heading of “moral perception,” and the three biggest challenges to moral perception. https://youtu.be/9cc_1zykq80.

One solution to the problem of moral knowledge is to claim that we can acquire it a posteriori through moral experience. But what is a moral experience? When we examine the most compelling putative cases, we find features which, I argue, are best explained by the hypothesis that moral experiences are emotions. To preempt an objection, I argue that putative cases of emotionless moral experience can be explained away. Finally, I allay the worry that emotions are an unsuitable basis for (...) moral knowledge. I conclude that those who believe in moral experience should hold that it consists of emotion. (shrink)

Several authors believe that metaethicists ought to leave their comfortable armchairs and engage with serious empirical research. This paper provides partial support for the opposing view, that metaethics is rightly conducted from the armchair. It does so by focusing on debunking arguments against robust moral realism. Specifically, the article discusses arguments based on the possibility that if robust realism is correct, then our beliefs are most likely insensitive to the relevant truths. These arguments seem at first glance to be dependent (...) on empirical research to learn what our moral beliefs are sensitive to. It is argued, however, that this is not so. The paper then examines two thought experiments that have been thought to demonstrate that debunking arguments might depend on empirical details and argues that the conclusion is not supported. (shrink)

It is highly consensual that we can perceive so-called low-level properties such as shape, color, motion, spatial location, and illumination through vision. But it’s more controversial whether the contents of visual perception can reach beyond the limits of weakness and involve high-level properties as well. By high-level property, it’s meant properties such as natural/artificial/functional kind, causality, dispositional properties, gender, roughness, aesthetic properties, bodily sensations, states of mind, agency features, action features, and moral properties. In this dissertation, setting Susanna Siegel's rich (...) content thesis as a framework and relying on her method of phenomenal contrast as a way of discovering the contents, I am intending to assess an account of perceiving moral properties. I will impose two objections against this model: The first one invokes the ignored role of imagination and recollection in the method and generally targets the method of contrast. The second one invokes the thesis of phenomenal holism and targets specifically the machinery of drawing contrast in the proposed moral pair. Finally, I’ll conclude that this account of moral perception, as well as other phenomenal-contrast-based accounts, is not tenable. -/- . (shrink)

內容型道德感知主義者（Contentful Moral Perceptualists）： Audi (2013), Lord (2018), McNaughton (1988), McBrayer (2010a, 2010b), Cowan (2014, 2015), Werner (2016, 2018) 宣稱 道德命題(moral proposition)可以作為道德主體的感知內容(content of perception)。然而，在筆 者原創的詮釋下，晚近反駁道德感知主義的學者，如： Faraci (2015), Väyrynen (2018), Chudnoff (2015)，則隱約透露出以下想法：「與其宣稱道德命題是感知內容，不如宣稱道德 命題是認知信念內容(content of cognition)〕更為合理」。Faraci、Väyrynen、Chudnoff 都認為 「內容型道德感知主義者所謂的道德感知」背後其實是受到宰制型的道德原則（dominative moral principles）所主導的，是一種從原則所推論產生的心理狀態; 也因此，上述反駁者認為 「內容型道德感知主義者所謂的〔道德感知〕」缺乏貨真價實的感知經驗所具有的「非推論 的」(non-inferential)特徵，並不是真正的感知。本文將評估：「內容型的道德感知模型」是 否有辦法回應上述反駁者所提出的挑戰呢？ 筆者將為肯定的答案提供初步的辯護。.

Recently, in metaethics, several authors have taken into account the view according to which moral knowledge can be based on perceptual or quasi-perceptual experience. This kind of knowledge is defined as moral perception. This paper aims to introduce the recent debate about moral perception. Specifically, the possibility of moral perception will be discussed, and many different views of moral perception will be compared.