Perception, Moral

Abstract

Abstract On the face of it, we have some moral knowledge. We know some general moral truths, for example, that slavery is wrong. And we know some particular moral truths. For example, confronted with a choice about how to act, we often know which action would be right, which wrong, which dishonest, which kind, etc. A central question in moral epistemology is the question of how we acquire moral knowledge (if, indeed, we acquire it). One answer to be found both in ancient texts and in the contemporary literature is that we acquire moral knowledge in the same way that we acquire much of our nonmoral knowledge about the empirical world – namely, by perception.