Perceptualism and the epistemology of normative reasons
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Perceptualism and the epistemology of normative reasons Jean Moritz Müller1 Received: 1 April 2020 / Accepted: 2 November 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract According to much recent work in metaethics, we have a perceptual access to normative properties and relations. On a common approach, this access has a presentational character. Here, ‘presentational’ specifies a characteristic feature of the way aspects of the environment are apprehended in sensory experience. While many authors have argued that we enjoy presentations of value properties, thus far comparatively less effort has been invested into developing a presentational view of the apprehension of normative reasons. Since it appears that this view would offer much the same theoretical benefits as presentational views of the apprehension of value, it seems worthwhile redressing this imbalance. My paper aims at doing so, focusing on concern-dependent practical reasons. After clarifying the central commitment of this view, I assess a recent proposal by Dancy (Ethics 124(4):787-812, 2014) which provides a detailed characterization of the relevant type of cognition. I argue that Dancy ignores one of the central features of a presentational access to normative reasons and therefore misidentifies which actual psychological phenomena are apt to play this role. In this context, I also assess and reject further candidates that might seem fitting for this purpose. In the remainder of the paper, I then offer a more adequate account which specifies an actual form of presentational access to concern-dependent practical reasons and provide the contours of a more substantive account of its nature. Keywords Epistemology of normative reasons · Concern-dependent reason · Perception · Presentation · Seeing-as · Affordance
1 Introduction Much current work in metaethical epistemology is concerned with the possibility of a perceptual access to normative properties and relations (e.g. Chappell 2008; Oddie 2005; Audi 2014; Cowan 2015; Tappolet 2016; Milona 2017). This development is
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Jean Moritz Müller [email protected] Institute of Philosophy, University of Bonn, Am Hof 1, 53113 Bonn, Germany
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motivated by several aims. One is to provide an account of how normative judgments might be non-inferentially justified. Such an account seems attractive, at least in part, since it purports to avoid familiar regress problems concerning their justification. Perceptual experiences non-inferentially justify corresponding empirical judgments without themselves standing in need of justification. Thus, if there is a perceptual form of access to the normative realm, this provides some ground for thinking that we can give an analogous treatment of normative judgment. Some authors also wish to fend off a prominent epistemological concern with normative realism. If there are objective normative properties and relations, it can seem difficult to see how they might fit into the ontology of the natural world. Accordingly, they can also seem epistemologically problemati
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