Enactivism and the Paradox of Moral Perception

Summary

The paper identifies a phenomenon called the paradox of moral perception: perceiving others as moral subjects is both effortless and often successful, yet also difficult and frequently fails. Using enactivism—a framework emphasizing embodied and environmentally embedded cognition—the author explains this paradox. The analysis connects enactivism with David Hume's and Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy and insights from epistemic injustice. Two forms of moral misperception are introduced: particular moral misperception (misseeing a specific moral feature) and categorial moral misperception (misseeing someone as not a moral subject at all). The argument highlights overlooked embodied and socio-technical dimensions of ethical life.

Study at a glance

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper I home in on an ethical phenomenon that is powerfully elucidated by means of enactive resources but that has, to my knowledge, not yet been explicitly addressed in the literature. The phenomenon in question concerns what I will term the paradox of moral perception, which, to be clear, does not refer to a logical but to a phenomenological-practical paradoxicality. Specifically, I have in mind the seemingly contradictory phenomenon that perceiving persons as moral subjects is at once incredibly easy and incredibly difficult; it is something we do nearly effortlessly and successfully all the time without giving it much thought and it is something that often requires effort and that we fail at all the time (also often without giving it much thought). As I will argue, enactivism offers distinctive resources for explaining the paradoxical nature of moral perception. These resources, moreover, bring out two important dimensions of ethical life that are frequently overlooked in contemporary ethical theory: namely the embodied and socio-technical environment-embedded dimensions of moral perception and moral visibility. As I make my argument, I will be connecting enactivism with insights from David Hume’s and Iris Murdoch’s moral philosophy as well as insights from the field of Epistemic Injustice. As such, I aim to situate enactivism within the larger theoretical ethical landscape; showing connections with existing ethical theories and identifying some of the ways in which enactivism offers unique contributions to our understanding of ethical life. While doing so, I will furthermore introduce two forms of moral misperception: particular moral misperception and categorial moral misperception.