Author ORCID Identifier
Date Available
8-4-2020
Year of Publication
2020
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
College
Arts and Sciences
Department/School/Program
Philosophy
First Advisor
Dr. Clare Batty
Second Advisor
Dr. Arnold Farr
Abstract
Moral perceptions occur when a subject makes an immediate discernment about the moral features of an occurrent experience. This project taxonomizes theories of moral perception into the following two camps: experientialism and judgementalism. I defend a version of experientialism, Moral Perceptual Orientation, by arguing that we, in addition to making moral judgments, have genuine perceptions with moral content during occurrent experience. I then go on to advance a framework for understanding how these perceptions are curated by our background beliefs by developing a view of dialectical consciousness. I do this by synthesizing Herbert Marcuse’s perspective on the epistemic subject with the Phenomenological division of Feminist Affect theory using Buddhist (Mahāyānan) moral psychology to account for the formation of those background beliefs, habits of thought, and affects which shape our moral perceptions. Lastly, I argue that oppressive modes of socialization can curate our moral perceptions by reproducing moral ignorance. This, in turn, perpetuates a form of moral blindness to moral reasons during occurrent experience, something which is a defining feature of our epistemic lives wherever domination and brutalization are valued, personally or structurally, over liberation and humanization.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2020.387
Recommended Citation
Lincoln, James William, "RECONSIDERING MORAL PERCEPTION: THE DIALECTICAL EMERGENCE OF MORAL PERCEPTUAL CONTENTS DURING EXPERIENCE VIA COGNITIVE PENETRATION AND OPPRESSIVE SOCIALIZATION’S SUPPRESSION OF OUR ABILITY TO ‘SEE’ MORAL REASONS FOR HUMANIZATION AND LIBERATION" (2020). Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy. 27.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/philosophy_etds/27
Included in
Epistemology Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Feminist Philosophy Commons, Philosophy of Mind Commons
