Perception and Representation

Abstract

While generalist moral thinking does not require astute perception of specific situations, perception is critical to particularism. This is a significant component of Aristotelian ethical theory, and is also important to the central idea in this book, moral density. We can see that perception of the particular illuminates qualities of a moral situation that general reasoning misses, which qualities can be crucial to our choice in that situation. Perception can allow the imagination to function. Otherwise, as George Eliot argues in Middlemarch, if you can’t see, you don’t care.

The decision rests with perception.

—Aristotle