According to a posteriori ethical intuitionism (AEI), perceptual experiences can provide non-inferential justification for at least some moral beliefs. Moral epistemology, for the defender of AEI, is less like the epistemology of math and more like the epistemology of tables and chairs. One serious threat to AEI comes from the phenomenon of cognitive penetration. The worry is that even if evaluative properties could figure in the contents of experience, they would only be able to do so if prior cognitive states influence perceptual experience. Such influences would undermine the non-inferential, foundationalist credentials of AEI. In this paper, I defend AEI against this objection. Rather than deny that cognitive penetration exists, I argue that some types of cognitive penetrability are actually compatible with AEI’s foundationalist structure. This involves teasing apart the question of whether some particular perceptual process has justification conferring features from the question of how it came to have those features in the first place. Once this distinction is made, it becomes clear that some kinds of cognitive penetration are compatible with the non-inferential status of moral perceptual experiences as the proponent of AEI claims.

Philosophy Seminar Series
Date: Monday, 18 January 2016
Time: 3pm – 5pm
Venue: AS3 #05-23
Speaker: Preston J. Werner, Syracuse University
Moderator: A/P Neiladri Sinhababu

About the Speaker:

Preston J. Werner is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Syracuse University. His research interests are in metaethics (especially moral epistemology), philosophy of mind, and metaphysics.