Moral knowledge by perception

Abstract

Mackie (1977) argues that we do not have moral knowledge, for if we did, “it would have to be by some special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing” – a faculty that we do not, in fact, have. Following Mackie, I distinguish two questions. First, assuming that we have moral knowledge, how do we have it? Second, do we, in fact, have any moral knowledge? I argue that if we have it, we at least sometimes get it by perception, and that this suggests that the answer to the second question is “yes”.