Reid on Natural Signs, Taste and Moral Perception

Abstract

Understanding what Reid means by ‘moral perception’ is not an easy task. Reid often draws parallels between perception by the external senses (by smell, taste, hearing, touch and sight) and perception by the internal senses of taste and of morals. However, the only essay entirely devoted to the subject of morals (Essay V of the Essays on the Active Powers) concentrates mostly on the different axioms of morals and on a reply to Hume concerning the role of judgments in our moral evaluations. Reid assumes that moral perception is similar to perception by the external senses, but there are many questions concerning this relation and the exact understanding of moral perception and of the qualities perceived that seem to be left unanswered. My aim is, in general, to continue the task already started by several Reid scholars (like Terence Cuneo, see for example, Cuneo, 2004) of understanding Reid’s account of moral perception and, in particular, to understand the role of natural signs in moral perception. In order to do so, I will present an interpretation of Reid’s account of natural signs that, I think, has not been suggested before and that I believe is closer to Reid’s own understanding. Understanding Reid’s account of natural signs in this way will shed new light on certain aspects of Reid’s account of aesthetic and moral perception and is, I believe, important to grasp the nature of aesthetic and moral perception.