Reid Making Sense of Moral Sense

Abstract

Reid has important things to say about the relation between external sense and moral sense, and his account forms in certain respects a central part of his system. Nevertheless his position has never been fully investigated, and I shall seek to argue here that it merits such investigation in light of the valuable insights it offers. Reid’s tone is polemical; he emphasises the differences between his account of the faculties of sense and the account which he sees as prevailing in his own day. Yet on the face of it he exaggerates the differences. For he holds crucially that external sense and moral sense have a great deal in common; and yet the philosophers whom he opposes likewise wish to maintain that moral sense and external sense have a great deal in common. But the devil lies in the detail. In Reid’s view the prevailing doctrine is radically mistaken about the nature of external sense, and it is only because that doctrine is also radically mistaken about the nature of moral sense that it is able to maintain with consistency that the two sorts of sense have a great deal in common. I shall investigate the similarities that Reid finds between external and moral sense, and shall argue that his belief that the similarities run deep and wide derives from his fundamental philosophical perspective.