Abstract

Moral perception is the non-inferential moral awareness immediately associated with moral emotion and action. Unfortunately, moral blindness, the incapability of moral perception, is frequently observed in the contemporary world. In order to account for the prevalence of moral blindness moral perception needs to be illuminated first, and the central purpose of this investigation is to elucidate the core property of moral perception. Moral perception has been denied by many modern moral theorists for a long time, but moral perception is an essential constituent of morality, which is also found in traditional moral philosophies, such as Aristotle's and Nietzsche's. Very recently, moral perception begins to be recognized as a way of moral awareness, but the number and diversity of research on it are still limited. Joining the recent effort to highlight moral perception this research attempts a new approach, phenomenological explication of moral perception, and Dewey's concept of perception and Heidegger's concept of thinking are mainly drawn on. For Dewey, perception presupposes the participatory subject who becomes to be related to the object or the situation, which is contrasted to the detached subject of recognition. Heidegger conceives thinking in a primordial sense which includes the perceptive level. Thinking begins with being inclined toward each other. On the ground of mutual inclination thinking becomes thanking to receive all that touch us. As Dewey and Heidegger similarly inform it, the essence of perception is the immediate connection between the perceiver and the perceived, and it is particularly distinct in moral perception. As an illustration of moral perception a Korean movie, Poetry by Chang-dong Lee, is introduced. Mija, the main character of the movie vividly embodies moral perception contrasted to moral blindness of the modern world. Considering the circumstance of modern world where the natural cultivation of moral perception is hindered, it is time to ask what kind of seeing and thinking should be cared about for education today