Perceiving the Normative World: Intuitions, Sentiments, Deliberation, Imagination

Abstract This chapter extends the defense of direct perceptualism by evaluating two rival views—hybrid intuitionism and sentimental perceptualism—and addressing the deliberation objection. Hybrid intuitionism attempts to blend perception and intuition, but proponents need to do more to vindicate that intuitions are presentational in the right way; they need to show that they are objectually presentational. Sentimental perceptualism maintains that emotions can provide perceptual-like access to normative features, yet it struggles to demonstrate that emotions involve objectual presentation and is extensionally inadequate. The chapter then tackles the deliberation objection: How can we explain appreciative normative knowledge acquired through imaginative deliberation, where perception is absent? The chapter argues that sensory imagination, grounded in perceptual capacities, can generate high-level qualitative content that enables learning. This imagined content, when appropriately constrained by reality and used in deliberation, generates normative knowledge.