In Marcus's very interesting recent post, he suggests that we engage in moral debates with certain philosophical premises rather than others because we associate certain premises with better "moral perceivers." Perhaps, so. One concern, though, is how we could recognize someone as a keen moral perceiver when the very debates we seek to engage concern premises about the nature of morality. Perhaps there is a pre-theoretical method of assessing moral perception or some sort of reflective equilibrium approach where we refine our views about moral perception as the conversation proceeds.
Another possibility is that we only engage in certain debates with people who accept certain premises. So, for example, suppose I'm trying to decide which Marvel Comics' superhero is the strongest. The premises I engage with may come not from those with the best "superhero perception" but from those who care enough about the issue to engage in conversation about it. (Of course, we'll say that those who don't enter the conversation are poor "superhero perceivers," but maybe they would be good superhero perceivers, if, counterfactually, they cared about the issues.) Consider the solipsist. Perhaps there are solipsists with keen "ontological perception." We may, however, never engage with their premises because true solipsists, let us suppose, are not interested in talking with us.
In any event, the research Marcus describes sounds very interesting. Even if it doesn't tell us which premises we ought to engage with, it may tell us whether, in fact, we pick premises based on certain qualities of the people who hold those premises.
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