E.G.

Let's say an Occasionalist picture is any picture where

(a) there is some agent S, and

(b) there is some object O, and

(c) S and O cannot directly interact (S cannot influence O, and O cannot influence S), and

(d) O is explained by X (e.g., O is grounded in X, or caused by X, or emanates from X, or is orchestrated by X, etc.), and

(e) X affects S in such a way as to make it the case that S has an experience E, and

(f) E is a veridical experience of O.

Classical Occasionalist views (as traditionally caricatured) fit this schema. The idea: God is the only true cause. So, we never causally interact with anything in the external world; God is the only being with whom we truly interact. God orchestrates the world, and (separately) orchestrates us, and our inner lives, including our perceptual experiences. But God sees to it that our experiences line up with how the world is, such that our experiences are (for the most part) veridical experiences of the world.

So, on classical Occasionalist views (as traditionally caricatured): S=any one of us; O=any perceivable object in the external world; X=God; and E=our perceptual experiences under normal circumstances.

I'm no fan of classical Occasionalism but I care about Occasionalist pictures in general, because I believe that metaethical non-naturalists need to paint Occasionalist pictures in order to make sense of how we can secure epistemic access to moral reality without being able to influence or be influenced by moral reality.

In the kind of Moral Occasionalism that I think metaethical non-naturalists should be in the business of defending, S=any one of us; O=any part of moral reality that we are able to intuitively grasp; X=the natural phenomena in which intuitively-graspable moral reality is grounded; and E=our intuitive grasp of (this or that part of) moral reality.

There are lots of interesting questions to ask about Occasionalist pictures. Some of these are about perception. The core perception question about Occasionalism is whether there is any way to flesh out the details of the picture so that it is the case that

(g) S perceives O.

That is: Is Occasionalism capable of being an account of an agent's perception of an object?

Another question is whether you can get (g) in the case where O is a moral reality (e.g., the wrongness of something someone does).

I'm not sure what the answers to these questions are, but I'll say a bit about how I think we may address them.

I don't remember whether I've ever publicly articulated the following thoughts about Occasionalist perception, but I feel inclined to put these thoughts into the form of a blog post today. So, that is what I will do.

***

It is said that, in humans, there are five perceptual senses: vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Sometimes other items are added to the list, e.g., proprioception. And it is sometimes said that non-humans have further senses that humans do not have. Bats echolocate, some insects are able to detect magnetic waves, etc.

These various senses furnish ways of perceiving objects. That is, seeing O is a way of perceiving O; hearing O is a way of perceiving O; etc.

Here is a generalization that might be true:

Actual-world perception always involves object-to-subject influence: In every case in the actual world, whenever S perceives O, O causally influences S.

Say you look out the window and see a bird. You see the bird because the bird reflects light, which strikes your retina, which causes electrical signals to be passed along your optic nerve to your brain, etc. In this way, there is a causal sequence extending from the bird to you, such that the bird (the object of your visual perception) causally influences you (the subject of your visual perception).

We could construct similar examples involving each of the other five senses, and any further senses there may be. Such examples may be presented to support the generalization above.

Someone might say that our apprehension of moral reality provides a counterexample to the above generalization. And that would indeed be true if (i) Moral Occasionalism is true and (ii) Moral Occasionalism is an account of moral perception. But given that (i) and (ii) are both contentious (and are, for me, most at issue in the present discussion) we should just bracket the matter of apprehension of moral reality here. If we want a relevant counterexample to Actual-world perception always involves object-to-subject influence, we should look at cases of actual-world perception of natural, non-moral objects, such as birds.

If we end up being unable to find any relevant counterexample to Actual-world perception always involves object-to-subject influence, then we might conclude that it is true. This might lead us to the further conclusion that perception involves object-to-subject influence as a matter of conceptual necessity, such that it is not even conceptually possible for someone to perceive an object without being causally influenced by that object. This should, in turn, mean that (ii) above is false, i.e., Moral Occasionalism is not an account of moral perception.

But there is at least one way to push back against this reasoning.

***

Here's a thought experiment:

Classical Occasionalism was true all along: All of the best scientific evidence seems to overwhelmingly support the conclusion that perceptual systems of humans and all other living things involve causal interaction between perceiver and perceptual object. But all of that scientific evidence is in fact profoundly misleading, or has been profoundly misinterpreted. What's in fact true is classical Occasionalism (as summarized above).

What should we say about the hypothetical scenario where Classical Occasionalism was true all along? For example, what should we say about the case where you (seem to) look out the window and (seem to) see a bird?

Well, we could say either of two things. We could say that, in this hypothetical scenario, when you (seem to) look out the window and (seem to) see a bird, you are subject to a (mere) veridical hallucination of a bird. Or we could say that, in this hypothetical scenario, you genuinely perceive the bird.

At least one philosopher, namely Michael Dummett, has considered this hypothetical scenario. Dummett's intuition was that, in this hypothetical scenario, your experiences of birds and other ordinary objects in your external environment would be genuine perceptions, not (mere) veridical hallucinations.

Dummett's view, I think, was that if it were the case that Classical Occasionalism was true all along, and if we were somehow to discover that this is so, then the discovery of this fact would be a discovery about how perception in fact works. So, it would not be a discovery that all of the sorts of experiences that we have always taken to be perceptual experiences are in fact veridical hallucinations.

If that is right (and I think it is) then it might seem to show that it is conceptually possible for someone to perceive an object without being causally influenced by that object. This might pave the way for an argument that Moral Occasionalism is in fact an account of moral perception. But there is a complication.

***

An ostensionally fixed natural kind is a natural kind that we pick out by pointing. Water, I think, is an example of an ostensionally fixed natural kind. At some point in the past, I imagine, we pointed at water and named it 'water.' In that event, we made it the case that what we refer to when we use 'water' is that sort of stuff to which we were, at that time, pointing.

I think we should be broadly Kripkean externalists about ostensionally fixed natural kinds. For example, if it is the case that 

(a) all of the sort of stuff we point to when we use the word 'water' is H2O,

and 

(b) it is a matter of lawful regularity (as against mere coincidence) that all of that sort of stuff is H2O,

then, I think, we should say that, as a matter of conceptual necessity, water=H2O. And I think we should say this even if we had no idea that water=H2O at the time that we named water 'water.'

***

Let's say the XYZ Hypothesis is the hypothesis that the slippery stuff we call 'water' is XYZ, not H2O. Consider this scenario:

The XYZ Hypothesis was true all along: All of the best scientific evidence seems to overwhelmingly support the conclusion that the slippery stuff we call 'water' is H2O. But all of that scientific evidence is in fact profoundly misleading, or has been profoundly misinterpreted. What's in fact true is that the slippery stuff is XYZ.

If the proposals I discussed above about water being an ostensionally fixed natural kind are correct, then we should not say that, in the above thought experiment, all of the stuff in our lakes and oceans and ice cube trays that we've always called 'water' is in fact not water and is some other sort of stuff yet to be named. We should instead simply say that all of that stuff is water, but we've been mistaken about what water is.

In this way, the proposal that water is an ostensionally fixed natural kind allows us to render coherent two plausible proposals. On the one hand:

(I) Given that, in the actual world, (a) the sort of stuff we point to when we use the word 'water' is H2O, and (b) it is a matter of lawful regularity that all of that sort of stuff is H2O, water=H2O as a matter of conceptual necessity.

But on the other hand:

(II) In the hypothetical scenario where The XYZ Hypothesis was true all along, water=H2O would be false, and water=XYZ would be true.

***

In a similar manner, if perception is an ostensionally fixed natural kind, then we could coherently say both that

(III) if, as a matter of lawful regularity, perception in the actual world always involves object-to-subject influence, then it is conceptually necessary that perception always involves object-to-subject influence,

and

(IV) in the hypothetical scenario where Classical Occasionalism was true all along, it would not be conceptually necessary, and in fact would be false, that perception always involves object-to-subject influence.

***

To my mind, then, a key question is whether perception is an ostensionally fixed natural kind. Suppose it is. Suppose there was some time in the past when we pointed to various ways of apprehending objects through the senses and we named those ways 'perception.' If that is so, and if it is the case that, as a matter of lawful regularity, these ways of apprehending objects always involve object-to-subject influence, then I think we should say that it is conceptually necessary that perception always involves object-to-subject influence. And in that case I think we should deny that Moral Occasionalism is an account of moral perception.