Our Moral Sense what is it ....and why we tap into it.

 

Our  Moral Sense

Moral sense theory holds, roughly, that moral distinctions are recognized through a process analogous to sense perception. 

Hume explains that virtue is that which causes pleasurable sensations of a specific type in an observer, while vice causes painful sensations of a specific type. 

While all moral approval is a sort of pleasurable sensation, this does not mean that all pleasurable sensations qualify as instances of moral approval. 

Just as the pleasure we feel in response to excellent music is different from the pleasure we derive from excellent wine, so the pleasure we derive from viewing a person’s character is different from the pleasure we derive from inanimate objects 

 So, moral approval is a specific type of pleasurable sensation, only felt in response to persons, with a particular phenomenological  (denoting or relating to an approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience) quality.