ABSTRACT
The idea of salience has entered moral philosophy mainly through neo-Aristotelian accounts of practical reason, where it has been argued that the range of considerations that are ‘salient’ for us in any given context (in the sense of commanding active attention or concern) will determine which practical principles we select as starting-points for deliberation, and hence will shape our lives as agents seeking to ‘live well’ in general.
But the negative side of this effort – the attempt to avoid wrongdoing – gives rise to some perhaps less familiar issues of salience. Particularly arresting here is the view of Robert M. Adams that moral responsibility extends not just to the voluntary, but to all aspects of our response to what we are in a position to appreciate ethically. Taking up this view, the paper asks what constitutes being in such a position, namely that of being presented with ethical ‘data’: a question which turns out to be highly contentious, and a topic of continual negotiation and much collective anxiety. Thus we find ourselves constantly exposed to (the ethical equivalent of) surprise attack. However, that condition is not a purely passive one but also opens up interesting possibilities of discursive agency.
