Reason and emotions in justifying moral decision Essay Example

Reason and emotions in justifying moral decision Paper To do so, we can use reason or emotion as a way of knowledge to justify our actions. When using reason to justify a moral judgement, there may be separate reasons for people to have an argument. If it is based in fact, the argument is open to settlement by evidence, though the evidence may be very difficult to obtain and interpret. However, if it is based in principle, it is very hard to use evidence to solve the dispute as everyones principle differs from each other. Making such a distinction is important as arguments of principle and arguments of evidence are solved differently. We will write a custom essay sample on Reason and emotions in justifying moral decision specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Reason and emotions in justifying moral decision specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Reason and emotions in justifying moral decision specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Thus, morality may come down to just a personal opinion. In this case, the prospects of finding the correct form of morality are and trying to persuade someone that one course of action is morally better than the other, is like trying to convince them that apple taste better than oranges. After making a vital distinction between principle and evidence, the choice of premises when justifying a moral judgement is also equally important. In most situations involving ethics, we would usually choose to act in self-interest but there are situations [ethical egoism], there are times when we sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others. This notion is known as altruism, which is opposed to that of ethical egoism. There are many people who do sacrifice their own interest to help others. However, the root of the problem is that if we see altruism as being an excellent thing then we can be egoistic by being altruistic. It provides no guide to action and seems little use as a moral theory. Although we would certainly want to take others welfare into account, it does not seem reasonable to live totally for others. So we need to find a way of balancing our needs with those of other. Utilitarianism allows both altruists and egoists to attempt to maximise someones utility. Utilitarianism states that we are all equally valuable- that all utility are equal and it takes sheer prejudice to take ones own point of view as the standard judgement. The idea of moral duty is a choice of premises as well, which needs to be scrutinised carefully as it is dangerous to answer questions with reference to other schools of ethical thoughts. We may end up following these schools of thought rather than trying to develop fully the duty theory. Thus we must acknowledge that reason alone can never motivate actions. People who can agree how to act in specific cases, yet have no agreement on principles, prove that we have far missed something in our search for ethical truth. Emotions is necessary in justifying a moral decision as good utilitarians have to weigh the pros and cons and decide if there is a net gain of happiness and if they feel that it is right to do so. The notion that character(rather than the outcome or duty) can matter seems to be reflected in the idea of intention as an important factor in moral decisions. This approach is known as virtue ethics, which is a set of philosophies that hold moral life should be concerned with cultivating a virtuous character, as opposed to following the rules of action. This means that a decision can be moral even if the outcome is a bad one and irrespective of ideas such as duty. One situation where the use of reason and emotion may come in is when a teacher miscalculated a students test marks, giving her more than what she was supposed to get. The student realises this and the extra marks had allowed her to pass her test. However, she also knows that she should be honest and inform her teacher about the error. This is a moral decision which the student has to make. She reasons that if she tells the teacher, she will be living up to her morals, but her if she does, she will fail the test and she will be upset. In this case, reason and emotions are both factors that will contribute to her moral judgement. In the end, the student decides to tell the teacher of her error as she felt that it was logical and morally right to do so. Although she failed the test, she had a net gain of happiness as the teacher had praised her for being an honest student. Reason and emotion are both equally necessary in justifying a moral decision. Utilitarian, duty-based and virtue-based theories of ethics all rely on both reasons and emotions to differing degrees. Each system has its own flaws and despite the reams of profound books we can turn to, we will still be doubtful if any of these systems will pose severe difficulties and if a compelling theory would arise. However, theories are only guidebooks and do not make a moral decision as this is what humans do. As it is hard for a human not to have any emotions, justifying a moral decision would require both the use of reasoning and our emotions play a role in decided what we feel like doing. 1573 words 3 http://www. scu. edu/ethics/practicing/decision/framework. html 1 http://plato. stanford. edu/entries/logic-inductive/#1 2 http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Emotion Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge section.