Lesson Proper for Week 8

Feelings and Moral Decision-Making

Occasionally, we decide based on our emotions or feelings because they are integral parts of one’s life,
such as how we get annoyed by a coworker, and long-lasting emotions, such as the death of a loved one.
According to Cherry (2018), our emotions are composed of the following:

1. Subjective component – how we experience emotion

2. Physiological component – how our bodies react to the emotion
3. Expressive component – how we behave in response to the emotion

These various components play a significant role in our emotional responses.

The Function of Emotions (Oasis Recovery Center 2021)

1. Emotions can motivate us to take action – Whenever we are going to take an examination, we
tend to feel anxious about acing the examination. And because we feel this particular emotion,
we take action, such as studying more before the exam to obtain a positive or desirable grade.
Emotions help us to survive, thrive, and avoid danger.

2. Emotions can help us make decisions – Our emotions have a significant influence on our
decision-making process, from what we decide we want to eat on a day-to-day basis to which
candidates we choose to vote for in a political election. Emotional intelligence or our ability to
manage our emotions is essential for our decision-making process.

3. Emotions allow us to understand others – Similar to the emotions that provide us valuable
information to others, the emotional expression of those around us gives us considerable social
information. Social communication is a vital part of our day-to-day lives and relationships, and
being able to recognize and empathize with the emotions of others is essential.

4. Emotions play a significant role in our ethical decision-making – Emotions such as guilt,
embarrassment, and shame often motivate people to act ethically. Positive emotions such as
kindness and empathy can lead people to act ethically by helping those who are in need.
Meanwhile, negative emotions, such as anger, disgust, or contempt at those who have acted
 unethically, aim to discipline or punish, thereby discouraging others from behaving in the same
way.

5. Emotional responses can lead to suboptimal moral decisions – Occasionally, we are bound to
make decisions that will compromise others. A good example is a scenario where a railway
wagon or trolley is coming down the tracks, and it is headed toward four people. You can flip to
switch the direction away from the four people, but the train will move towards another person.
What will you do about it? You can push this person from the overpass onto the track to stop
the trolley before it reaches the four persons. Will you push the person to save the lives of the
four people? You may answer yes to the first question and no to the second question.

6. Emotions can help people learn to make better choices even when they cannot reason
consciously about these choices. This idea has not yet been taken up in contemporary research
on moral action as much as the contrary idea that emotions overwhelm reasoning.

 Depending on one’s view about morality, these studies on how emotions may help moral action
are challenging.
 Several philosophers claim that to be moral, and action must be the result of deliberative
thought. In this view, people must consider the consequences of their actions when making an
ethical decision.
 However, an alternative and nuanced understanding of moral action avoids this dispiriting
conclusion. What if moral action is the result of deliberative choices one has made over time?
On this view, people can, through deliberative reasoning, change their interpretations of
situations and their emotional responses to those situations.
 This idea does not imply that we all share the same view of what constitutes moral behavior, but
we all can bring our emotional responses in line with our own moral beliefs and intentions,
whatever those are.

In terms of negative emotions, adverse reactions provide the perfect occasions for us to develop our
emotional responses to make them aligned with our moral attitudes and goals. The following reasons
explain why this can happen:

1. Negative emotions signal the need to adjust our behavior – One of our emotions’ primary
functions is to signal that something vital is happening and that it needs attention.

2. Negative emotions can help us learn from our mistakes – The presence of emotions, such as
regret, shame, guilt, and disappointment, results from acting immorally or making choices that
are not consistent with our own beliefs. Such emotions are unpleasant.
 3. Emotional responses can be reshaped over time – The idea that behavior can be changed
through experience is a symbol of different approaches in psychology. What is important here is
the idea that individuals can deliberately set out to alter their emotional responses

Our emotions are powerful and unavoidable.

However, we need not be at the mercy of our emotions, unable to control them or prevent them from
overwhelming our reasoning and behavior.

By contrast, research suggests that we can act as agents who actively shape our emotional responses.
Recognizing the impact of emotions on our actions can help us develop stronger and more deliberative
moral habits over time.

Meanwhile, a contradicting claim that moral decisions are rooted in emotions: like the out-of-control
trolley mentioned earlier. One can attempt to save the lives of the four people in the trolley’s direction
rather than the other person’s life.

According to Damon, Colby (2015), we should not refer to neuroscience to study morality because
findings from the studies are hard to interpret. These studies are typically conducted on limited
populations, such as college students, and focus on dilemmas that are unlikely to occur in real life, such
as the trolley problem (cited by Suttie 2015). So they preferred studies that focused on real-life
experiences such as Martin Hoffman’s Children’s Development.

Damon and Colby (2015) provide three character traits that influence the moral character in which a
person can cultivate:

1. Truthfulness
2. Humility
3. Faith

The debate on whether the moral decision is a matter of emotions or reason has spilled over into the
nature of ethical thinking.

According to Thagard (2010), resolving this debate requires an evidence-based theory of emotions that
mediates between two traditional theories.

These theories are the

 cognitive appraisal view, which takes emotions as judgments about one’s accomplishment, and
the
 physiological perception view, which considers emotions as responses to every deviation in
one’s body.
  The cognitive appraisal view believes in the rational characteristic of emotion because
the truth or falsity of judgments can be evaluated.
 Meanwhile, the physiological perception view places emotions on the nonrational side
because bodily reactions are not susceptible to reason.

Generally, ethical judgments are highly emotional, mainly when people express their strong
approval or disapproval of various acts (Thagard 2010).

Ben-Ze-ev (1997), on the other hand, argues that free choice is involved in any moral decision. Many
philosophers will agree with this statement. However, Ben-Ze-ev added that free choice entails
intellectual deliberations.

Without intellectual deliberations, we cannot be responsible for our emotions. Responsibility may be
characterized in two aspects as causality and blameworthiness.

In relation to these, Ben-Ze-ev (1997) illustrates the following:

“P is causally responsible for X if P is the cause for X. Thus, if P hands over a glass containing poison to X
and consequently X dies, then although P is causally responsible for X’s death, P is not to be blamed for
this death if he did not know that the glass contained poison. The central sense of moral responsibility is
that of blameworthiness. It can be divided into direct and indirect responsibility.”

To shape our character properly is partially out of responsibility but is neither entirely nor directly under
our control.

Given that we are responsible for our character traits, we are accountable for our emotions because
managing them is easy.

Emotions and character traits, therefore, are socialized modes of responses and not raw impulses (Ben-
Ze-ev, 1997).