SENTIMENTS AND

MORAL DECISION-
MAKING
Scottish Philosopher David
Hume
Morality is based not
on reason but on
emotions.
 Immanuel Kant

Man’s moral agency can only

be perfected if decisions are
based solely on rationality.
Canadian Philosopher Ronald de Sousa

In his book The Rationality

of Emotion (1987), feelings
and reason actually
complement each other, not
antagonize.
 FEELINGS AND
REASONS IN STAR TREK
To Canadian-American
Philosopher Patricia
Churchland (1996), the
relationship between
feelings and reason can
best be gleaned from the
three central characters in
the science fiction Figure 1. Spock, Kirk, and McCoy in Star Trek

television show Star

 REASON AND
IMPARTIALITY
Reason and Impartiality, as guided by sound
judgement, can be reliable tools in bypassing the
subjectivity of feelings (which sometimes distract
from making the right decisions).
Moral impetus of impartiality
Impartiality states that no one is above or beneath any
standard when making moral valuations.

Moral judgements should be backed by reason. So

in hiring someone for a key position in a company,
one should look past the racial angle and assess the
person on good reasons ( his/her qualifications,
work history, feedback from previous companies et
al.)
REASON AND IMPARTIALITY IN
THE FIRST AMENDMENT
DEFENSE ACT
The First Amendment Defense Act would prevent the
federal government from discriminating against
individuals and institutions based on their definition
of marriage or beliefs about premarital sex.
It’s scope will cover acts of discrimination committed
against the third sex that are premised on the idea that:
1.Marriage is or should be recognized as the union of
one man and woman, or
2.Sexual relations are properly reserved to such a
marriage
THE SEVEN-STEP GUIDE TO
MORAL REASONING
 THE SEVEN-STEP GUIDE TO MORAL REASONING
1. State the problem.
2. Check the facts
3. Identify relevant factors.
4. Develop a list of options.
5. Test the options.
a. Harm Test
b. Publicly Test
c. Defensibility Test
d. Reversibility Test
e. Colleague Test
f. Organization Test
g. Virtue Test
6. Come up with a choice or decision based on the above mentioned steps.
7. Review Steps 1-6.
Moral courage
In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle notes that as a
condition to be held morally responsible, we must
have been acting voluntarily.

In particular, two elements must be true: (1) a person

must be in control of their actions and (2) also must
be aware of what they're doing.
WHAT SEPERATES VICE
FROM VIRTUE?
For Aristotle, vices are just voluntarily adopted
by man as virtues.

Virtue is a trait of character , manifested in

habitual action, that is good for a person to have.

Vices, by contrast, are negative character traits that

we develop in response to emotions and urges. 
Courage defined
In examining specific virtues, such as courage,
Aristotle defined them as a “mean” between two
extremes. Courage, for example, lies between the
vices of cowardliness and rashness.
Physical and moral
courage
Physical courage is the enactment of virtue
through actual activity, such as a police officer
in pursuit of a criminal. At times, such an act
can be driven by abstractions, like pride and
honor. Though physical courage can be
principle-related, it is not exclusively principle-
driven.
Moral courage is never always demonstrated on
a physical level. Instead, engaging in such acts
serves mainly to further typify the virtues one
lives by.

Moral courage has no adoring public to play to,

for to muster it means to take the road less
travelled.
Moral courage: “determinants” and
factors
In his theoretical model of moral courage, Meyer
(2004) proposed four main factors that promote or
inhibit moral courageous behavior: (a) social and
political context, (b) situational factors, (c)
personal factors, and (d) perception of the
situation.
Supposed determinants
 The Three Elements of Moral Courage

Courage to be moral requires: 

• Obligations to honor
(What is the right thing to do?) 
• Danger management
(What do I need to handle my fear?) 
• Expression and action
(What action do I need to take to
maintain my integrity?)
When we're in a group, it's easier to assume that someone else
will step up and do something, so we don't do anything
ourselves. This leads to the bystander effect. The problem is,
when everyone assumes that someone else will act, no one
actually does.

Mood also plays an important role on whether or not a person

chooses to demonstrate helping behavior. It was subsequently
revealed that neither of the three mood sates (positive,
negative, neutral) affect one’s capacity for moral courage in
any way, as it varies depending on the situation.
Fostering factors
The first role is Social Norms, predominantly the
most salient prosocial one’s in encouraging morally
courageous acts.

The second role is that of Anger. Morally

courageous actsare often caused by moral outrage,
or the kind of anger provoked by violation of a
certain moral or ethical standard.
Moral imperative of the
will
Will is the fortitude it takes for one to act or
decide according to a personal set of
principles.
Kant’s postulate
Kant states that moral function of good will should
not be seen as a primary motivator for human
actions, be it pleasure or happiness. He further
expands on will as being classified on to two:
moral and flawed.

Flawed will is predominantly influence by the

impulses of human nature, making it’s freedom
non-absolute’ especially if compared to moral will,
which is rooted primarily in duty and reason.
Will according to
schoipenhauer
Unlike Kant, Schopenhauer has a rather pessimistic
view of will. Because man is subservient to it, he is
coerced into pursuing numerous goals that, as he will
later on find out, provide only fleeting, almost
illusory, contentment. In the end, the will is never
fully satisfied., so in order to compensate, one must
free himself up from earthly constraints (i.e. desire)
and put obligation to one’s virtue s first over
anything else.
Aquinas and royce
Aquinas argues that choice is a function of the
will in light of a judgment by the intellect. In
other words, the will moves the agent towards a
particular action, an action that has been
determined by the intellect.

For Royce, the essential attitude of will that one

must adopt toward the world is “loyalty to the
ideal of an ultimate truth.”