Are Reason and Emotion Equally Necessary in Justifying Moral Decisions?

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Are Reason and Emotion Equally Necessary in Justifying Moral Decisions?

        As human beings, we possess a conscience that distinguishes us from all other animal species. It is because of this conscience that humans are able to make ‘moral decisions’. How do we know right from wrong? And, equipped with this knowledge, how do we justify the moral decisions we make? The ethical principles that we carry allow us to make the distinction and justify our moral decisions. Many such sets of principles have been developed by philosophers and theologians over time. There are four major theories of conduct: religious, self-interest, universal-law, and utilitarian. This paper will analyze the roles that reason and emotion play in justifying moral decisions in the context of each of the aforementioned ethical theories in an attempt to respond to the prescribed title.

The question, of course, is whether emotion and reason are equally necessary. The focus of this essay will be on whether reason or emotion is sufficient unto itself or mutually dependent on each other when justifying moral decisions. Justification in this case involves providing explanations or proof for why a decision is ethically right. This wording suggests that reason is an essential part of the process as reason determines how we apply moral principles to the justification process by providing a rationale. Logic is used to justify a decision when conclusions are deduced from moral values or induced from past experiences. Then again, our conscience, the intuitive sense of right and wrong, provides the basis for our moral beliefs and ultimately guides us by our emotions. Emotion involves the combined feelings that are generated by memories of past experiences and contact with external stimuli; and reason cannot be applied without this emotional ‘feel’ for what is right or wrong, what seems to correspond most to the ideal moral decision. Thus, it is both our reason-based ethical systems and emotion-based values that constitute our justification processes.

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        Religious theories involve ethical codes revealed to prophets by God through divine revelation. The world’s major religions all have some form of moral law that establishes codes of conduct. The underlying assumption of these theories is that God does exist. One would justify moral decisions simply through faith, either by the fact that God has recognized a morality that exists intrinsically in the universe or that what is considered to be ethically right is considered as such because God commands it. In any case, the religious ethical codes act as the general premises from which justifications for moral decisions can ...

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