This can be contrasted by the case of abortion; I would argue that emotion plays a bigger role in making the right moral decision. Nowadays, almost two-thirds of the women in the world may obtain a legal abortion. Many individuals, who use their emotion to determine if it is ethically correct, come to the assumption that abortion is morally wrong as it is taking the life of a human being. People who act on reason to determine whether it is wrong to abort a child can often come to either conclusion; abortion is wrong; abortion is right. For instance a young single mother who has no financial support to care for a baby might see abortion as the only option, recognizing she was not in a situation where she could fulfill the demands of parenting.
In contrast to this, a person could use reason to determine if abortion is ethically right, can come to the conclusion that it’s morally wrong, for example; most doctors advise against abortion, this belief must be based on reason, as most medical advisers cannot give emotional input into a clients case as it may give false hope to a vulnerable patient.
Pro-choice groups believe that a woman should have access to whatever health care she needs and that she should have control over her own body. Pro-life groups believe that “the embryo or fetus is "alive" and thus abortion is tantamount to murder”.
Another question that comes into factor when considering if abortion is murder would be; when does human life begin? If the conclusion is drawn that human life begins from when the baby is conceived then it is possible to use rationalism in order to prove that abortion is in fact murder. Deductive logic can be used to make a premise. For instance killing human beings is wrong; human life begins when a baby is conceived; therefore abortion is wrong.
Language has little merit in justifying whether abortion is the right moral diction. In order to asses the situation we must consider whose decision it is for a baby to be aborted. Language can be used to communicate each individual reason and emotion towards the matter at hand; however the most important point of view is not being taken into consideration; the unborn baby whose life is the one in question.
Another way language can be used is through immediate assumptions; these assumptions also lead to judgmental perceptions. As soon as the word abortion is mentioned the majority associates it as being a wrong moral decision.
It is a word more often than not is associated with a negative image; if this is the case then our perception tells us that abortion is wrong.
History essentially exists so we can learn from mistakes and use them to make correct decisions for an improved future. We cannot know everything, but if we learn from the past we can balance our decisions, and agree upon the best solutions based on all input, information and considerations available. So long as we take into account any objections from ourselves or others and resolve those, decisions made by consensus satisfy both emotion and logic without contradicting one or the other. This is the ideal.
This tells us that both reason and emotion are necessary for this process. Reason or logic helps us to sort out what is contradictory and what would satisfy all conditions to maximize the good, minimize the suffering, and verify where the parties affected agree is equally fair to all concerned.
Intuition plays a far greater role in decisions than our limited logic can justify.
In the end, the intuitive unconscious drive in our principles, that guides us by our emotions, is the source of new ideas or revelations that cannot come from pure logic based on past experiences alone.
Reason is needed to bridle this creative innovative side of human nature that pushes us to better ourselves, to do more to improve our current or past situations. Both are needed to balance each other. But Reason cannot be applied without the emotional "feel" of what is true or false, what is right or wrong, what seems better or worse or closer to the ideal solution.
In order to assess weather reason and emotion are equally necessary in justifying moral decisions we can use the matter of premature babies. This debate is still going on today and has recently occurred in the news and in the media. It is believed that babies born before 22 weeks should not be helped due to the low survival rate and high chance of severe problems in later life.
“I was born at 22 weeks, and the doctors told my mother that I wouldn't make it through the night. Of course they feared the worst, but when that 30 day mark came and went by, and that first year; doctors were amazed that I lived. I have no disabilities, I excelled in school with straight A's, and every child has a right to live, or given that chance to get the assistance to stay alive, regardless of what doctors think. Just because a baby weights just under one pound, and is very tiny, that doesn't mean that they can't beat the odds and be ok. I weighed just 1 pound 14 oz when I was born. When I finally left the hospital I was of normal weight for a baby. I think that the doctors need to look over this and decide again. That’s just my opinion.” - Tammy, New Mexico USA
The most common ways of knowing that can be used in the debate to help us know what is morally correct or not are inductive Logic, Reason and Emotion.
Doctors would use reason in the debate to decide what they think is the right thing to do. They would think logically about the effects on the range of people including the baby, the parents and the greater community.
We could also use inductive logic. This process allows particular information to become more generalized. It is more informative than deduction but less certain. To do this we would look at the information over time and then make a generalized conclusion, this is sometimes less accurate as it is very general.
Emotion is probably the biggest influence of the premature baby debate. A baby stereotypically has a big effect on people’s emotion as it is so vulnerable.
Our emotions take over and do not think of the many reasons as to why helping the baby with medical care could actually result in a lot of pain for both the baby and parents.
In conclusion we cannot have a universal law to solve this debate as there are too many conflicting opinions by different cultures, countries and religions. This is the same for all moral decisions as there are so many reasons and background premises that can affect whether it is wrong or right. Individual cases need to be analyzed and looked at in detail for a moral decision to be the best one. Therefore Emotion and reason are both important components in justifying a moral decision, however each individual case needs to be examined to determine what is needed more to make the best decision, or if each components reason and emotion are equal to making a moral decision.
Bibliography
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Ditonary.com
2
Alchin, N. (2006). Theory of Knowledge. 2nd edition, Murray Hodder
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Alchin, N. (2006). Theory of Knowledge. 2nd edition, Murray Hodder
6 id=416519&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=true
7 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/womenfamily.html?in_article_id=416519&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=true
Theory of Knowledge , Nicholas Alchin, Page 99
Abortion Rights, The national pro-choice campaign
Theory of knowledge 2nd edition, page 102
