Noah C.

Densing
Philo 23 – NC
February 4, 2020
Assignment

Do Emotions and Morality Mix: A Position Paper

It has become a preconceived notion of many that there is subjectivity in morality. Wherever one might
travel to, different cultures have different standards for what we call “right” and “wrong” based on what they feel
about certain practices, people, things, and events. Such has become a topic of heated debate even in Ethics because
of the idea of having no universal standard yet due to the variety of views. Some have even embraced rationality in
the end because it gives out a standard process of going about everyday life.
However, in times of dilemma, especially in a moral one, the situation begs to question the decision of a
person on what he or she would act in order to resolve it in its urgency. One very good and common example is a
family member who is suffering but has a chance to still be saved given enough time against the person’s ability to
pay the hospital bills. Rationality would require the person to let go rather than to let that family member wake up to
a life drowned in debt. However, in some cases the person would keep on going, valuing the immediate life in front
of him or her and eventually work on finances later. When a person gets interviewed about why it was the action
chose, the reply goes along the thought that it is the right thing to do. Morality has been associated with the idea of
doing “the right thing”, but based on the situation, the person did it because of valuation of someone dear to him or
her, which is an evident sign of using emotion for decision.
There is a proposition that people would not use emotions as basis for guiding morality. A war, for
example, would entice a nation to fight back against a terrorizing force because of the benefits of peace and
prosperity if such a force is thwarted. In this case, some would consider that a moral decision because it is objective
in nature and goal. However, wars don’t follow such noble goals as the main source of fighting back. People join
wars in fear and pride. These two things are or are sources of emotions. People who are to be attacked will be on the
defense and join in fear of being captured, tortured, reoriented to another culture, and more. People who attack do so
because of pride, or maybe in some cases, desperation for survival. These are not objective thoughts, but rather
subjective ones. The only objective things here are the war plans. The reasons for doing so are a different story.
Therefore, emotions and morality mix. Because of the latter’s subjectivity, one cannot escape the fact that
emotions will be a huge part in doing so. Sure, there is no part in the brain that specializes in morality with emotions
as a central guide unlike the prefrontal cortex that process rationality and cognition as mentioned by psychology
professor Joshua Greene in an article of The Atlantic in 2016, but the actions and motivations of people show things
that looking at the brain just can’t justify. There is a rationalization of emotions in play, but it gives out the
impression of false objectivity, which is akin to transcribing a non-Latin text to a Latin one and calling it part of the
Romance languages, but when someone looks at the context, the whole sentence is a foreign one. It is an
unescapable truth to which one might deny verbally but do unconsciously.

Reference:
Davis, L. C. (2016, February 5). Do Emotions and Morality Mix? Retrieved February 4, 2020, from
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/how-do-emotions-sway-moral-thinking/460014/