UNIT 3: THE ACT

Learning Outcomes:

In this lesson, you are expected to:

1. Know our responsibility for our actions and the voluntary nature of moral purpose.
2. Recall immediate response to moral dilemma.
3. Differentiate responses based on reason and those based on feelings.
4. Capture and analyze their feelings in personal moral experiences.
5. Compare reasonable and emotional responses.
6. Judge their own moral behavior in terms of planning and execution in important moral experiences.

Introduction:

You make moral decisions daily. However, have you noticed that some decisions are automatic
responses and that you are not consciously deciding at all? For example, you help an elderly cross the
road. Without thinking, you ran to the opposite side or the road, away from some perceived danger. Your
desire to help and your fear of danger are gut reactions while reasoned argument is just swirling beneath
conscious awareness.

This section addresses the following questions: What is the role of feelings in moral decisions?
What are the disadvantages of over-reliance on feelings? How can we make reasoned and impartial
decisions? Why is reason not enough in carrying out moral decisions?

Discussion:

Feelings as instinctive and trained response to moral dilemmas

Ancient to contemporary philosophers discussed the role and importance of feelings in moral
decision-making.

Hume and the Philosophy of the Mind

Philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist David Hume (1711-1776) famously placed himself
in opposition to most moral philosophers, ancient and modern, who argued to regulate actions using reason
and that reason has dominion over feelings or emotions. Hume is best known in ethics for asserting four
theses:

1. Reason alone cannot be a motive to the will, but rather is the slave of the passions.

2. Moral distinctions are not derived from reasons, but derived from the moral sentiments: feelings or
approval (Esteem, praise) and disapproval (blame) felt by spectators who contemplate character trait or
action.

3. While some virtues and vices are natural, others (including justice) are artificial (Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, 2016).

Hume maintained that, although reason is needed to discover the facts of any concrete situation,
reason alone is insufficient to yield a judgment that something virtuous or vicious (Hume, 2003; Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2016). Hume sided with the moral sense theorists that a person gains
awareness of moral good and evil by experiencing the pleasure of approval and the uneasiness of
disapproval.

According to Hume's "Theory of the Mind', humans have what he called passions (which he used
to describe emotions or feelings). He further classified passion as direct and indirect. The direct passions
are caused directly by the sensation or pain or pleasure; the passion that "arises immediately from good
or evil, from pain or pleasure that we experience or expect to experience. For example, desire is a direct
passion because it is an immediate response to the pleasure we expect to feel. Other direct passions
include aversion, hope, fear, grief, and joy. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2016; Cohon, 2010)

Indirect passions are caused by the sensation of pain or pleasure derived from some other idea or
impression. For example, pride is a passion that emanated from the pleasure you get for possessing
something admirable (it could be intellect, physique, property, family, etc.). Pride, therefore, is but a result
of the person, the object of the passion, and quality or the object. Other indirect passions are humility,
ambition, vanity, love, hatred, envy, pity, malice, generosity. (Blattner, 2017).

However, Hume acceded that there are instances wherein passion can be unreasonable. He said
this could happen when we make a mistake in judgment or our opinion is wrong, Strictly speaking, it is not
passion that can be called unreasonable in these instances because it was the judgment or the opinion that
was wrong in the first place. Once the judgment or opinion 1s corrected, passion yields to reason without
any opposition. (Norton & Norton, 2007).

Scheler and the Philosophy of Feelings

Max Ferdinand Scheler was an important German Ethical philosopher distinguished for his
contributions in phenomenology, ethics and philosophical anthropology (Davis and Steinbock, 2016). As a
phenomenologist, Scheler sought know what comprised the structures of consciousness, including that
mental act such as feeling, thinking, resolve, etc. as well as the inherent objects or correlates of these
mental acts such as values, concepts, and plans (Frings, 2013).

In Max Ferdinand Scheler's philosophy, the emotion is the most important aspect in human
existence (Dy, 1986). Scheler asserted that emotions/feelings are inherent objective, and it exists even if
you have not experience if before (a priori). He also claimed that feelings are independent of the mind; that
it corresponds to the Divine Plan (Ch Frings, 2017; Tymieniecka, 1993). According to Schelert, human
feelings are not chaotic. It is actually strict, exact, and objective. It follows a peculiar form of laws that you
cannot avoid and is obligated to follow. He firmly rejected the idea that feelings are in the subconscious and
asserted that it is actually the purest sphere of human consciousness. (Tymieniecka, 1993).

Scheler presented four strata of feelings. He claimed that these strata or levels are constant and it
follows and exact order of importance. He called these levels or feelings as the stratification model of
emotive life.

1. Sensual feelings

2. Vital feelings

3. Psychic feelings

4. Spiritual feelings
 Sensual feelings involve bodily pleasures or pain. Vital feelings are the life functions such as health,
sickness, energy, fatigue, etc. Psychic feelings are about aesthetics, justice, and knowledge (scientific).
Lastly, Spiritual feelings deal with the Divine. (Moran and Parker, 2015).

According to Scheler, of the four, it is spiritual feelings alone that are intentional. This means
spiritual feelings are directed to a particular special object or a higher being that he attributed to as the
Divine. Scheler believed that values of the holy are the highest of all values because it has the ability to
endure through time. Thus, since it possessed the nature of intent, Scheler philosophized that among all
the tour levels, spiritual feelings is the most important (Moran and Parker, 2015).

Difference Between Responses Based on Reason and on Feelings.

On the opposite side of the discussion about the role of feelings in a decision are those who
argued on the use of reason over feelings. Philosopher and Professor Dr. James Rachels asserted that in
moral reasoning, you could not rely on your feelings no matter how powerful these feelings may be.
Feelings can and merely a product of your prejudice, selfishness, or cultural conditioning. The morally
right thing to do is one that is supported by rational arguments. An argument is reasonable if:

a. The facts are correct.

b. The moral principles are correctly applied.
c. Each individual's well-being is treated equally important.
What is the Role of Feelings in Decision-Making

Reason plays a role in making a moral decision. Philosophers encourage the use of reason in
making moral decisions. However, it should be noted too that our moral compasses are also powerfully
influenced by feelings. Hume claimed that in any given situation a person would act based on emotions
rather than reason (Bucciarelli, et al.,2008). For example, your teacher announced there would be a long
test next meeting. After school, you saw a classmate at the mall. You knew she was absent when your
teacher announced the test. However, you did not go out of your way to inform her about the test. Why?
No particular reason really .It could be that you just did not feel like telling her; or you were not that close
anyway; or you just passed by each other you barely had time to talk; etc.

On several instances, reasoning in moral decisions is preceded by an initial intuition or gut-feel

(Haidt, 2012). For instance, in choosing between studying and partying before an exam you already feel
some negative emotions (guilt, worry) just thinking about going out rather than studying. 20th century
philosopher Alfred Jules Ayer described two elements in moral judgment: the 'emotive" and the "prescriptive
elements (2012). The emotive element in moral decisions meant expressing positive feelings towards a
particular act. For example, "Kindness is good" meant you feel positive about acts of kindness. When you
feel positively about an act, you do not only do the act you also feel this act should be encouraged that
others may follow. This is where the second element prescriptive comes in such as saying “Be kind to
others:" The prescriptive element, in a sense, is an instruction or prescription of a particular behavior.

Why feelings can be obstacles to making the right decision

There are three central features as to why emotions can be obstacles in making the right decisions:
 Non Deliberate Nature of Feelings

Deliberate means the act was intentional, planned, with conscious effort. Non-deliberate is the
contrary term that denotes spontaneous actions. It is doing something without thinking through. For
instance, you run to your bed the moment you turn off the light because you are afraid. Why did the darkness
scare you? You never thought about it, you just ran. Not surprisingly, you will find that a common excuse
for doing a grossly undesirable act was "being overcome by emotions in that customary restraints failed (“I
couldn’t help myself"; "I totally blanked out; "I felt overwhelmed; I don’t know, I just felt like doing it"). Under
this characterization, emotions are no different from mindless automatic reflex.

Philosopher Aaron Been Zeev summarized the nondeliberate nature of feelings as follows:

1. Responsibility entails free choice; if we are not free to behave in a certain manner, then we are
not responsible for this behavior.
2. Free choice entails an intellectual deliberation in which alternatives are considered and the best
one is chosen. Without such consideration, we clearly cannot understand the possible
alternatives and are not responsible for preferring one of them.
3. Since intellectual deliberation is absent from emotions, we cannot be responsiblefor our
emotions (p.244).
The Partial Nature of Feelings

Emotions notoriously play favorites. It operates on a principle called "the law of concern" (Fridja,
1988) where emotions give focus only on matters of personal interest. However, emotions are quiet when
it is of no personal concern. Take for example a catastrophic event like an earthquake. The sorrow that you
feel for earthquake victims from other countries is nowhere near the level of sorrow that you feel if your
family were the victims.

There are two aspects in the partial nature of emotions:

1. Decisions based on feelings focus only on a narrow area, and

2. It reflects personal and self-interest perspectives (O'Donohue, & Kitchener, 1996; Randall,
2012).

Emotions influence our attention. Thus, it governs what attracts and holds attention. Emotions make
us preoccupied with specific matters and we become oblivious to everything else (Harvard Business
Review, 2015). The feeling of "being in love" is an example. In romantic stories this type of love is portrayed
as spending almost every waking moment thinking about the person you are "in love" with, and everything
else is just a (happy) blur. The narrow area of focus is more evident when you and your girlfriend/boyfriend
are not in good terms. You cannot think of anything else but the end of your romance and you become
overwhelmed with sadness and despair. In this narrowly focused state, you have an extremely hard time
taking other aspects that lie outside the center of attention (in this case, the "breakup") into consideration.
For example, you have a hard time focusing on your lessons; you do not feel like talking to anyone; you
even dread going to bed because you cannot sleep. In such an emotional state, your activities are all about
"getting over her/him" so that you can get yourself back together and think straight again.

The second partial nature of emotion is that it draws its perspective from personal interest. It
addresses subjective concerns and takes action primarily to satisfy such concerns (O'Donohue, &
Kitchener, 1996). For example, Gemma broke up with her boyfriend. She then dropped out of school
because she cannot bear to see him in campus with another girl. In this situation, Gemma sacrificed her
education, wasting time and money for a broken relationship. A highly partial perspective is interested only
in the immediate situation; no rational explanations from a broader perspective are relevant.

The Capricious Nature of Feelings

The third problem with emotions is that it rises up for arbitrary reasons. For example, you did not
give money to an old beggar asking for alms simply because she tugged at your shirt and startled you.
Aspects or situations that have nothing to do in moral situations could rile up your emotion, and this emotion
will certainly influence your subsequent moral judgment (Pizarro, 2000).

How Emotions Help in Making the Right Decisions

Although several studies point out the negative effects of emotion in making decisions,
contemporary research on how emotions facilitate reasoning is also catching up. Several studies suggest
that emotions are the foundation of all our cognitive and behavioral processes; and emotional responses
often guide a person in making beneficial choices without any conscious reasoning (Arnold, 1960; Damsio,
2003)

In this line of thought, researchers studied two groups of research participants. Group 1 was made
up of relatively healthy people with no history of head injury; while the second group was composed of
those with decision-making defects resulting from head injury. Both groups were measured while
performing gambling tasks. The researchers observed that Group 1 began to choose cards that were to
their advantage even before they knew what strategy worked best. While the second group continued to
choose disadvantageously even though they already knew what the best card strategy was. Moreover, in
the same gambling task, the researchers observed that the skin properties of the first group changed in
response to thinking about risky choices, even though the participants did not know the move was actually
risky. The second group, on the other hand, never had such reaction. The study suggested, "In normal
individuals, non-conscious biases guide behavior before conscious knowledge does (Bechara, et al.,
1997)".

This work, and the subsequent works that followed, indicated that emotions could help in making
better choices, even without consciously reasoning these choices out. Other studies further suggested that
negative feelings make the perfect occasion to develop emotional responses and align it with moral attudes
and goals (Gilovich and Medvec, 1995).

There are at least three ways that feelings, especially negative feelings, help in making the right
decisions:

1. It signals the need to adjust behavior.

2. It can help us learn from our mistakes.
3. Emotional responses can be reshaped as time pass by.
Psychologists have long acknowledged that emotions serve as a red flag. Emotions signal that
something is happening and that it needs attention (Arnold, 1960). Often times you get the feeling that
"something is Wrong when you make an incorrect judgment. This red flag aspect in emotions helps in
making better decisions. It had been observed too that physiological processes are heightened when
incorrect judgments were made, and those who spend more time deliberating on his or her mistake are
more likely to correct his or her behavior (50nner ana Newell, 2010; De Neys and Franssens, 2009).

We are all familiar with feeling of regret, shame, guilt, disappointment, and sadness a result from
acting contrary to what we believe as morally right. However, have shown that negative feelings are integral
to our ability to learn. The surge of negative emotions triggers 'counterfactual thinking" (Smallman and
Roese, 2009). Counterfactual thinking is a psychological concept about the human tendency to create
possible or alternative scenarios other than what had actually happened. Have you ever replayed a situation
in your mind repeatedly, thinking about how you could have done better or how you should have reacted
instead? This analysis of what went wrong present an opportunity to reflect and prepare oneself in making
a different, and possibly better, choice in the future. This idea is supported by evidence that focusing on the
action, rather than on shortcomings or weakness, can result in making better choices in similar encounters
in the future (Roese, 1994; McMullen and Markman, 2000).

The idea that behavior can be changed is a hallmark in Psychology. What is important, however,
is the idea that emotional responses can be deliberately altered. he psychological state of "mindfulness,
where you give active and open attention to personal thoughts and feelings show that, with some effort,
emotional reactions can be brought in accord with your beliefs and goals. Emotions are powerful and
unavoidable. Upsurge of feelings is natural. However, it should not control behavior nor should it prevent
reason. What we do with our feelings is what makes us ethical or unethical.