LESSON 5: FEELINGS AS A MODIFIER OF MORAL DECISION MAKING

• Feelings - It refers to the nominalization of the verb to feel
• It is also used to describe experiences other than physical sensation of touch as "a feeling of warmth" and of sentience in general
• Sentire - In Latin, it means to feel, hear and smell
• Quick Intuition - Emotions provide rapid, instinctive responses to moral dilemmas, helping individuals make swift decisions in complex situations
• Moral Salience - Feelings can highlight the moral significance of a situation, prompting individuals to give more thought to ethical considerations
• Empathy and compassion - Feelings like empathy can lead to more compassionate and unselfish moral decisions, promoting the well-being of others
• Emotion Driven-bias - Strong emotions can introduce bias into moral judgments, leading to decisions that may not align with reasoned ethical principles
• Impulsivity - Intense emotions can lead to impulsive decisions that do not consider the full moral complexity of a situation
• Subjectivity - Feelings are subjective, and what one person feels as morally right may differ from another person's perspective, making moral decisions highly individualistic
• Emotions - It can lead to inconsistent moral judgements, where the same situation may elicit different moral responses depending on one's emotional state
• Feelings can act as obstacles in making what are considered "right" decisions within the frameworks of ethical subjectivism and emotivism
• Non-cognitivism - is a broad category of ethical theories that reject the idea that moral statements express objective facts or propositions
• Ethical subjectivism and Emotivism - are both forms of non-cognitivism in metaethics
• Ethical subjectivism asserts that morality is subjective and based on individual feelings, beliefs, or opinions. This subjectivity can create challenges when trying to determine objective moral standards
• Moral relativism - each individual's feelings dictate their own moral code
• Emotivism - suggests that moral statements are expressions of emotions or attitudes, essentially reducing moral judgments to emotional response
• Gather facts - The simplest way of clarifying an ethical dilemma is to make sure the facts are clear
• Dtermine the ethical ussues - Ethical interests are stated in terms of legitimate competing interests or goods. The competing interests are what creates the dilemma
• Determine what virtues/Principles have a bearing on the case - • In an ethical dilemma, certain values and principles are central to the competing positions
• List the alternatives - Creatively determine possible courses of action for your dilemma
• Compare alternatives with the virtues/principles - This step eliminates alternatives as they are weighed by the moral principles which have a bearing on the case. Here you must satisfy all the relevant virtues and values
• Consider consequences - If principles have not yielded a clear decision consider the consequences of your alternatives
• Make a decision - Ethical decisions rarely have pain-free solutions - it might be you have to choose the solution with the least number of problems / painful consequences