FEELINGS AND MORAL DECISION-MAKING

FEELING

 Play a major role in most of the ethical decisions people make.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Feeling. There is no doubt that our feelings greatly affect our moral decisions, especially if there is an investment
of attachment towards the objects or persons involve in a given moral decision. If my loved ones or close friends
are involved in a situation in which I have to make moral decision, I am inclined to protect them on the ground
of my emotional attachment. For example, if my best friend is involved in a dispute over something against
someone, I am more inclined to immediately side with my best friend regardless of the situation or context.
Here, my moral decision is without a doubt deeply motivated by my feelings. Another example is if my sister has
involved herself in a conflict, between her and her friend, and the one who is at fault is my sister, despite this
irrevocable truth, I am still inclined to side with my sister, again this is solely motivated by my feelings.

Emotions as Moral Compass of Reason in Moral Experience

 Emotions are known to be partial because they focus only on one or narrow thing/s and personal interests. They
are from a specific perspective to a direct attention. They emphasize on practical and personal concern that
need more time and resources. They are discriminative that not everyone and not everything is of great
significance especially the utterly unrelated ones.
 Emotions are said to be a moral compasses of reason because too much reason can be very dangerous. There is
a good observation that those who are considered intellectually “giants” are often emotionally “dwarfs.” Thus,
being too intellectual without emotions or with inappropriate emotions may lead to failures.
 Ben-Ze’ev (1997) claims further that emotions are moral guides, moral supports and communicators. Emotions’s
sensitivity can be a moral guide. Feelings can become instinctive and trained response to every moral experience
in order make decisions. Having a bad feeling on a choice may help a person choose another better option. An
example Emotions as Moral Compass of Reason in Moral Experience:

EXPLANATIONS:

 EMOTIONS AS MORAL COMPASS OF REASON IN MORAL EXPERIENCE motions are important in building our
morals. We shouldn’t only use reason as a guide for to determine our choices. Emotions and reasons should
come together in order for us to take the better option.

 Philosophers during the time of Hume, placed greater emphasis on the prominence of reason over feelings.
 Western philosophers were actually reacting to the position held by the church scholars who asserted that
religious apologist, moral decisions must be rooted in religious laws and doctrines.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Sa western philosophy may tatlong philosopher sila ang pinaka unang western philosopher sa kasaysayan at
bago ang kani-kanilang kapanganakan, sina Socrates, Plato, at Aristotle ang tanging tatlo na dapat pagtuunan ng
pansin sa panahong iyon.

o During the ancient period, Plato (423BC-347BC) would argue that the function of reasons. Is to rule the appetites
and emotions. He held that the mind or the intellect, which is the highest level of the soul, is that immortal part
of the soul that gives man the capacity for truth and wisdom.

EXPLANATIONS:

 So base kasi kay Plato, yung mind or isip natin nagbibigay sa tin para maachieve yung capacity for truths and
wisdom. Yung mind natin ang nagaguide satin para maattain natin yung knowledge na kailangan natin.

o Then, the Stoics upheld that human person must be able to learn to control his passion with reason in order to
live a moral life.

EXPLANATIONS:

 The most common meaning of the word stoic is a person who remains unmoved by the sorrows and afflictions
that distress the rest of humanity. This is an accurate representation of a Stoic ideal, but it must be placed in the
context of a systematic approach to life.
Ethical subjectivism is an ethical framework based solely on one’s feeelings. Morality is not based on objectivism
(impartiality) but on what one personally feels is what believes in. There are just different opinions so, no one is right.
There are no facts, only different feelings.

Ethical subjectivism implies that each is infallible. So if one claims that divorce is moral then, nobody can question it
because one is simply defending that it is just what one feels and approves of But one’s approval of divorce may be
erroneous because it may just be to maintain interpersonal or in order not to offend pro-divorce groups.

EXPLANATIONS:

 One of the most notorious saying we grow up to know and embody is one that concerns are greatest possession,
are family. “Family comes first no matter what, because at the end of the day they are the ones who are always
there”. To most this is means to do anything possible to provide and protect our loved ones. If thrown into a
situation, could you practice what you preach? Society has guided us to believe that stealing is wrong but when
placed in the footsteps, could one think differently. For every situation moral theories is used as to explain
rather an action was right or wrong. It is depicted as being wrong in society but society never thinks about the
normal people and their life. Society believes stealing bread to feed a starving family is wrong and immoral, as
they look at as the concept of stealing, not the bigger picture. Normal people see it as a means of supporting as
they are the ones in the footsteps being walked. For this reason stealing bread to feed your starving family is
moral.

o During the early part of philosophizing, David Hume (1711-1776) believed virtue is in conformity to reason. Like
truth, morality is discerned merely by ideas. In order to distinguish the good and bad, we have to consider the
reason alone.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Sa kabilang banda, ang mga negatibong emosyon na nakadirekta sa labas ay naglalayong disiplinahin o
parusahan. Halimbawa, kadalasang galit, pagkasuklam, o pang-aalipusta ang mga tao sa mga kumilos nang hindi
etikal. Pinipigilan nito ang iba na kumilos sa parehong paraan. Ang mga positibong emosyon tulad ng
pasasalamat at paghanga, na maaaring maramdaman ng mga tao kapag nakakita sila ng ibang kumikilos nang
may habag o kabaitan, ay maaaring mag-udyok sa mga tao na tumulong sa iba.

o For Hume, the central fact about ethics is that moral Judgements are formed not by reason alone but through
feelings.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Ang mga emosyong dulot ng pagdurusa, tulad ng pakikiramay at empatiya, ay kadalasang humahantong sa mga
tao na kumilos nang etikal sa iba. Sa katunayan, ang empatiya ay ang sentrong moral na damdamin na
kadalasang nag-uudyok sa aktibidad ng prososyal tulad ng altruismo, pakikipagtulungan, at pagkabukas-palad.
Kaya, kahit na naniniwala tayo na ang ating mga pagpapasya sa moral ay higit na naiimpluwensyahan ng ating
pilosopiya o mga pagpapahalaga sa relihiyon, sa katotohanan ang ating mga damdamin ay may mahalagang
papel sa ating etikal na paggawa ng desisyon.

Hume held that moral decision would always involve feelings or emotions.

 For instance, because I will feel sympathetic pain on my friend whose brother is brutally killed by a gunman. I
will surely develop a moral condemnation on the action of the killer. However, if somebody will do charitable
deed of feeding a street child, I will surely feel sympathetic pleasure for that person. Such pleasure originates
from my moral approval of the good deed.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Ang moral na kaisipan ni Hume ay umuukit ng maraming natatanging pilosopikal na posisyon. Tinatanggihan niya
ang rationalist conception ng moralidad kung saan ang mga tao ay gumagawa ng moral na mga pagsusuri, at
nauunawaan ang tama at mali, sa pamamagitan lamang ng katwiran. Sa halip na rasyonalistang pananaw,
ipinaglalaban ni Hume na ang mga pagsusuri sa moral ay nakadepende nang malaki sa sentimyento o
damdamin.
Emotivism or the “Boo/Hurrah theory” is primarily developed by Charles L. Stevenson. It is an improved ethical
subjectivism. This holds that moral judgments express feelings, not reasons, not moral truths, not moral knowledge. In
looking at an image, one feels somethings about the image that makes him remark either “Bool” (ex: Wala yan!) o
“Hurrah!” (ex: Yan, ang ganda!)

EXPLANATIONS:

 EMOTIVISM/THE BOO/HURRAH THEORY In this theory moral judgments are expressed as feelings, not reasons,
not moral truths, not moral knowledge. In everything we do feelings is always there. Many criticized emotivism,
because there's always a reason on the things that's happening. For example on mercy killing. We are not
considering this as a bad action because we feel disgusted or we're disapproving, but because of the reason that
it's not the right thing to do. By ending someone's life we're cutting off his/her life to live, violating his/her
human rights.

Emotivism has two different purposes: to influence behavior and express the speaker’s attitude. On one hand, if
one says: “Divorce is immoral,” it means “Do not divorce!” which is an attempt to influence the listener. On the other
hand, if one says: “Honest election is good it only means “Hurrah to honest election, which is just an expression of the
speaker’s emotion.

Many criticized emotivism. They believe that there is reason in moral statements and not just simply expression of
feelings. For example, if one claims that “mercy killing is bad,” it does not only express a feeling of disgust or
disapproval. It actually entails supporting reasons why killing is bad such as life is sacred or no one has the right to end
human life.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Emotivism can be considered a form of non-cognitivism or expressive. It stands in opposition to other forms of
non-cognitivism (such as quasi-realism and universal prescriptivism), as well as to all forms of cognitivism
(including both moral realism, and ethical subjectivism). Emotivism is a theory which says that moral statements
are just expressions of feelings and has no ethical knowledge. Emotivism does not tell you how to live your life,
but helps you to understand and influences moral statements.

Intuitionism is another ethical theory that judges the rightness or wrongness of an act by some kind of intuition.
Anthony Cooper calls it the “moral sense,” a feeling of attraction or repulsion and a relfex moral sensibility, which is the
reason for a deliberate choice of the right or wrong course of action. (Gualdo, 2013). This feeling of attraction or
repulsion is similar to the attraction or repulsion by beauty or ugliness. It is a built-in response to any given
circumstance.

Intuitionism is very weak. For instance, Armando cannot claim that Danny is dishonest because he simple intuits it from
Danny’s wife. It is illogical and unverifiable to say that something is good or right because one intuits or feels it to be that
way.

In moral decision-making wherein a policeman decides who to save whether the leader or innocent children, it is very
hard to accept that he chose to save the leader by simply by intuition. There must be a good reason or justification for
such choice. People are affected by every decision so that they too deserve explanation.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Intuitionism in ethics is the view that some moral judgments such as goodness, rightness, are known to be by
immediate or uninterred knowledge”. Hence, moral actions of a sort could be known to either be right or wrong
by an uninterrupted intuition of either their rightness or wrongness, the value of their consequences regardless.
It is therefore the doctrine that there are moral truths discoverable by intuition; the doctrine that there is no
single principle by which to resolve conflicts between intuited moral rules; the theory that ethical principles are
known to be valid through intuition.

Evaluating Situationism
 Situationism is an ethical framework developed by Joseph Fletcher (1960). This holds that the foundation
of moral truth is agape (love), which is the only thing of intrinsic value. He recommends the following
principles, which are controversial to moral/ethical thinkers.

Principles of Situationism

1. “Love is the only norm,” love is the only law. It rejects legalism.
2. “Love and justice are the same,” no love is no justice.
3. “Love is not liking”, but is discerning and critical, not Sentimental. Christian love is non-selfish love of all people.

4. “Love only is always good,” so when one lies for a loving purpose, his lying is right because of its loving purpose.
 5. “Love justifies the means.” This goes with #4.

6. “Love decides there and then,” that is, love’s decisions are made simultaneously, not prescriptively.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Si Joseph Fletcher yung nagdevelop nung situationism which ia an ethical framework wherein ang
foundation nito ay tinatawag na agape or love.

Emotional resilience as an instinctive and trained response to a moral dilemma is the acceptance of the difficult
situation and the negative consequences of a moral decision. There may be stressors and disappointments in a moral
dilemma, but emotional resilience is a great response of avoiding actions and negative effects that might stress the
decision-maker.

Emotional resilience is accepting the fact that moral dilemmas is a difficult situation but one has to make a choice
that could be between two evils or two goods.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Emotional Resilience. It pertains to an acknowledgement of the absurdity of the situation you are
entangled with, recognizing the difficulty of making a decision because there is no guaranteed in
the possible consequences of your action whether it will lead to something morally desirable or
undesirable. Meaning, you are caught in the midst of moral dilemma, the domain of uncertainties
and unknowns. The ability to confront that moral dilemma regardless of consequence exemplifies
the emotional resilience. Persistence, endurance, and transcendence are integral elements of
emotional resilience.

Emotionally resilience for her is achieved when one

1. Attain self-awareness or gain deeper understanding of emotions. One must learn to attune with one’s own
feelings. Self-awareness makes one cognizant with the emotional tendencies that are harmful and beneficial,
develops courage to look for answers to the emotions, attunes with the inner world of emotions, and enables
proper directing or controlling of emotions.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Attain self-awareness or gain deeper understanding of emotions. It refers to our ability to distinguish
which emotions are considered as positive (beneficial) because it could help us develop our own selves
and they even inspire the production of ethical acts, from that of negative (harmful) emotions which could
lead into something destructive or barbaric such as aggression, obsession, and the likes.

2. Gain persistence of emotions. One must train to be consistent in having and exercising the right feelings for
every situation. Even in dealing external stressors or handling internal conflicts, proper emotions should
persistently control the situation. Wrong emotions exercised for a certain situation may aggravate the dilemma
and could invite unnecessary strong negative emotions.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Gain Persistence of Emotions. It refers to our ability to control and utilize the proper and corresponding
emotion for a certain situation. It implies that each situation is unique because it requires an involvement
of specific emotion. Thus, one must be conscious enough in his own selves, especially in his emotion, in
order to choose the proper emotion in a particular situation, which could yield positive, ethical, and
likeable outcome, otherwise it would only aggravate or worsen the current situation.

3. Train Emotional Control. This is learning how to manipulate and redirect feelings. One can be overwhelmed by
stress that may affect one’s life. But if one knowd how to divert that strong feelings produced by these, reason
may not surge fast into drawing conclusions.

EXPLANATIONS:

 When your child has a meltdown, you may feel angry or even amused, but instead of yelling or laughing,
you regulate your emotions in order to talk to your child calmly about how she could react. So when you
notice some tension or anger in your body, first practice slowing things down by taking deep breaths.
 4. Have flexible emotions. This should correspond with and be supported by a flexible thinking. Emotions are
naturally spontaneous in response to stimuli and vary from time. But with the flexibility of emotions one is able
to use different strategies of controlling and stimulate emotions as the situations change. This powerful social
skill incorporates positive emotions, optimism, adjustability including rationality and positive thinking in the
worst and hardest situations.

EXPLANATIONS:

 The flexibility models describe adaptive forms of emotion regulation as involving flexible use of different
strategies depending on current situational demands. Claim that emotion regulation strategies are not
purely effective and adaptive nor purely in-effective and not adaptive. Thus, we define flexible emotion
regulation as the ability to effectively regulate emotions by applying different emotion strategies (chosen
from a broad repertoire) in different situations depending on the features of a situation and one’s own
personality characteristics.

Emotions and Culture affect Moral Behavior

Child’s moral behaviors such as how he feels, learns, thinks and behaves are developed by his culture and
emotions through rules, modelling, education, peoples, rewards, and punishment. These are continuously nurtured by
culture and emotions already learned.

Emotions and culture also have a motivating role of supporting moral behaviors and opposing immoral behaviors.
Elicited emotions to either support or oppose behaviors are often nurtured by a group of people until they become the
“culture”-an “instant mechanism that immediately expresses approval to good behaviors and disapproval to bad
behaviors. Thus, people who do immoral acts a community are sometimes shown unfriendly behaviors such as
insensitive remarks: where as to those who do moral acts are met with friendly behaviors. Such as being given gifts or
special favors.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Mayroong mainit na debate tungkol sa kung ano ang nilalayon ni Hume sa bawat isa sa mga tesis na ito at
kung paano niya pinagtatalunan ang mga ito. Ipinapahayag at ipinagtatanggol niya ang mga ito sa loob ng
mas malawak na konteksto ng kanyang metaethics at ang kanyang etika ng birtud at bisyo.

Emotions just like culture reveal moral values that are behind every moral behavior. Since emotions and culture
express profound values, moral behaviors either become meaningful or meaningless Basically, they make moral
behaviors relevant. Taking care of elders with love, respect and compassion reveals how Filipinos value their culture,
relationship and human life, and sympathize with the elders.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Sa partikular, ito ay dahil mayroon tayong mga kinakailangang emosyonal na kapasidad, bilang karagdagan
sa ating kakayahan sa pangangatwiran, na maaari nating matukoy na ang ilang aksyon ay mali sa etika, o
ang isang tao ay may mabuting moral na karakter. Dahil dito, nakikita ni Hume ang mga moral na
pagsusuri, tulad ng aming mga pagsusuri sa aesthetic na kagandahan, na nagmumula sa kakayahan ng tao
ng panlasa. Higit pa rito, ang prosesong ito ng moral na pagsusuri ay lubos na umaasa sa kakayahan ng tao
para sa pakikiramay, o ang ating kakayahang makibahagi sa mga damdamin, paniniwala, at emosyon ng
ibang tao.

Feelings as Obstacle in Making Right Decisions

Feelings were shown earlier as obstacle in making right decision. This is why ethical subjectivism, emotivism,
intuitionism and situationism were rendered as weak ethical theories. Hence, intuitions, ove, preferences, attitudes and
likings cannot be fully trusted.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Feelings as Obstacle Pamilyar ba kayo sa quote na “Don’t promise when you’re happy, Don’t reply when
you’re angry, and don’t decide when you’re sad.” Kung nasa state tayo na masaya tayo wag tayo basta
bastang nangangako, because there’s a greater chance na hindi natin matupad yung mga pangako natin.
For example, sa jowa mo oh diba masaya pa kayo tapos pinangakuan mong pakakasalan mo pero sa di
inaasahang pagkakataon nagbreak kayo. Edi dito na pumapasok yung promises are meant to be broken.
Wag ding magsalita ng kung ano anong masasakit na salita sa iba kung galit tayo kasi nga hindi na natin
mababawi yun kung nasabi na natin. Hindi mo na rin maaalis yung sakit na nararamdaman nung taong
nasabihan mo ng ganoon. So never decide when you are sad. Wag nating pairalin yung feeling natin when
making decisions. There are circumstances na magkacloud ang judgments natin then nakakagawa tayo ng
mga bagay na pagsisihan din natin sa huli.
 However, ethical debate is always meaningful as it concerns a good understanding, progress, truth, and life. This
ultimately leads to the comparison of moral standards with actual goodness to life. It cannot be limited to just saying “I
believe this” but “you believe that” so “that is it.”

Too much dependence on emotions may end human reason and human civilization. Denying reason is also rejecting
moral truths and moral knowledge that are capable of bringing society to moral development and challenging people to
aspire for human perfection and flourishing life.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Ethical debates in the research methods literature were once primarily about the ethical implications of
some research practices (mostly the propriety of covert research) and of some data collection techniques
(mostly participant observation), and ethical debates about honesty, integrity, trust and confidentiality
were framed within this limited focus.

Feelings as Help in Making Right Decisions

Reason is said to be the foundation of morality but emotion is the reason’s moral compass and the very soul or spirit
of morality. Emotions essentially give guidance to reason and carefully warn it not to become abusive and “dry” or too
formal as it may no longer be practical and relevant to people and the society.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Feeling as Help in Making Right Decisions. ‘Educated or trained properly by reason.’ Meaning, our feelings
or emotions should be guided by reason in order to be an effective guidance for moral decision because
reason is the source of rational principles that will serve as the light of our action in our journey towards a
righteous path. Thus, reason will determine which is which, the correct from incorrect course of action,
because of reason our emotions become rational. Nevertheless, emotion and reason should supplement
each other in a moral decision because the former serve as the ‘soul or spirit of morality’, because of
which our reason becomes sensuous. Emotion and reason, therefore, should coexist because they are two
sides of the coin so to speak. For example, emotions like gratitude and admiration, which we feel every
time we see a person driven with compassion or kindness, could have a positive effect because it might
encourage us to help others. Another example are those emotions that are provoked by feeling of pain or
suffering, such as sympathy and empathy, they might drive us to act ethically towards the others.

Emotions (Ben Ze’ev, 1997) are profound and sincere that their roles in relationships should be considered in moral
evaluation. This is only if they are educated or trained properly by reason.

According to Ben-Ze’ev (1997), human persons naturally care about how they feel. “Emotions are genuine
expressions of the persons’ basic attitudes and enduring values. When persons really value something, their evaluation
is often accompanied by a certain emotion.” Emotions should always be considered by reason to truly have a right
decision.

Ben-Ze’ev (1997) adds that “a spontaneous emotional system and a deliberate intellectual system are both
important conducting moral life. They are both independent voices and influencer to each other even in their conflict
because it is indicative of a moral dilemma that needs extra, immediate and careful attention.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Emotions give guidance to reason. It means that without this the reason will be nothing. We should also
put our hearts on the things that we are working.

GROUP 4

NEMER, RICCEL JOSH M.

MARTIN, MAE

MAGNO, VONJOVI

LACHICA, READLY DANE

NAVARRO, JOHN MICHAEL

MIRANDA, MARCJAREL