Morality is both Rational and Emotional

Notes

To act in a moral way requires us not only to know what is right, but also feel what is right. when we have knowledge without feelings, we either make cold calculations Utilitarianism, or simply never act Insight Gap Intelligence is not morality. when we have emotions without knowledge, we sometimes do bad things without thinking, or by assuming that its for a good cause Gut Feeling.

This connects to Empathy, where empathy alone is not necessarily what we want, since it could lead us to help those whose pain is most clear, not those most in need, or stop us from doing the right thing because we focus too much on the pain, and not on the solution Ethics of care.

For some, the fact that morality needs reason seems obvious, but less so for the emotional side. Emotions are not distractions we need to remove, they are a valuable source of information. Much of our social behavior is based on the emotions that it triggers within us, and while in some situations emotions can lead us astray, they are mostly a force for good. The same can be said about our rationality, in some cases we fall pray to biases, but in general we wouldn't want to delete our reasoning capability all together.

I believe that this supports the idea the morality has to stem from the person doing the action virtue theory, and can't be a premade list of rules Deontology. It has to come from a harmonious self, from a person who unites all of their sides into a single voice, reason and emotion working together.

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Overview

🔼Topic:: Ethics (MOC) ◀Origin:: Behave (book) 🔗Link::