Moral decisions are based on emotions which are defined as a state of consciousness distinguished from cognitive and volitional states. Emotions are instinctual rather than intellectual, being an immediate reaction to a situation before we have time to analyze it. Some philosophers, like David Hume and Arthur Schopenhauer, have asserted that a person would have to be emotionally motivated to act morally while Immanuel Kant thought that emotions are too fleeting to be a stable foundation for moral behavior. He said that rational thought and an objective appraisal of one's duties would lead to the right actions. Duty being “the result of a purely rational understanding of obligation...and so the result of a cognitive process” (Liszka 41). This is the general thought behind the modern tradition of ethical studies. Starting around the time of the Age of Enlightenment, there has been a focus on systematic rules and principles as a behavioral guide.
Morals are, indeed, rules governing right action. Cultures have mutually recognized standards of behavior and an effective member of that society will have internalized those norms. Kant advocated that norms ought to be based on reason, but reason alone is not enough to motivate people to behave morally right. There is little rational reason to save a stranger's baby that is about to fall off a cliff and you could be injured in the attempt. Moral decisions with no emotional basis would be made with only our own benefit in mind.
The Trolley Problem, a thought experiment by the philosophers Phillippa Foot and Judith Jarvis Thomson (Pinker 2008), illustrates reason versus emotion in a more subtle manner. While out walking, you see an out of control trolley heading toward a group of five men working on the tracks. They are too far from you to warn verbally but you are close to a lever that, if switched, would divert the trolley to another set of tracks. There is a single man working on the second set of tracks. Is it right to throw the lever and sacrifice one man for the sake of five?
Re-imagine the scene without the lever to switch the trolley's tracks. The only way to stop the trolley is to throw something heavy in it's path. The only heavy object at your disposal is a very over-weight man. Is it right to throw the man onto the tracks?
Rationally, there is no difference in the two scenarios. You have an opportunity to save five people by sacrificing the life of one. Most people, though, will throw the switch but not throw the man onto the tracks and find it difficult to explain why. This experiment was performed with 200,00 people from a hundred countries (Pinker 2008). It demonstrates that people of different cultures have similar reactions to the same moral dilemma and that they are not aware of the mechanism behind their decision making. They are therefore not using reason or logic when faced with an emotionally charged moral choice. People instinctively recognize the subtle differences in seemingly equivalent situations that a reason-based method would ignore.
The question remains whether or not people can make the right moral decision based on reason alone. Studies of people with antisocial personality disorders suggest that the answer is “no.” Those who are diagnosed with such disorders, or psychopaths, lack the restraining effects of moral emotions and have been unable to internalize the norms of their society. They are aware of and can explain the standards of behavior but are not morally motivated to abide by them. Psychopaths are intellectually functional and possess the cognitive skills to make rational decisions but are unable to make moral decisions.
In place of objective duty, Arthur Schopenhauer believed that caring or sympathy is the prime moral sentiment in making decisions and that “reason by itself would make us indifferent” (Liszka 41). If you have no sympathy for another, there is no reason to help them in a time of need but a feeling of obligation would arise through an emotional sense of connection to other people. Schopenhauer states that no man would think to codify his ethical stance without already having “occasion for it...been given by another, positively effective, real moral motive...” (Liszka 68). Rational deliberation does not nor can it serve as the fundamental basis for morality. People require moral sentiment to make proper judgments.
Jonathan Haidt says in his paper “The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail” that “reason can let us infer that a particular action will lead to the death of many innocent people, but unless we care about those people, unless we have some sentiment that values human life, reason alone cannot advise against taking the action” (Haidt 2001). In respecting a person, you are acknowledging that they are a human being whose life has value. We have to care about people in order to respect them. If you care about, or respect, a person you will maintain a moral standard in your interactions with them. While you may come to respect a person over time by getting to know them, if that were the only kind of respect, we would only treat morally those we know well.
Moral knowledge is a systematic method of policing our emotional reactions. It is an effective tool when your morals are in conflict, either within yourself, between yourself and another person, or between yourself and an entire culture. Moral knowledge is an evaluative tool that can keep our thinking in line with what is truly moral but cannot define morality itself. When our emotions are compromised, we may be in danger of acting wrong and falling back on reason and knowledge can lead to a correction of those actions. But moral knowledge is used only after we make an emotional judgment and that is often mere rationalization, not decision making. This explains people's inability to understand the source of their judgment in the Trolley Problem.
Moral knowledge is something that requires time, “learning, study, and reflection” (Liszka 311). It requires active pursuit of rules and principles that justify your beliefs universally but must be generalized because each situation that requires moral judgment in each persons life is necessarily unique and nuanced. “Following rules mechanically makes for moral idiocy” (Liszka 311). The need for the rules to be generalized dilutes its efficacy as a fundamental basis for moral behavior. This method demands that one have a perfect understanding of all variables involved in each particular situation. It is analytical to the point of absurdity.
Moral decisions cannot be based on pure reason. These are decisions dealing with dynamic interactions with other people not situations occurring in a vacuum that are obedient to universal laws. Without a complete emotional inventory our moral foundation will be dubious at best and completely absent at worst. We are able to employ reasoned reflection in order to maintain a moral standard or to codify our principles but it is our emotional reactions that act as a basis of those principles.
Works Cited
Liszka, James Jakob. Moral Competence: An Integrated Approach to the Study of Ethics. 2nd ed. Upper Sadle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002. Print.
Haidt, Jonathan. "The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach To Moral Judgment." Psychological Review. 108.4 (2001): 814-834. Print.
Pinker, Steven. "The Moral Instinct." New York Times 13 Jan. 2008: n. pag. Web. 2 Nov. 2010.
