are emotion and reason equally necessary in justifying moral decisions?

Answer 1

Hitler reasoned that it was OK to kill innocent men, women, and children....which was one of the most immoral things in human history.

Answer 2

Consent is the basis of moral and ethical decisions affecting people and relationships. We cannot know everything, but if we listen to one another, we can check and balance our decisions, mediate, and agree upon the best solutions based on all available input, information and considerations. So long as we take into account any objections from ourselves or others and resolve those, decisions made by consensus satisfy both emotion and logic without contradicting one or the other. This is the ideal.

So both reason and emotion are necessary for this process.

Reason or logic helps us to sort out what is contradictory and what would satisfy all conditions to maximize the good, minimize the suffering or sacrifice, and verify where the parties affected agree is equally fair to all concerned.

However, emotions can guide us into the past or future, to ideas beyond our conscious knowledge, that we may not otherwise consider in the equation. Intuition plays a far greater role in decisions than our limited logic can justify. In the end, the intuitive unconscious drive in our consciences, that guides us by our emotions, is the source of new ideas or revelations that cannot come from pure logic based on past experiences alone.

Reason is needed to bridle this creative innovative side of human nature, that pushes us to better ourselves, to do more to improve our current or past situations. So both are needed to balance each other. But Reason cannot be applied without the emotional "feel" of what is true or false, what is right or wrong, what seems better or worse or closer to the ideal solution.

The two work together, but emotion/unconscious feeling drives our reasoning, which is used to sort out the signals and choices to reconcile with practical circumstances, including how our decisions affect others.

Answer 3

No, emotion is a distraction that usually proves counterproductive when justifying a moral decision. It tends to cause bias, which could cause a decision to be made incorrectly by favoring the less appropriate.

Answer 4

Always balance emotion with logic. In what proportion, I am not sure.

I think it should weigh on the side of logic, cause emotions can change and too easily sway you.

Emotions really do need some say so. It won't work at all if it's not from the heart.

Answer 5

Psychologists tell us that we as human beings are creatures 'either/or':
We either trust our five senses or prefer to trust our 'hunches'.
We either live in the 'here and now' or 'live anticipating the future'.
We either prefer what is concrete or real or rather pay attention to what could be.
We either rely on common sense (knowledge) or rather rely on imagination.
We either think is more important to rely on facts others to possibilities.
If we can combine all our faculties to arrive at moral decisions yes, good for us but to arrive at a correct moral decision we do not need to apply emotion and reason equally.

Answer 6

i might would desire to declare the proportion an the two... without reasoning we does no longer comprehend our emotions, and why we've them. on the different hand we reason the history and modern-day supply use our unique emotions that alter each 2d. so as this is my handle it. as far as effecting our ethical judgements reasoning can substitute it. In WW2 the solders knew that killing adult males replaced into against the morals yet reasoned that so as too fix peace to the international they might % to do what ever it took.

Answer 7

Well if you don't justify moral decisions on emotion or reason, what do you justify them on? Religious doctrine?

Answer 8

Emotions are the bane of moral reasoning!

Answer 9

of course! You're emotion & reason and theirs, the humanity. It can never be immoral if everybody says it's moral, right?

Answer 10

i think reason overpowers emotions. emotions can distract from what's right and wrong and ultimately have you make the wrong decision. for example if you were really close to someone who was cutting themselves, and they asked you not to say something you SHOULD because it's right, loyalty to that person could get in the way with their overall wellbeing.

Answer 11

Moral decisions should be based on reason alone.