where on net can i find a good discussion about reason vs emotion in justifying moral decision..?

Question

perhaps a forum or blog

Answer 1

1. For business decisions:
I don't know the reference, but I was told of a study done regarding business decisions made by careful research vs. intuition. And it turned out the decisions made by instinct were either equally or more accurate/effective in comparison with the decisions made by conscious justification.

2. For mathematical or scientific justification or proof:
The famous physicist Dr. Finneman (sp?) once cited a case where he approached colleagues asking that since a sprinkler head spun in the opposite direction that it sprayed out water, what direction would a similar device spin if it sucked up water like a pump? He presented one argument that "proved" using mathematics and physics to show that it would spin in the same direction, and then changed his mind and presented the opposite argument, also using mathematics and physics, to show that it would spin in the opposite direction. Both times his peers reviewed the arguments and agreed! But not both could be correct. So he created his own simulation of such a pump head, and the result was that it did not move at all, even when he loosened it, thinking to reduce the friction. So this seemed to prove that once you have an idea that an answer is right or wrong, you can go along and agree with whatever justification seems to lean in that direction. That the emotions can be wrong, and thus mislead the logical justification to follow an incorrect line of reasoning. And only when the physical experiment proved that both the other assumptions were wrong, only then could the facts be presented to prove the other decisions were not properly justified but revealed they were emotionally based and incorrect.

3. For psychological research on learning and perception
When I took a course in college, by Prof. Watkins who
published some of the studies, there were a number of experiments and studies done that successfully showed how physical events were interpreted by the brain, that the perceptions recorded there were different from the actual physical stimulus provided. One case resulted from his observation from watching passing cars through a narrow window in the room -- it seemed that the flowing traffic had shorter cars but when traffic stopped it was always the longer cars. It turned out the mind was only capturing the front and back of the cars to fit into the window slot, and actually the cars were longer but were not perceived that way. So when this concept was recreated in a lab experiment, sure enough, it turned out that the final perception was due to signals overridden, interpreted, and remembered by the brain, and was not based on what was actually physically perceived.

So applying this back to decision making, it seems what the human mind will perceive as justifiable "reason" based on real world data, experience, perceptions and "facts" are still skewed and interpreted based on processing in the brain, and not objective facts as technically occurring in the world.

4. In general about decisions made by reason and emotion:
I would describe the human conscience as having an unconscious intuitive side, a level of perception that can transcend time and space and can pick up cues from other sources beyond the present moment. And also an empirical conscious perception that relies on physical proof and cues from the immediate environment.

The trick with human nature is that the same biases that can affect one's intuitive perception outside the present moment, ALSO influence one's perception of people and events within the present moment. So decision-making is easily emotionally skewed, even when people claim to be objective.

You can consider the empirical/physically present reality to be based on "reason" and the intuitive perceptions or interpretations based on past or future events or information beyond the present moment to be "faith-based," but most people assume past events to be based on "reason" and "experience" and do not consider these equally "faith-based" as future events not seen or proven yet. Technically these fall outside the present moment and are equally faith-based and subject to biases or incomplete information. But humans tend to favor past experiences in making decisions, so that it is easy to fall into the trap of repeating and projecting biases, so that you perpetuate the same reality as before.

5. Given that "reasoning" is still based on "faith" that one's date, perceptions, and interpretations are fair, correct and complete, I personally agree with the notion that all decisions are basically "faith-based" and the reasoning/justification seems to follow that in order to explain/justify to other people.

It is my personal view that the most solid decisions, what is really true and ideal, would satisfy both the reason and the emotion. That it is best to resolve any conflict between reason and emotion to make sure any biases or misinformation, misperceptions, or misjudgments are resolved before carrying out a decision to minimalize the chance of error by overlooking a conflict or bias that could have been resolved with additional research or exploration.

6. As for moral or ethical decisions, what makes something moral or ethical includes the impact on other people, the collective effect on humanity and/or the environment, both the short term and long term effects. In the case of Constitutional laws and ethics, not only should decisions be made for the public good (as opposed to benefitting private interests), but must also be made by the consent or free will of the people who freely agree to or elect to enact and follow such policies.

So that it is even more essential to resolve conflicts and to have an agreement between parties so that (1) all concerns are addressed and no issue or shortcoming or ill effect is overlooked or denied in the process and (2) the people affected retain trust in the decision-making authority to reflect their will and consent and not dictate, abuse or oppress.

Certain factors that often lead to compromise are "time" and "money" -- so that in many cases, one would have to remove constraints or conditions that would lead to imposing a condition of time or money on the process that would force the ideal solution to be compromised.

For example, in the case of a debate over allowing a private corporation to log down an ancient forest ecosystem on their land; there are arguments that the company would lose money or that the nation/world would lose irreplaceable species in nature. While the conflict is unresolved, trees and nature are being lost if the logging continues or the company loses money while holding land without reaping resources from it to pay its costs. So in order to afford time to resolve the conflict, the company would need to be compensated for the land or for the time period during which the logging isn't taking place as planned. Since it would take time to raise the money to buy the land for preservation, one solution would be to borrow money from other corporations to buy out the land, in order to protect the remaining wildlife and wilderness at risk, and then pay it back over time. Otherwise, by the time the money is raised, the damage is already done. This is one example of removing the time factor, or refinancing the money factor, in order to resolve a conflict.

Basically, all decisions are faith-based or emotional and then the reasoning follows from there. [This is based on the pleasure/pain principle, that the human conscience or will is designed to respond positively in seeking that which brings happiness and tends to avoid or react negatively to that which brings pain, conflict or displeasure. So the decision making process is binary, and is interconnected between reason and emotion -- the emotions rely on reason to try to justify decisions that lean toward happiness and away from suffering, while the reasoning itself relies on emotion to determine what "feels" right or wrong, true or false.]

Two comments on reasoning following emotions:
A. That is why mistakes are made and are hard to correct when there are emotional factors involved in being right or changing or not changing. The emotional factors tend to override the reason, and tend to bias the use of facts, events, perceptions or memories to "justify" one's thinking or opinion. I don't know about the research behind this but I described several general examples.

B. I think "reason" and "explanation" for decisions or beliefs is mostly helpful in justifying decisions to other people. It is important in resolving and comparing and correcting conflicts with other people's experiences, perceptions, values and reasoning. But it has shortcomings for the same reason -- given that people are prone to make emotional decisions and justify them after the fact, it is not always effective to try to disprove their facts because they will still not believe. It is better to work to remove the source of the conflict, the fear or time/money conditions, the control issues or distrust projected from the past that causes certain parties to discredit other people or positions, etc. in order to resolve the conflict. If the conflicting factors are removed there is a chance to connect with people "emotionally" in searcing for a common solution or agreement, and then use the facts/experiences to justify that.

I would recommend any books on mediation and conflict resolution to understand the perception and control factor in people's decision making. For example the book by Harvard researchers "Getting to Yes without Compromise." Most of conflict resolution is separating the emotional reaction to conflict from the actual facts and choices at hand that could bring about a successful outcome. Mediation allows objective facilitation of communication where possible solutions, requirements, agreementcan be discussed, despite emotionally charged differences