Question: Why do "Feelings, based on the ethicists' point of view, can help in
making the "Right decisions?
The Quite Decibel
Ethics is the study of mind, its ability to think critically, analytically and
rationally about a particular situation, and in those perceptions, we use our body
to act out what was perceived to justify, satisfy and sometimes just plainly makes
sense of a situation. In our daily struggle to constantly make these decisions
everyday, there are situations that cannot be justified because it is perceived
right or wrong, or good or bad. This is where our emotions and feelings get
included. In our sphere to makes sense of our decisions, ethics open doors to let
us fully comprehend a situation and make a rational decision to deal with it, but
does it include our feelings? And do our feelings make a good legitimate stand
for our decisions?
Nowadays, individuality is highly prized. Our culture, ideas, area of study,
emotions and even our feelings are all considered valid. However, when it comes
to making the right decisions, will it always be the case? Because if so, if one’s
opinion and personal preference and demand for something detrimentally
crossed others, which opinion should be the right option to based the right
decision? In the 18th century, French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote:
“What I feel right is right, what I feel wrong is wrong.” However, this is because
he believed that children are inherently good, but the truth is there are more
obstacle that are considered, and one corrupting influence to this is the ability of
society to impose artificial constraints to other people. On the other hand, few
other philosophers such as Charles Stevenson also views that our feelings can
be used to based our moral deliberation and in so, two feeling-based theories
have arisen: Emotivism and ethical subjectivism. Ethical subjectivism refers to a
judgement based solely on what we feel, that can be either stirred or influenced
by the knowledge that we have gathered in our life (e.g. a woman of color which
does not fit your beauty of standard). Meanwhile, emotivism refers to our moral
judgement without the utterance of non-arguable statement that can either be
right or wrong. For example, Americans are really delicate with each other’s
intonation and tone of their words, however, some of them does not really
consider the background of someone’s culture as to why their particular
intonation seems angered but if an American relay the difference in their culture
and explains why they find it offending, it can be called emotivism. More likely
emotivism, has an indirect imposition of constructive criticism towards other and
not just plainly stating a mere disposition. However, as the stated example for
ethical subjectivism, a decision can’t be made solely because of one’s personal
preference, because feelings are derived from one’s sense of experience which is
unjustified. In this feeling-based theory, some philosophers believe that once we
decided to acknowledge our feeling when viewing a particular situation, we can
say that what we will decide will be right. But I argue that the duty of oneself to
develop and increase one’s natural capacities provides criteria by which we can
make justified character judgments. In addition, this idea is barely sensible on the
face of other obstacles that we usually face everyday, and considering the fact
that everyone has their own feelings, and little sphere inside their heads, this
cannot be considered as a verifiable argument that will stand on its ground,
solely because we all deal with things differently. This is where Immanuel Kant’s
moral philosophy against sentimentalists should be acknowledged. Kant’s moral
philosophy states that judgments concerning one’s moral disposition cannot be
reached through inferences about the moral worth of actions because such
inferences are unjustified. Furthermore, even if they were justified, the resulting
feeling could only be of “a state of contentment and peace of soul in which virtue
is its own reward”. An example situation is, you decided to go out with your
friends to eat and you included your new classmate who is a Muslim. Your
friends, unaware of his belief and their customs, ordered dinuguan for all of you,
and when the ordered came, one of your friends offered him the viand, and he
looks at the food with disgust. Offended, your friend snaps out and yelled at your
new classmate, and despite explaining about his culture, your friend still imposed
that he should have at least thanked him for the food. In this example, we can see
that his other friend is trying to impose HIS ethical view of receiving food, while
your new classmate is arguing with him because it defies their belief, but none of
them decided to reconcile after, because they believe that their feelings are right
and should be acknowledged. And this is fairly one of the clear examples, when
two feelings clashed and people perceived that the only right thing in the
situation would be if they feel right about it. However, it does not mean that our
feelings should be entirely set aside whenever we will decide for the rightest
thing to do. In Kant’s philosophy he stated that moral feeling is “a pure interest of
practical reason alone, independent on sense”. Thus, he gives two principle
reasons for why a sensible interest, the variety David Hume and Adam Smith both
endorse, cannot lead to moral action: (1) Sensible inclination would determine the
faculty of desire, which implies: (2) The resulting action would not be free. This in
essence means that whatever a person believes to be right is right for that
person, and what a person believes to be wrong is wrong for that person. But on
the contrary, Kant’s view of moral feeling, states that the only permissible moral
feeling is respect for the moral law, and that moral feeling is always coupled with
sensible pain. Thus said, acknowledgment of one’s feeling is important, but it will
only matter in a moral deliberation, if respect to the moral law is met.
Making the right decisions based alone on how we feel individually won’t
always yield to the right decisions, but acknowledging our feelings and making
sense of it in a situation might make those right decisions that we want. Simply, it
is not entirely wrong to justify our argument or make the right decisions with our
feelings, but feelings alone are sometimes unjust and biased. But in most days
that we encounter where we have to make a decision over something, remember
that it is equally important to recognize our feeling to the weigh of the goodness
or wrongness of the decision we will make, because as I have said, what we all
feel and know is valid. But again, it is also important to note that one’s own
feeling does not justify the means, it only is a pigment from the billions of people,
who think and feel the same way as we do. Because in the end, we all have the
quite decibel inside our heads to recognize and hear.
References:
Gonzalez, M. (n.d.). Kant and Moral Feeling. Retrieved from
[Link]
Mintz, S. (2012, April 12). What is the Basis for Ethical Decision-making?. Retrieved
from [Link]
[Link]
Rachels, J. (n.d.) Subjectivism in Ethics [PDF File]. Retrieved from
[Link]
Velasquez, M., Andre, C., Shanks, T, & Meyer, M.J. (201). What is Ethics?. Retrieved
from [Link]
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