essay

Every day we are challenged with choices and frequently question whether or not the decisions we make are “morally correct”. In which one must be able justify, not only to ourselves, but to others why our choices are “right”. Why do we need to be able to justify decisions? This is because it allows for our consciousness to elude guilt since we know we did the “right” thing. However, the debatable question is, how do we know that the decisions we made were morally justifiable? At times, one can know according to their intuition, the law, culture, religion or even having the answer embedded biologically within them. Could it be that emotions and reasoning don’t play an important part in our validation of the decisions until one has to convince someone that they are right?

When determining whether or not, emotions and reason have an equal part in justifying moral decisions, one should question whether either, emotion or reason can self-sufficiently be used to rationalize a moral decision. David Hume claimed that, “reason is, and ought to be, a slave to passion.” Moreover, this statement assumes that if emotions were removed, human rational would be significantly altered. A study done by several leading neuro-scientists gave the following hypothetical situation where the minority of people, those with damage to a region essential for the normal generation of emotions, would be sacrificed as it would lead to the betterment of society as a whole. This utilitarian idea that ensured “the greatest happiness for the largest amount of people” was agreed to be the most common answer from the test subjects. Yet, not immoral, the utilitarian approach, according to its neglect of emotions, stood in direct opposition to the majority of society’s...

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...f one over the other distinguishes depending on the moral decision at hand. I don’t believe there is great advantage in extracting one from the other, as I am Sikh and my moral justifications come from a place other than reason and emotion. Yet, I am not a strictly religious person and believe that the intertwining and equal reliance take place when making moral decisions. I have my own values and beliefs that may differ from society and change what and how I justify something to be “right”. I also believe that emotions and reasoning can’t be the only way to justify moral choices as there are other ways such as ethics, intuition, and faith. With a combination of all these ways of knowing whether a decision is “right” or “wrong”, it is possible to come to a justification that not only pleases one emotionally, but can convince others that they are morally “correct”.