posted on Jul, 26 2010 @ 05:10 PM
There is an obvious connection between "feeling" (i.e., emotion, but also other forms of inner sensation) and morality. At the same time, it seems
that moral behavior is impossible without reasoning and rational thought of some kind. This thread is intended to explore the tangled relationship
between reason and emotion in relation to morality and ethics, in the widest sense of these terms.
Most people (sociopaths and psychopaths aside, perhaps) seem to navigate ethical territory using a combination of emotion, reason, tradition,
precedence, and in many cases perhaps other factors such as ethical codes, spiritual factors, legal knowledge, personal proclivities, etc.
To be more specific, I can often "feel it in my gut" when something is ethically wrong, but other times I cannot. Or, I've noticed different people
may have very different "gut reactions" to the same situation.
Another thing -- it seems to me it is easier to feel when something is wrong, but much harder to know what the right thing to
do to correct the problem is. That is, identifying moral problems seems to involve a very different mental process than solving them. But its not
black and white -- both reason and emotion are used in both cases.
I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on this rather broad topic. For example, do you think much about morality and agaonize over it, or are you
fairly comfortable with your ethical choices (whatever they may be)? Would you say you approach morality more analytically or emotionally? To what
extent do make use of moral "codes" (such as organizational or religious codes, etc.)? And so on. Feel free to take this discussion in any
direction.