Emotion, not reason, guides our moral decisions

Emotion, not reason, guides our moral decisions

Maheen Ahmad

Published on July 13, 2008

Emotion plays more of a role in guiding moral decisions pertaining to treatment of others than reason. Our treatment of other people is classified as moral or immoral based on how we make the other feel. It is our empathy that guides our decision of how to treat people. Because human emotions and feelings are universal, the code of ethics is derived mostly from instinct. The golden rule – do to others as you would do to yourself – illustrates how moral decisions are guided based on equality and giving people a chance to pursue peace and happiness. Even if a decision had a very reasonable or progressive justification for it, we would be hesitant to support it if it made us feel uneasy.

One example where this can be illustrated, in the area of science, is the exploitation of our predictions based on evolution. The idea of natural selection in the theory of evolution is that in a competition for survival, organisms with less advantageous traits die, and the fitter survive. When applied to genetics, it means that harmful or less beneficial genes are weeded out so that future populations have the better, improved genotypes. In a biological perspective, every individual’s goal is to better their species by keeping it alive through reproduction and producing healthy offspring that will carry on their beneficial genes to the next generation. However, a twist in this natural process has occurred with scientific developments in medicine, technology, and treatment, for sustaining those with health problems, keeping them alive to pass on their flawed genes to future generations. This is unreasonable according to evolution, because it defeats the natural purpose of strengthening a species. It would be reasonable rather, not to keep people with harmful genes alive so as to eliminate them from the gene pool. However, such a perspective has not been deemed as ethical because it does not agree with people’s emotional instincts. If there was someone who loved his sister, and she had diabetes, he would most likely not be satisfied with the explanation that her death contributes to a greater biological cause, but rather be distressed over his loss because of the emotional attachment he had with her. This is the perspective most people consider when deciding what is wrong. Because it is human nature to be capable of these same emotions, it is generally agreed that it is not a moral decision to let someone die despite any biological consequences.

However, a reasonable argument is available for the same purpose. Although an individual may carry a lethal gene, he/she may also carry a beneficial gene to pass on. In fact, the gene may be beneficial in the long-run. Simultaneously, a supposedly healthy individual could carry a harmful recessive gene or a lethal gene that, if producing offspring homozygous for that gene, cause harmful effects. Thus, we can always eliminate the good at the same time we eliminate the bad. Conversely, by keeping alive certain traits we could be sustaining harmful traits.

Another example that shows how emotion prevails in justifying moral decisions more than reason is considering Stalin’s reason for subordinating the rights and happiness of his people to the cause of the state. His first Five-Year-Plan consisted of the goal to rapidly industrialize Russia to the same extent it took Great Britain to develop in a greater period of time. In order to do this he collectivized the peasants in order to produce enough to help the state economy. However, the demands of the program were so great that the peasants could not afford to feed themselves. When they revolted, Stalin was outraged at their threat to counter his progressive efforts, and eliminated them through exile and killings. Here, Stalin had an essentially valid reason for his actions. However, no individual person could be content under the circumstances imposed by the state. Although Stalin tried to help the economy in general, he lacked the human understanding to consider his implications on the state’s people’s well-being. This is why Stalin’s actions are classified as immoral, despite his progressive intentions for the state.

Also, while human empathy is the basis for many moral decisions, we must consider our moral interactions with other species. Do animals deserve the same treatment as do humans, or is there justification for us to consider them inferior to humans? It is generally accepted that our basis for treating people equally is that we are all equally capable of the same feelings, emotions, and instincts. However, do animals feel the same way as humans do? General observations suggest that most species of animals do not harbor complex emotions, such as loyalty. Most human individuals, on the other hand, tend to feel that they deserve loyalty from their romantic partner or spouse, where it is wrong for the partner to commit adultery or have multiple partners. However, in the animal community, most species (with the exception of some) choose multiple mates that are able to produce a variety of healthy offspring. Also, the study of the feral children showed that when there was danger, each child looked after themselves but did not seem to consider the well-being of others. Although animals can work collectively to sustain themselves, they do so innately and unconsciously, while humans are conscious of their interactions with others. Animals do seem to be capable of feeling physical pain to the same extent as humans, so it should be wrong to torture them physically. But is eating animal meat as offensive as killing and consuming one of our fellow human beings? The arguments against the killing of animals for consumption made by vegetarians and vegans are derived from an emotional regard to the animals, because they apply the same empathy they have for humans towards animals. On the other hand, the people who justify the consumption of other animals by claiming that it is an essential component of the food chain and that animals have the simpler, less purposeful lifestyle appeal to reason. Thus, in the case of animal rights, there is no prevalence of reason or emotion in determining the ground moral rules for treating other species. This shows we do not feel the same extent of empathy towards them as we do to members of our own species.

While there are basic instincts that are generally shared among the human race, despite location or culture, there are morals that differ according to specific groups of people. The cultures’ traditional morals may contradict one another and the universal golden rule discussed previously. Moral relativism states that there are no universal values, and that cultures define their own. Thus, no one has the right to judge another group’s values because they would just be asserting their own paradigms on others. However, a contradiction occurs when stating that all cultures should be tolerant of other cultures’ moral values. If one group’s moral values assert that it is appropriate to not tolerate another group’s moral code but stress theirs instead, the previous statement contradicts itself. But moral decisions based on human empathy must be reemphasized. Different religions or cultures have contradicting rules concerning the consumption of pork or alcohol, but there are core values concerning the treatment of others prevalent in most cultures. Most societies prefer to live at peace and contain some sense of unity or cooperation. Thus, the golden rule is common to most cultures. Needless murder and torture of innocent people is usually checked. However, we have heard of people inflicting “inhumane” treatment upon other, well, humans. Some groups do not enforce their own moral code upon external groups. Current examples include the genocide in Darfur, in addition to numerous genocides in other regions of Africa, and Abu Ghraib where Iraqi soldiers and civilians were tortured. Historical examples include the Holocaust of the Jews by the German Nazis, as well as slavery.

Lack of empathy is most to blame for these occurrences. This lack of empathy usually occurs between different groups of people divided by race, language, religious beliefs, or gender. What inhibits one group’s empathy for another? When their differences prevent them from relating to the other party, not understanding they are capable of the same feelings and emotions. Even within the same group, subjugation of women is caused by the inability of the other gender to realize that women and men have more similar characteristics than their physical attributes imply. Women are physically weaker than men, which forms the assumption that they are so mentally as well. Inhumanities and conflict occur between different groups of people. For example, Schulman, a psychologist who works with juvenile delinquents, described that the adolescents expressed outrage at someone mugging an elderly lady, but felt that it was okay to mug “a Chinese delivery guy” (Kluger, J., “What Makes Us Moral”, Time, December 3, 2007. p. 60.). To mug the old lady was an offense because “that could be my grandmother.” “The old lady is someone they could empathize with”, explains Schulman. “The Chinese delivery guy is alien, literally and figuratively, to them.”

This further explains the reason why when the Europeans first landed in the Americas, they did not feel the need to extend their civil rights to the Native Americans, whom they thought of as sub-human. Similarly, it took quite awhile for the general American population to see the racially different African descendents as equal, at first enslaving them and then segregating them from facilities for white people. It is when we get to know each other personally – which can be difficult with language barriers – when we realize that we are all capable of the same emotions.

July 12, 2008

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Maheen Ahmad lives in Miami, Florida. She received her IB (International Baccalaureate) diploma in 2008 and will begin attending University of Florida, Gainesville as a first year student in August 2008.