Ethical subjectivism It holds that the truth or falsity of ethical propositions is dependent on the feelings, attitudes, or standards of a person or group of persons. It is based solely on feelings.

1. Lesson 1: Feelings
and Moral Decision-
Making
Presented by:
Rebuta, Kimberly C.
Talento, Neon Genesis M.

2. Two feeling-based theories
in ethics:
1
Ethical
Subjectivism
2 Emotivism

3.  Feelings are seen as also necessary in ethical judgement as
they are even deemed by some as instinctive and trained
response to moral dilemmas.
 Many times, ethical judgements are highly emotional as
people emotionally express their strong approval or
disapproval of different acts.
1. Feelings as Instinctive
Response to Moral Dilemmas

4.  Feelings and emotions, however, can become obstacles or impediments to
becoming ethical.
ETHICAL SUBJECTIVISM
 It holds that the truth or falsity of ethical propositions is dependent
on the feelings, attitudes, or standards of a person or group of
persons. It is based solely on feelings.
 For example, a homosexual from the club passes in front a group of
workers nearby and one of them said that “homosexuality is wrong”. If
he said this because he was sexually abused by a homosexual before,
then he is biased. He only said that because of his feeling of anger.
2. Feelings as Obstacles to Making the
Right Decisions

5. EMOTIVISM
 One way to look at Emotivism is to view it as an improved version of
Subjectivism. Considered by it’s proponents as far more subtle and
sophisticated than Subjectivism, Emotivism is deemed invulnerable to
many objections. This theory that was developed chiefly by the American
philosopher Charles L. Stevenson (1909-1979) has been one of the most
influential theories of ethics in the 20th century.
 Emotivism is actually the most popular form of non-cognitivism, the
meta-ethical theory that claims that ethical sentences do not convey
authentic propositions. Moral judgements, according to emotivism, are
not statements of the fact but are mere expressions of emotion of the
speaker, especially since they are usually feelings-based.

6. Evaluating Emotivism:
 It is barely sensible to base a moral theory on logical positivism as
this view has been abandoned and rejected by the philosophers. For one
thing, logical positivism is self-refuting as the view is not itself
verifiable by sense experience and thus would not be genuine truth claim
on its own grounds. It is thus unsurprising that emotivism, too, is
prone to serious criticism.
 Emotivism also fails to distinguish moral judgements from mere
expressions of personal preference. For an utterance to become a genuine
moral or value judgement, it must be supported by pertinent reasons.
That is, if someone tells us that a certain action is immoral, we may
ask why is it so, and if there’s no reasonable answer, we may discard
the proposition as absurd.

7. Evaluating Emotivism:
 Having logical positivist background, Emotivism discards moral truths,
maintaining that the moral claims are not testable by empirical
observation and experimentation, the theory reduced morality to mere
matters of feelings. Emotivism however fails to notice that human have
not only feelings but also reason plays a vital role in ethics. In fact,
moral truths are truths of reason; that is a moral judgement is true if
it is espoused by better reasons than the alternatives.

8.  As completely removing people’s feelings, taste, emotion,
liking and the like in the sphere of morality. Admittedly,
there are situations in which our feelings and likings are
relevant to the rightness of our decisions and actions.
 Moreover, ethics without feelings also appears to go
against Christian philosophy’s emphasis on love, for love
is basically a strong liking, desire or emotion. Applied
religiously, exclusing feelings in moral living seems to go
against the biblical decree to worship and serve God with
joyful heart and feeling.
3. Feelings Can Help in Making the
Right Decisions

9.  The feelings or emotions in moral thinking should be
anchored on careful consideration of a full range of right
goals, including altruistic ones. This consideration ought
mesh with an emotional instinctive reaction that provides a
motivation to act ethically and correct injustices.

10. Thank you for
listening!