Feelings play a major role in moral decision-making according to philosophers like David Hume. Hume believed that virtue is determined not by reason alone, but through sympathetic feelings like pleasure and pain in response to others' actions. For example, one would feel pain over a friend's death and disapprove of the killer, or feel pleasure over charity and approve of the good deed. However, philosophers like Thomas Nagel argue that basing morality solely on feelings risks it becoming subjective. Nagel believes morality must be grounded in objective concepts like maximizing happiness and minimizing harm. Making moral decisions often requires balancing competing interests through a process of gathering facts, reviewing principles, considering alternatives and consequences, and ultimately making a decision.

1. UNIT 3:
The Moral Actions
Feelings and Moral Decision-Making

3. Had you ever experienced making a decision at
the height of your emotion?
What were the consequences of your decision?
Was there regret after you have decided? ?

4. Feeling &
Moral Decision
Making

5. FEELING
 is the nominalization of the verb to feel.
 The word was first used in the English
language to describe the physical sensation
of touch through
either experience or perception.
 The word is also used to describe
experiences other than the physical
sensation of touch, such as "a feeling of
warmth" and of sentience in general.

6. FEELING
 Play a major role in most of the ethical
decisions people make.
 Most people do not realize how much
their emotions direct their moral
choices.
 But experts think it is impossible to
make any important moral judgments
without emotions.

7. In Latin, “sentir
e”meant to feel,
hear or smell. In
psychology, the
word is usually
reserved for
the conscious su
bjective experie
nce of emotion.

8. No one can deny the fact
that when the human
person is placed in a moral
dilemma, his or her
decisions can also be
greatly affected by his/her
feelings.

9. The moral decision that man makes will definitely not be
fully objective.
 For instance, one’s decision regarding the morality
of death penalty will vary if he is placed in a
situation wherein his family is greatly affected by
murderous act. A person who is never a victim of
any crime may view death penalty as morally
unacceptable. At the same time, a person who has a
very close relative indicted for robbery may cry for
forgiveness while those who do not have such may
demand punishment.
In this regard, a moral decision can be a product of
feelings or emotions.

10.  During the early part of
philosophizing, David Hume
(1711-1776) believed virtue
is in conformity to reason.
Like truth, morality is
discerned merely by ideas.
In order to distinguish the
good and bad, we have to
consider the reason alone.

11. • Philosophers during the time of
Hume, placed greater emphasis on
the prominence of reason over
feelings.
• Western philosophers were actually
reacting to the position held by the
church scholars who asserted that
religious apologist, moral decisions
must be rooted in religious laws and
doctrines.

12.  During the ancient period,
Plato (423BC-347BC) would
argue that the function of
reasons is to rule the
appetites and emotions. He
held that the mind or the
intellect, which is the highest
level of the soul, is that
immortal part of the soul that
gives man the capacity for
truth and wisdom.

13.  Then, the Stoics upheld that
human person must be able
to learn to control his passion
with reason in order to live a
moral life.

14.  For Hume, the central fact about
ethics is that moral judgements are
formed not by reason alone but
through feelings.

15. Hume held that moral decision would always
involve feelings or emotions.
 For instance, because I will feel sympathetic pain
on my friend whose brother is brutally killed by a
gunman. I will surely develop a moral condemnation
on the action of the killer. However, if somebody
will do charitable deed of feeding a street child, I
will surely feel sympathetic pleasure for that
person. Such pleasure originates from my moral
approval of the good deed.

16.  From the point of view of Hume,
moral sentiments are found in all
people. Everyone has instinctive
capacity to praise and uphold moral
actions performed by person to
others.

17.  According to Hume, basing
ourselves on experience, our moral
decisions are based not on
judgements based on reason but on
feelings. More so, our experience
tells us that we have sympathetic
feelings of pleasure and pain in
response to a range of virtuous
characteristics that people possess.

18.  It is obvious that Hume, believed
that feelings and agreeableness
can be considered as a clear
criterion of moral judgment. He
believed that behavior is
considered virtuous if it is useful
or agreeable to people who are
affected by the action being
considered.

19.  Then, some religious moralist
critique Hume’s moral point of
view because Hume did not include
the role of God in determining the
morality of one’s action. For this
reason, the religious moralist
would consider Hume’s moral
philosophy to be weak and
groundless.

20.  An American philosopher has another
claimed about the feelings named,
Thomas Nagel. He believed that
morality must be rooted not in the
feelings or emotions because that will
make morality subjective. Morality
must be objective. Also, according to
him, no matter how great our feelings
on a particular situation can be, such
feelings will not be considered as
basis for universal moral principle
because FEELINGS MAY BE DIFFERENT
FROM THE FEELINGS OF OTHERS.

21.  Our feelings may be irrational.
They may be product of prejudice,
selfishness or cultural
conditioning.

22.  From the point of view of Nagel,
the basis of morality must be on
the happiness that one’s action
may cause to others. If an action is
going to cause harm to others,
then the action is considered evil.

23. In some situations, we may ask what is a
moral truth?
 It has to be noted that discovering
truth can only be made possible if one
is guided by reason. Most philosophers
would consider this as essence of
morality. The morally right thing is
to do actions that is supported by
rational arguments.

24. MORAL DECISION MAKING
 is the ability to produce a
reasonable and defensible
answer to an ethical
question or case.

25.  It must be noted that every reason is good.
There may still be valid reasons.
 It is important that one knows how to
morally good in decision making. In
discerning over the facts, it is important that
decision maker must be impartial to certain
issues.
 One should be able to consider that every
moral decision is equally
 important to others. In this regard, no
decisions should be given more favor than the
others.

26.  Nagel points out that it is quite
difficult to establish a universal
moral decision because there are
many disagreements among those
who accept morality in general
and about what in particular right
or wrong.

27.  The difficulty in making decisions is that
the situation that requires our decision
may have already placed us in dilemma.
More so, the manner of deciding may
place us again in separate dilemma. And so
to avoid falling into dilemma after dilemma,
we have to address this order to serve as a
model that can be used in assurance of our
decisions:

28. 7-Step Moral
Reasoning Model

29. Before making moral
decisions, it is important
that necessary facts be
gathered.
Ethical dilemmas can be
resolved simply by
clarifying the facts of the
case question.
1.
GATHER
THE
FACTS

30. Ethical issues are
considered as competing
interest or goods.
This will help the person
to analyze the interest
that are contradicting to
one another.
2.
DEFINE
THE
ETHICAL
ISSUES

31.  It is important to determine
different ethical guidelines to
determine which ethical
guideline must be applied to
the issue.
 Constitutional and natural law
must also be taken into
account.
3.
REVIEW
RELEVANT
ETHICAL
GUIDELINES

32.  Making moral decisions
require creative thinking
which will help one
identify various
alternative courses of
action.
4.
LIST THE
ALTERNATIVE
COURSES OF
ACTION

33. From the listed
alternatives, the next step
is to connect alternatives
with moral principles.
5.
COMPARE THE
ALTERNATIVE
WITH THE
PRINCIPLES.

34.  If the moral principles do
not yet provide clear
decisions, it is better to
take note of the positive
and negative
consequences.
6.
WEIGH
THE
CONSEQUENCES

35.  After weighing a decision has
to be made. Notice that in an
ethical dilemma, one has to
undergo the painful process
of critical studies and
analyses.
7.
MAKE
A DECISION