Is Neo Sentimentalism Morally Moral? Essay

Rebecca Saxe’s Do the Right Thing: Cognitive Science’s Search for a Common Morality analyzes multiple research studies performed on the ethical ideas of morality. Saxe uses three current studies to validate her argument, including a Harvard internet study, research on the cognitive activity in the brains of an infant, and analysis of brain imaging using an fMRI. She uses logos and ethos in this essay to support her argument that scientific research will never fully explain the process that a human takes to make a sound, moral judgement, despite all of the innovative studies being performed. Saxe begins her argument by presenting a scenario that helps the reader to further understand the topic being discussed: moral dilemmas. The scenario includes

Rhetorical Analysis: Do the Right Thing In Do the Right Thing, author Rebecca Saxe examines what scientist claim to know about morality and investigates the possibility that a basic, fundamental part moral thinking is shared by all humans across a variety of cultures, beliefs, and principles. This morality is quite diverse, just as the people in this world, but Saxe uses ethos, pathos and logos to lead audiences to discover that even though our different cultures, beliefs and principles can define what we believe to be right and wrong, humans contain a “moral instinct”, that is shared by all peoples, even those unable to identify morals. Saxe does not simply start by throwing near meaningless psychological and neurocognitive jargon at the audience.

To further elaborate, Solomon suggests that emotions are normative judgements. An emotion is a marker of value to an object, action, or situation. Furthermore, in his writing, Solomon is very careful to

Lewis argues that everyone has a inherent sense of right and wrong. This is observable through a man’s feeling of how people “ought” to behave. One should not confuse moral law with instinct, because if there are two conflicting instincts within a person, Moral Law will point to the weaker of the two instincts. Impulses in themselves, Lewis explains, are like keys on a piano. Neither key is good or bad on its own, but all the “right” keys within the correct context. Moral Law tells use which keys to play.

Wade’s article offers the idea that morality is that the the core of creation of social norms and that in order for humans to get along their selfishness must be limited (Wade, 2007). The works of Dr. Haidt are discussed and how they believe that morality is motivated by two separate mental systems. The first system are what he calls moral intuition, which are based on emotional behaviours that evolved before the evolvement of language (Wade, 2007). The second mental system of morality is moral judgement, which is where people are able to tell the difference why something is right or wrong (Wade, 2007). This relates to the idea of reciprocity, this explains why people choose to either help someone or refuse based on their moral judgements of the situation. Dr. Haidt uses the moral response to disgust in order to understand what actions take place in people making judgements about what the person is doing (Wade, 2007). When disgust is elicited by someone, about a particular situation both moral intuition and moral judgement are at play in order to make assumptions of whether the person is “good” or “bad”; and morally right or wrong (Wade, 2007). This connects to his view of

Emotionism according to Jesse Prinz is a set of views according to which emotions are essential to morality. There are two types of emotionism: 1). Metaphysical emotionism is moral properties are essentially related to emotions and facts without mind independence 2). Epistemic emotionism is moral concepts are essentially related to emotions. Concepts such as right or wrong are emotional states of mind. Further epistemic emotionism is divided into two categories: a). Constitutive is moral concepts are constituted by feelings and b). Dispositional is moral concepts dispose one to have certain feelings. Epistemic emotionism is basically how emotions influence moral judgements. The evidence in support of epistemic emotionism is the dumbfounding experiment. This is where moral attitudes on sex between siblings were studied for a group of young people. Most if not all said that is morally wrong to even think about it and is very inappropriate but failed to give an explanation. Another example involves cannibalism where a woman working in a medical lab cooks and eats part of meat, which was donated to the lab for research purposes. Again this is something immoral, nasty and wrong. Other examples were cheating is wrong or stealing is wrong. Both of these being moral concepts are wrong and unacceptable and they align

However, as we mature, we are expected to understand morality through the means of reason and not only follow them blindly because of consequential motives. Unfortunately, most people persist in the method of sanctions and never truly evolve to be moral individuals. Morality should be regarded and pursued for its essence, not as a reward

This paper will compare the usefulness of character-based and consequence-based approaches in making moral decisions. In a character-based approach, the consideration of the moral agent is central in making decisions, and actions are made in order to reflect and strengthen good character. In a consequence-based approach, the consideration of the outcome is central in making moral decisions, and actions are judged based on the outcome. Usefulness will be defined in terms of three aspects: consistency, convenience and assurance, with assurance being defined as the confidence that the decision made is correct. Through the comparison of the two approaches, it becomes clear that a character-based approach is more useful in making a decision.

In An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume begins the text by determining how humans make their moral judgments. He explained that establishing morals is a common strategy amongst all humans. However, there is controversy concerning how morals are made, whether they are based on reason or sentiment (emotion). Hume does not believe that morals are based off of 100% reason. He believes that humans base their morals on sentiment and that they cannot just make moral judgements based on reason alone. Hume says that reasoning deals with facts and that we can make conclusions from those facts, but reasoning alone cannot bring humans to choosing one option over another. This is where sentiment comes into play; sentiment determines the

I infer several conclusions from Smith’s definition and analysis of sympathy. First, sympathy is a mode of perception. The “eye of the mind” or the imagination perceives the situation witch elicits primary sentiments and secondary agreeable or disagreeable sentiments which are the basis of moral judgement. Secondly, I conclude from Smith’s propositions that the mind is a passive recipient, therefore moral knowledge is a by-product of external stimuli. In other words our external sense stimuli provoke a change in our minds, from which our imaginations produce sentiments by which we judge the propriety or merit of another’s conduct.

In Morality: An Introduction to Ethics, Bernard Williams aims to question the figure of the amoralist. The amoralist can be characterized as a person who, regardless of acknowledging the world’s claims of moral considerations, does not possess these sensitivities himself. Furthermore, the foundational values of morality, which direct—for the most part—the actions of others, do not influence the amoralist’s judgments similarly. When Williams addresses the amoralist, he wants to show how someone might be able to convince another individual who is insensitive to moral concerns to be swayed in hopes of look at morality as a way of decision-making.

Sentimentalism makes moral judgments essentially motivating because emotions, sentiments, or passions motivate us.

Morality is a complicated matter, one which requires rationality, but is often driven by emotions. A person’s behavior is almost completely driven by emotions and often times emotions are what tell us when something might be wrong or right. Motivation also comes from emotions, so without feelings of anger, depression, frustration and the like we would hardly ever do anything in order to change things in our lives (Shafer-Landau, 2015, p. 258). Virtue ethics then is concerned with what makes a person virtuous versus vicious when it comes to making moral decisions, with emotions playing an important role. In this paper, I support Aristotle’s emphasis on emotions as a key to being virtuous, especially since emotions tell us what is important and motivate us to act (Shafer-Landau, 2015, p. 257-258).

I assert that for a moral system to be necessary and applicable, there must exist a moral agent who possesses both the desire and the ability to choose. By denoting certain actions or ways of being as better, a moral system implies that there are also other potential actions and ways of being that are worse. The individual must choose between them. Without this element of choice, an action has no moral qualification. For example, a computer acts, but it does not choose its action. Consequently, while a computer can be judged better or worse in its ability to carry out an action, it cannot be judged responsible for the action. Rather, the person who uses or creates the computer is in fact responsible, for it is that person who chooses for it to act in a particular way. In a moral system, choice, responsibility, and the viability of judgment are linked inextricably.

While looking at Ethics, we can see the direct correlation and relationship that it has on our decision making. Ethics ties in the assumption that one has moral knowledge. This thought is produced to support the notion that one’s moralistic values directly influence the knowledge or perception on knowledge. Moral obligation is thought to require some form of action, again bringing in the notion that one’s moral belief system plays a huge part in the shaping of their conclusions. A conclusion can be defined by a judgement or decision reached by reasoning, bringing in the thought that this could possibly be a contemplative decision. There are so many ethical implications that support ones