Moral Courage, Willpower and Ethical Subjectivism

• Ethics encompasses feelings, reasons and impartiality, and will.
• Ethics is a branch of philosophy concerning the love of wisdom.
• Morality involves standards of right and wrong.
• Culture, virtues, and the importance and stages of moral development are all related to morality.

Instinctive Response

• Feelings serve as an instinctive response to moral dilemmas.

Emotions

• Emotions are often consciously experienced and intentional.
• Emotions are short-lived feelings derived from a known cause.
• Emotional states combine physiological arousal, psychological appraisal, and subjective experiences.
• Emotions are necessary in ethical judgements.
• Awareness of moral good and evil comes from experiencing approval's pleasure and disapproval's uneasiness.

The 3 Key Elements of Emotion

• Subjective experience
• Physiological response
• Behavioral response

Feelings and Moral Decisions

• Feelings can be obstacles when making the right decisions.
• Feelings can assist with making the right decisions.
• Reason and emotions aren't necessarily opposites.
• Both abstract inference and emotional intuition are involved in ethical thinking.

Reason Alone?

• What might happen if governed by reasons alone?
• What might happen if governed by emotions alone?

Feelings as Obstacles in Making the Right Decisions

• Central features include:

  • A non-deliberate nature
  • A partial nature
  • Capriciousness.

• Don't make promises when you're happy.

• Don't reply to anything when you're angry.

• Don't make decisions when you're sad.

Theories in Ethics

• Ethical Subjectivism and Emotivism both give focus on the role of feelings on morality.

Ethical Subjectivism

• Moral judgements are based on feelings alone.
• Objective right and wrong does not exist.
• Moral judgements describe our personal feelings.
• Ethical Subjectivism allows people to think for themselves and not agree with culture/society, ultimately not basing morality on societal feelings/dictates.
• Acting on personal feelings alone could be harmful.
  • The mere fact that something is liked does not make it good.
  • This can include acts like taking drugs, getting intoxicated, and bullying.
• Slavery, racism, and discrimination would only be wrong if people did not like them.
• Individuals may have opposing views.
• Someone should acknowledge the truth on what the other is saying.

Emotivism

• The "Boo-Hooray" theory was developted by American philosopher Charles L. Steveson in the 20th century.
• Emotivism is the most popular form of non-cognitivism.
• Moral judgements express positive or negative feelings
• Ethics utterances aren't fact-stating sentences and don't convey information, but serve 2 purposes:
  • To influence behavior.
  • To express the speaker's attitude.
• Expressing an emotional preference: "Boo on stealing, Hurrah to fair play".

Ethical Subjectivism vs. Emotivism

Feelings As Help

• Feelings can help making the right decisions.
• Signals the need to adjust behavior.
• Feelings help to learn from past mistakes.
• Emotional responses can be reshaped over time.

Reasons and Impartiality as Minimum Requirement for Morality

• Reason is the basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction.
• Quality is the capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought; consciously making sense of things.
• Impartiality is the idea that each individual's interests and point of view are equally important.
• Impartiality is also called evenhandedness or fair-mindedness.
• It is also the principle of justice that decisions ought to be based on objective criteria.

Moral Reasoning Model

• Moral reasoning tackles dilemmas.
• Moral reasoning tackles 'What to do' situations.
• Moral reasoning aims to direct the start of a decision.
• Scott Rae: "The process of making a moral decision can be as significant as the decision itself."
• Ethical decisions can be too complex.
• People can exhaust themselves talking without actually making progress towards solving the issue."

The 7-Step Moral Reasoning Model by Scott B Rae

• Gather facts
• Determine the ethical issues
• Identify the principles that have a bearing on the case
• List the alternatives
• Compare the alternatives with the principles
• Weigh the consequences
• Make a decision

Moral Courage

• Moral courage is standing for what you believe in.

Willpower

• Willpower is very important in making moral decisions.
• Moral courage is the courage to put your moral principles into action, despite doubts, fear, or facing adverse consequences.
• Will is the capacity to act decisively on one's desire.
• Will power refers to the inner strength to make a decision, take action, and handle any aim until accomplished.
• Will power provides the ability to overcome laziness, temptations, and negative habits to carry out actions.

Developing Will

• Developing will engage putting rational, moral choice into action.
• Developing self-discipline.
• Mental strength training.
• Drawing inspiration from people with great courage.
• Repeatedly exhibit moral courage and will.
• Avoid deeds that show lack of moral courage and will.

Explore the relationship between moral courage and willpower. Understand ethical subjectivism and emotivism, and their implications for determining morality. Review the development of willpower and its connection to self-discipline.