Are emotions and reason equal when it comes to justifying moral actions

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Recommended: Ethical decision making and moral judgments

"A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true" this quote was said by Socrates who was a Greek philosopher ,Basically, Socrates advocates the use of logic and sense over emotions concerning morality. That makes sense to me, but certainly emotions have their place as well; To leave emotions strictly out of every sort of moral decision, seems inhuman or sort of robotic. Humanity's ability to be emotional is one of our best, endearing qualities, allowing us to make informed decisions based on circumstantial evidence at times. In this essay I'm going to discuss the importance of both reason and emotions when it to comes to justifying moral actions, and I'm going to talk about the problems that arise from them and lastly give example of each and try to connect it to one the areas of knowledge.
Like I stated before Socrates is claiming that we should eschew our “ relative emotional values”, but leaving them completely sounds dehumanizing, so in other words are emotions and reason equal when it comes to justifying moral actions? Emotions can be influenced by external factors, which could include anything from specific events to deeply-rotted psychological conditions. they can be pugnacious and turbulent or they can be the exact opposite for instance happiness and euphoric ; sometimes our emotions can get the best of us and cause us to do things we would not normally do. If, for example, one is overwhelmed with grief after a daughter/son is killed by a drunk driver, it might seem just right to avenge said daughter/ son by executing the reckless driver. Very few would agree, that it was right to kill the driver;...

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... Finding the equilibrium between emotion and reason n is crucial for one to be able to make moral decisions that can be justified in an acceptable manner. The ability to balance those two can be very challenging, especially in situation where the emotion side of the brain attempts to take control. It should be kept in mind that emotion and reason can keep reasonable thinking from turning into irrational behavior.

Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/socrates-quote-2-407223 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hinckley,_Jr. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/using/experiments_1.shtml http://mrsmithsibwebsite.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/3/9/12396431/m08_title2_reason_emotion.pdf http://subcortex.com/PrinzEmotionalBasisMoralJudgments.pdf
http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2006/04/being-good-person-moral-emotions.html

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