03/01/2024
Several philosophers have delved into the intersection of ethics and emotions, offering insights into how emotions play a crucial role in moral decision-making.
Here are a few notable philosophers in this realm:
✨Martha Nussbaum explores the crucial relationship between emotions and ethics, emphasising their significance in moral reasoning. “emotions are not just the fuel that powers the psychological mechanism of a reasoning creature, they are parts, highly complex and messy parts, of this creature’s reasoning itself.”
✨Robert Solomon, known for existentialist philosophy, highlights emotions as integral to ethical life, shaping perspectives and influencing behaviour. “We are all much more simply human than otherwise, be we happy and successful, contented and detached, miserable and mentally disordered, or whatever.”
✨Nel Noddings, a care ethics proponent, underscores the importance of emotions, empathy, and relationships in ethical decision-making.”Ethics is about how we meet the challenge of doing what is right when that will cost more than we want to pay.”
✨Jesse Prinz, a contemporary philosopher, challenges the separation of reason and emotion in ethical judgments, highlighting the role of emotions in. “Moral emotions are not just superior moral motivators; they also provide some moral guidance.”
✨William James, a founder of American psychology and philosophy, examines the pragmatic aspects of emotions with implications for ethical decision-making.
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
✨Iris Murdoch’s extensive work emphasises the role of emotions in moral life, challenging detached moral reasoning.”The concept of autonomy has to be supplemented by the concept of attention.”
✨Jonathan Haidt, primarily a psychologist, explores moral psychology, highlighting the emotional underpinnings of moral judgments. “Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle.”
If you didn’t know I have a whole episode about all this called ‘thinking about emotions’ available on the podcast 🎙️ 😍🫶