FEELINGS AND REASONS: Upsurge of feelings is natural and what we do with them is what makes us

ethical or unethical.

FEELINGS DEFINED

These are mental associations and reactions to emotions which originate in the neocortical regions
of the brain, and are subjective being influenced by personal experience, beliefs and memories.
These are next thing that happens after having an emotion, involve cognitive input, usually
subconscious and cannot be measured precisely.

EMOTION vs. FEELING

Feelings are sparked by emotions and colored by personal experiences, beliefs, memories, and
thoughts linked to that particular emotion. Strictly speaking, a feeling is the side product of your
brain perceiving an emotion and assigning a certain meaning to it. - For example, you remember a
happy memory by looking at the family picture, you may remember you we’re in joy at that moment
but at present you may feel sad.

Essentially, emotions are physical and instinctive. While they are complex and involve a variety of
physical and cognitive responses (many of which are not well understood), their general purpose is
to produce a specific response to a stimulus. Emotions can be powerful experiences, but they
usually do not last long. They sometimes make us do things we later regret. - Today, we are angry at
a colleague and want to yell at her. Tomorrow, we wish we had acted more rationally, no matter
how compelling our desire was at the time. By transforming goals and desires in the heat of the
moment, emotions can lead us to make choices that hurt our long-term interests. Doing something
that you do not want to do is one of the hallmarks of irrationality - hence, emotions make us irrational.

REASON DEFINED

Reason – a form of personal justification which changes from person to person based on their own
ethical and moral code, as well as prior experience. It stands for the faculties of rational reflection,
sensations and experience, memory and inference, and any judgments that may be exercised
without relying on a religious faith that is unsupported by reason.

FEELING AND REASON INTERTWINED

 Feelings are not limited to good and bad, happy and sad moods. They also influence judgments,
and hence decisions, with feelings as mild as contentment, safety, and perceived ease or
difficulty of tasks to be faced. In short, they mess with our thinking minds in all sorts of ways.
 “Sensitivity requires rationality to complete it, and vice versa. There is no siding onto which
emotions can be shunted so as not to impinge on thought.” -Mary Midgley
 Plato saw reason and emotion as two horses pulling a chariot, with the charioteer struggling to
make them work as a team.
 Emotion is not the opposite of reason. It is a different form of it. Emotion is always prompting
us to serve and advance our needs and interests.
WHEN REASON OVERRULED FEELING

We rely on our reason to guard against feelings that may reflect a bias, or a sense of inadequacy, or
a desire simply to win an argument, and also to refine and explain a felt conviction that passes the
test of critical reflection and discussion. We rely on feelings to move us to act morally, and to ensure
that our reasoning is not only logical but also humane.

WHEN EMOTION OVERRULED REASON

Emotion creates a strong opinion that is hard for reason to overcome when emotion takes over it is
hard to think of the consequences of one’s actions. It can also be constructive when working by
itself in the decision making process.

EMOTION ALONE

When emotion is left as the only way of knowing used to make ethical decisions, these decisions are
often made with little to no regard to the consequences of our actions. However, when faced with a
situation where one has prior experience, the emotions that are used to make a decision have been
tested before, thus providing a solid ground for ethical decision-making. Paul Ekman devised six
basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise.

REASON ALONE

Reason, when removed from emotion, allows a person to make conscious decisions based on fact,
with no reference to personal involvement. The use of reason as a way of knowing, allows for the
knower to see the consequences of their actions throughout the decision-making process. There are
limitations to decisions made based on reason alone, perception of situations is not questioned as it
may be with an emotional decision

CONCLUSION

In discussion, no one is required to respect our feelings. We can’t change someone’s mind because
we’re angry or hurt. We may change what they do out of guilt or peer pressure, but this is the result
of manipulation not conviction. If we want to convince anyone, we must use reason. Reason is the
only way for human beings to build common ground into a common good. On that we must rely.

“Remove emotion and we are not left rational, but adrift without meaning.” (Neuroscientist Antonio
Damasio studied people injured in specific brain localities responsible for emotion.)

Short Debate: In decision making, what must overrule, emotion or reasoning?

Ethical Dilemma: A sample case related to feeling vs. reasoning

Nursing often deals with ethical dilemmas in the clinical arena. A case study demonstrates an
ethical dilemma faced by healthcare providers who care for and treat Jehovah's Witnesses who are
placed in a critical situation due to medical life-threatening situations. A 20-year-old, pregnant,
Black Hispanic female presented to the Emergency Department (ED) in critical condition following
a single-vehicle car accident. She exhibited signs and symptoms of internal bleeding and was
advised to have a blood transfusion and emergency surgery in an attempt to save her and the fetus.
She refused to accept blood or blood products and rejected the surgery as well. Her refusal was
based on a fear of blood transfusion due to her belief in Bible scripture. The ethical dilemma
presented is whether to respect the patient's autonomy and compromise standards of care or
ignore the patient's wishes in an attempt to save her life. This paper presents the clinical case,
identifies the ethical dilemma, and discusses virtue ethical theory and principles that apply to this
situation.

Sources:

https://pages.stolaf.edu/ein/themes/emotions-and-
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19105511