What is the role of emotions in ethics?

Just curious about where you come up with your questions and why you ask them. It would be helpful if you let us know your personal involvement with them; they tend to feel like exam questions.

I understand from a general aspect what your expressing and I do have to say that it’s becoming more difficult as time goes on to use our emotions to affect our judgement and morals. I feel it has alot to due with age, environment, personal values etc. An example can be connected to generally court cases and how the court system uses systematic punishment in comparison to rehabilliation to put away offenders without taking in regard how they are personally viewed by people close to them i.e. family. Another example can be also entertainers as well, there is alot of backlash toward Miley Cyrus as of late and it’s been very interesting to observe, she herself obviously is trying to escape the “Hannah Montana” gimmick and her actions have opened several interpretations…........

Hopefully none. Ethics are objective views of certain actions.

@janbb And why not revisit your threads to post comments and reactions? I don’t really understand.

Emotions always factor into ethics for me. My compassion & empathy make me more kind when logic says it’s not my job.

Edit: that was supposed to be ”@Gifted with Languages”

I think ethics are based on emotions and are concerned with the heart rather than the head. Reason is used to consider consequences and what will ultimately cause the least harm and pain and the greatest good. This gives rise to ethical dilemmas: must you be cruel sometimes to be kind, does the end justify the means?

This question has been of great interest to researchers. There are a couple of hypothetical scenarios that are commonly used to test the role of emotion in ethical situations:

The Trolley Problem:

There is a runaway trolley barrelling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. Unfortunately, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options: (1) Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track. (2) Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person. Which is the correct choice?

The Fat Man:

As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you – your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?

In both cases, one is given the choice of taking an action that will kill one person to save five. If rationality were the prime factor, the choice would be clear. But in fact, as many as 90% of people tested can’t make that choice. The Fat Man scenario gives people the most trouble because the action of actually pushing someone to his death is more personal than the act of turning a switch. Again, rationally there’s no ethical difference in the two scenarios, but emotion makes the difference.

Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Psychological studies of people who take the “rational” course in these tests reveal that they tend toward psychopathy.