Jesse Prinz: The Emotional Construction Of Mo

Rebecca Saxe’s Do the Right Thing: Cognitive Science’s Search for a Common Morality analyzes multiple research studies performed on the ethical ideas of morality. Saxe uses three current studies to validate her argument, including a Harvard internet study, research on the cognitive activity in the brains of an infant, and analysis of brain imaging using an fMRI. She uses logos and ethos in this essay to support her argument that scientific research will never fully explain the process that a human takes to make a sound, moral judgement, despite all of the innovative studies being performed. Saxe begins her argument by presenting a scenario that helps the reader to further understand the topic being discussed: moral dilemmas. The scenario includes

This paper will examine Robert C. Solomon's Emotions and Choices article, to best identify what anger is, and to what extent a rational human being is responsible for their anger. Firstly, Solomon's argument must be described. A quick summation of Solomon's argument can be found in the following four points: Emotions are judgements, emotions are chosen, emotions serve a purpose, and emotions are rational.1 To quote Solomon, he explains that “Emotions are not occurrences, and do not happen to us. They ... may be chosen like an action.”2

Our emotions act as our conscience when we make a decision. Our conscience is an inner feeling or a voice that acts as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of our behaviors. We make a choice based on the way that we feel in the situation at the moment.. Emotions and decision making go hand in hand. Whatever emotion we feel, we do the action that corresponds whether it be an immoral or

Emotions are used in everyday life, whether it be just a simple smile that makes happiness disperse in your brain, or a death of a loved one that causes sadness. The basic emotions are joy, interest, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame, and guilt. The way we see emotion in ourselves and others can be very complex because we sometimes assume they feel a certain way just based on their actions or even facial expressions. When emotion is discussed in psychological terms, it is not based on one thing, instead it’s a mix of bodily arousal, expressive behaviors, conscious experience. Many theories try to explain how emotion works.

Philosophy consists of two major theories which aim to deny and validate moral rules and principles: deontology and utilitarianism ethics. These two perspectives give philosophy its wide range of concepts and decisions to frame our lives, giving structure to what we believe is right and wrong. More often than not, these concepts bring argument to what has already been set in stone by tough, controversial philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham due to the nature of the topics and sensitivity they cause. In this essay, I look to discuss the trolley example in relation to deontology and utilitarianism; what each of these concepts tells us about the best way to behave in the example, and concluding with which concept is right?

Hirstein (2013) acknowledges that although ‘psychopaths’ may possess various dimensions of specific traits they can still be neatly coalesced into the following core set: uncaring, shallow emotions,

The article, “The Trolley Problem”, written by Judith Jarvis Thomson, poses an intense ethical argument. Within the reading, she addresses two of Philippa Foot’s imaginary situations. The first involves a trolley with faulty brakes, and if the driver should flip the switch to kill five people or just one person. The second is a similar situation; should a doctor let five patients die or operate on one patient to take his organs without consent? I will argue that it is not morally permissible to turn the trolley or to operate without consent.

Emotions are feelings (Alder 140). Emotions involve a variety of components. These components include physiological factors, nonverbal reactions, cognitive interpretations, and verbal expressions. Physiological factors influence a person when they experience strong emotions (Alder 141). For example, if you experience fear, your heart rate will begin to increase, stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. This results in your blood pressure to increase and an abundant amount of adrenaline to be released. To Saman, emotions are an assortment of different

The concept of the psychopathic personality originated in the early nineteenth century with the research of J. C. Prichard, who formulated the notion of “moral insanity” to refer to a number of mental deficiencies that led to violent or undesired behaviors.

In class we discussed the three main theories of emotion: the James Lange, Cannon Bard, and the Two Factor. The James Lange theory believes people's emotions follow, rather than cause, behavioral reactions to situations. The Cannon-Bard theory suspects emotions accompany the bodily responses that are aroused by an external stimulus. Similarly, the Two Factor theory believes an emotion is

In contrast,emotion is a strong feeling which is shown and connects to other factors such as a person’s circumstances, mood or relationships with others. However, individuals who interact with people and things as part of their daily lives, play a part in anybody’s emotional state, making them feel positively or negatively about that experience.

Researchers have debated about the phenomenon with emotions. Debates on this topic have and will continue to for many more years. Researchers have attempted to understand why one has emotions and came up with the five different theories. The first theory is the James-Lange theory, which argues that an event can cause physiological arousal first and, it can be interpret this as an arousal. Second theory is the Cannon-Bard theory that argues that all humans experience a physiological arousal and an emotional one at the same time. It still does not give any attention to the role of the thoughts or an outward

Emotions are interesting because everyone feels them, most people do not know how emotions take their curse and arguably no one really knows how emotions function. There are many theories aimed precisely at defining emotions and how they work but there is a lot of work to be done. An article posted in the New York Time’s website about a week ago explains a wonderful aspect about emotions and how people can utilize emotions to benefit their lives.

Morality is a complicated matter, one which requires rationality, but is often driven by emotions. A person’s behavior is almost completely driven by emotions and often times emotions are what tell us when something might be wrong or right. Motivation also comes from emotions, so without feelings of anger, depression, frustration and the like we would hardly ever do anything in order to change things in our lives (Shafer-Landau, 2015, p. 258). Virtue ethics then is concerned with what makes a person virtuous versus vicious when it comes to making moral decisions, with emotions playing an important role. In this paper, I support Aristotle’s emphasis on emotions as a key to being virtuous, especially since emotions tell us what is important and motivate us to act (Shafer-Landau, 2015, p. 257-258).

Considering the weight of the tasks is unpleasant, it is predicted that those in negative affective state will have mood congruence and make decision differently from those in neutral and positive affective condition (Guzak, 2014). The concept of right approach and utilitarian was illustrated in “trolley dilemma” where a decision maker is asked to imagine overlooking a trolley switch yard, where a trolley is speeding in a direction that will cause it to run into and kill a group of five people. Decision maker has an option to pull a switch that will alter the course of the trolley but the trolley will kill single individual on the alternate track. In different scenario, speeding trolley again in a course that could kill five people but decision maker can alter the course of the trolley by shoving a person who is standing next to the decision maker on a footbridge overlooking a precipice. This person will fall and die but save the five people by falling on (Guzak,