Most people are at a loss to explain why they have the values and morals they have. Generally, you will hear, “it just is the right thing to do,” when pressed further, you might get “because it feels right.” This is inherent to the nature of morals because they are belief, reason, and emotion all inextricably linked together. To further complicate matters, comparing and resolving moral differences is very challenging, since people can have widely different ways of experiencing a moral feeling.
The power of our subjective experience when in touch with our moral beliefs is the result of the unique nature of moral belief. Moral beliefs are neither pure feeling nor pure rational thought; they are an integration of the experience of thinking and feeling. The profoundly subjective aspect of our moral beliefs enhances the theory that moral precepts are phenomenologically determined. Phenomenology holds that how we experience things shapes our understanding of their nature. Moral phenomenology looks at the relationship between how we experience our moral beliefs and the type of moral beliefs we hold.
Topics below:
Moral Beliefs and Feelings
Moral Experiences as Intuition
Moral Belief as Emotional Preference
Moral Beliefs and Feelings
Moral beliefs can be felt in many different ways, such as the mere acceptance of rules or a deep feeling of being able to intently experience the will of God. The way we experience our moral beliefs shapes the moral belief itself, giving rise to a wide range of possible moral realities. The moral framework of a highly intellectualized individual will be very distinct from that of an emotionally sensitive individual. For example, sociopathic individuals have exceptionally high thresholds for emotional responses. As a result, the sociopath will not be sensitive to moral events. Unlike the sociopath, most of us have emotional connections to our moral beliefs. Such resonance evokes a deep ownership of moral beliefs, thus we feel the moral precept to be true. This feeling is generally strong enough that even if we intellectually know that we acquired our beliefs from family, culture, and education, we still tend to hold those beliefs as being our own. Beliefs and values may be learned through normative conditioning, but this does not prevent us from actually experiencing our morals as our own deep truths.
Moral Experiences as Intuition
The powerful subjective sense of moral truth leads many people to experience their moral truths as arising from deep intuition, a true moral sense. That is, moral judgment comes from our moral intuition and through examination of our moral intuition. We then come to know moral truths. The moral intuitionist believes that moral truth resides in our intuition and that what we discover internally is the moral truth.
Moral intuitionism does not establish the specific content, or even the context, of our moral belief, but presents us with a concept of where moral truth comes from. Whatever our moral beliefs, the intuitionist asserts they arise for our intuition. It does not matter if the truth we hold is personal or universal, but we each experience a sense of moral truth because we have the capacity of moral intuition. Moral intuition is such a strong sense that whatever the content or context, we experience it as the truth. The intuition is felt as a moral sense and this moral sense justifies the moral precepts.
Intuitionism arises out of the worldviews inherent in natural law and divine truth. Adherents of divine truth experience their moral beliefs as stemming from their capacity to know God’s Will. Natural law holds that moral truth is grounded in human nature, which gives us the capacity to sense the truth or falsity of moral ideas. Both divine and natural law adherents hold that there is absolute knowable truth or falsity to a moral claim. In both cases, humankind is seen as being a part of the cosmic fabric and this continuity with Nature or God gives us the capacity to subjectively know and experience Truth.
Intuitionists assert that good cannot be reduced or equated with any other experience. Human beings are fundamentally equipped with the capacity to recognize good in and of itself. Intuition is not seen as being reducible to emotions and cognition, but rather intuition of moral truth is fundamental to our nature as human beings.
Critics of intuitionism see intuition as a psychological process that combines cognition with emotions and that this integration is experienced as our moral feelings. Moral truth is the subjective experience of an emotional and cognitive psychological process. Intuition is a type of thinking that is part of our human nature and includes the tendency to attribute the values of good, bad, right, and wrong to our experiences. Moral judgment is a human attribution and not a manifestation of absolute truth. Moral intuition represents a human attitude and is not an intuitive insight into absolute truth. However, the critics of moral intuition fail to recognize that the subjective experience each of has when expressing what we believe as truth, is a strong emotional belief that is often impervious to change.
Whatever the fundamental nature of our moral feeling, for most people their moral values are experienced as an intense connection to truth, be that a truth about abortion or global warming or God’s word. Regardless of the content or context, when we are asserting an absolute Truth we are asserting a moral claim even when we seem to be using reason rather than emotions.
Moral Belief as Emotional Preference
An emotional origin of moral beliefs considers moral truth as not based in rational facts, but emotional truths. The eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume, who felt that all moral beliefs are based solely in emotions, endorsed this view of moral belief. From this perspective, even moral attitudes that appear rational are emotional in nature. Hume felt that moral judgment that looked rational was really based on what he called calm emotions. For example, a sense of equanimity or acceptance might be seen as rational, but are calm emotions derived from desires and passions.
Emotivism is a phenomenological perspective that views our moral beliefs as emotional preferences, not insight into absolute moral truths. Rather than treating moral belief as based in an intuitive perception of absolute truth, emotivism considers moral thinking as construed from emotional preferences becoming associated with events in life. Over time, these emotional associations come to be experienced as based in the event itself and not our attribution. We have an experience that triggers a moral emotion and this response becomes an attribute of the event. The process of moral emotional attribution contributes to the subjective experience of moral truth and the resistance to reasoned evaluation. The emotivist does not consider moral belief logical or rational; however, we use reason and logic to further our established moral desires.
We can each add to our wisdom by remaining aware of the powerful influence moral thinking exerts on our reasoning. We all share the human nature of holding our moral belief in a moral mental space, one that is neither rational nor emotional. It is the space of belief and felt truth. This shared human nature can help us appreciate our own moral beliefs, become tolerant of others, as well, and increase our Moral Intelligence.