Task 1 - Respond to the following:
What are emotions?
A
strong feeling that comes from an individuals circumstances and/or
relationships
Does physiological arousal come before or
after
emotional experience?
The physical feelings achieved from situations that are emotionally stimulating.
Does thinking come before or after feeling?
I
think it comes after thinking, since we have to process the situation
Are emotions learned – or are they part of
instinct?
They instinctive, you see babies that have
obviously not learned anything that show signs of different emotions such as
happiness, anger and confusion.
Are emotions useful – or just a legacy of
our animal roots?
In a way they could be used as a moral compass, as something that makes you sad could be against what is perceived as right
Are emotions for communication – or self
knowledge and understanding?
Both, they can be used to understand other
people and to communicate to other people without even talking with them, for
example, you wouldn't want to bother someone that LOOKS angry, you can tell
this just from recognizing the emotion on their faces. As for self
understanding, it helps you understand your own situation
Task 2:
Describe how your body feels when you are:
• Scared
discomfort, unsure with your surroundings
• Angry
Discomfort, hate towards someone/something
• Sad
confused, disappointed
• Bored
Tired, lazy
• Anxious
excitement, nervousness
• Jealous
lust, want for attention
• In love
want for attention from someone, butterflies
Question: Can we change our emotion by
changing our thinking?
Im not entirely sure of this, but i were to give my uninformed opinion on this matter, i would say that changing the way we think would not change our emotions, since emotions go deeper than just what we think.
Task 3:
Individually – then in groups - look at the
following dilemmas – and decide what you
would do in each case.
TROLLEY DILEMMA
A runaway trolley is headed toward 5 people
standing on a track. You are the controller of the tracks. The ONLY way to
prevent their deaths is to switch the trolley onto a side track by flicking a
switch – but that will definitely kill one person. What do you do?
•
What would you do?
I would switch the tracks and kill the one
person/
• Why would you do it?
if it were completely necessary, you could
not help it, and saving the life of 4 is far better than killing 5 people and
not being able to save any
FOOTBRIDGE DILEMMA
You are now on a footbridge overlooking the
trolley track. Another runaway trolley is heading toward – and will kill 5
people. You are standing next to Fat Tony on the bridge. If you push Tony onto
the tracks in front of the trolley, it will kill Tony – but his size is
sufficient to derail and stop the trolley preventing further death. Would it be
right to push him?
• What would you do?
I would not push fat tony
• Why would you do it?
Because the death of those 5 people were
out of my control, whereas if I pushed fat tony, his blood would be on my hands
LIFEBOAT DILEMMA
You and 6 others are on a lifeboat in icy
waters – but 6 is too many people and it is beginning to sink. If you push a
person overboard, the raft will not be washed over by the waves – and you will
survive. Would it be right to push someone out of the boat?
•
What would you do?
Push someone over board, but only if they
volunteered to die for the rest of us
• Why would you do it?
Because in the process you would be saving
5 people, instead of 6 people dying unecessarily
HOSPITAL DILEMMA
You are a surgeon and 5 of your patients
will die soon unless they get organ transplants. Each needs a different organ –
heart, liver, kidney, lungs and pancreas. A nurse bursts into your office.
“Great news, a visitor to the hospital has arrived – and has the same tissue
type as all your patients. We can kill the visitor and save 5 patients.” Should
you kill the visitor?
• What would you do?
I would not do it
• Why would you do it?
It is morally wrong to kill someone in
order to use them for other purposes unless they agreed to it and died of
natural causes.
Come up with a response to all 4 dilemmas.
• Are all your decisions the same? Why/why
not?
No they were all not, in situations where
some ones death would be directly due to my actions I chose to not kill someone
in order to save some people
What is the role of emotion in knowing what
to do?
You consider the emotional result of your
actions, and try to reason ways to make yourself feel better, buy telling
yourself that you couldn't have done anything anyways. This is to suppress the
emotional impact of the event.
