Morals that are not backed by reason are on shaky grounds
I'd argue that all moral decisions are made on emotional, not rational, grounds. The ones that appear to be reasoned are in fact just rationalizations of emotional decisions.
Morality is how emotions manifest themselves in decision-making, and those emotions evolved to maintain specific social behaviours. There's nothing wrong with that. That's how morality (e.g. reciprocity) works in all other animals, and it's why there are so many grey areas and edge cases (white lies being a prime example).
Emotional arguments are rational arguments, but of a different kind. As I explain in my cousin posting to this (see reply to pingswept), emotions have rational reasons for existing. So we need not base our moral reasoning in emotions, but rather on the rational concepts behind those emotions, with no loss of generality.
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Morals that are not backed by reason are on shaky grounds
I'd argue that all moral decisions are made on emotional, not rational, grounds. The ones that appear to be reasoned are in fact just rationalizations of emotional decisions.
Morality is how emotions manifest themselves in decision-making, and those emotions evolved to maintain specific social behaviours. There's nothing wrong with that. That's how morality (e.g. reciprocity) works in all other animals, and it's why there are so many grey areas and edge cases (white lies being a prime example).
Emotional arguments are rational arguments, but of a different kind. As I explain in my cousin posting to this (see reply to pingswept), emotions have rational reasons for existing. So we need not base our moral reasoning in emotions, but rather on the rational concepts behind those emotions, with no loss of generality.