Are reason and emotion equally necessary in justifying moral decisions Essay - 5

Are reason and emotion equally necessary in justifying moral decisions - Essay Example A second way of knowing is through personal experience or self-witnessing. The media sources like newspapers and television may or may not always be trustworthy. One needs to use his or her own discretion elaborately before trusting the information. Sometimes we may believe in a certain aspect merely by our personal inspiration or intuition. This is the third way of knowing. Some concepts and ideas take birth in our brains and remain there as a piece of knowledge gained. Sometimes we might just rely on a feeling and an inner guidance that may lead us to the truth or the right path. A fourth way of knowing is by using reason and careful analysis. This is a powerful approach where knowledge may be gained by critically and logically analyzing the other three cases. (â€Å"Measurement, Evaluation & Research: Ways of Knowing†, 2008) Now, when we look at all the ways of knowing, we may conclude that finally each of them is flawed. As far as the first way is concerned, the book or text might consist of misprints and errors. There may be some information, which might differ from one book to another. Personal experience or eye witnessing is also dependent upon optical illusion or error of vision. Personal inspiration or intuition might also become invalidated or reason might not support this personal opinion. Again, reason might be right to one but wrong to another. Hence this way of gaining knowledge is not a valid one. However, Kerlinger provides a different angle to validate the four different ways. The first case, that is gaining knowledge by reading signifies a group’s belief and can be taken as the truth. This is the process of tenacity where the knowledge is common to a certain group. (Kerlinger 1973) In the second case, the personal experience one gains is at least true to the person concerned. The third method may be justified on the basis of personal intuition. Such a way of knowing may be justified on the basis of individual belief and