How the Mind Can Influence Our Decisions

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Human mind is a very mysterious issue many scientists want to solve. There is a lot of research where scientists try to understand the nature of human actions, what guides them and how people understand that their actions are appropriate. Reading information devoted to human brain, their behavior and morality, I came across several articles which tried to explain the ties between the mentioned issues.

Human mind, decisions and actions are closely interconnected as this is the main difference people have from animals. Looking at human decisions, it also becomes obvious that all people are different and in case one action or decision seems unethical for one person it may seem ethical to another one. Why does it happen? How do people make decisions in accordance with their actions and what do they do if they understand that their behavior seems inappropriate? All these questions are going to be discussed below.

Therefore, how is morality connected to human behavior and how is behavior connected to human brain? Considering the problem more attentively, it is possible to draw the following conclusions. First, Rorty assures that people are not born with principles and vision of morality, it is a society that makes them who they are.

Remembering the actions of Nazi people, the author says that initially those who acted against humanity were born simple people and the information which was put into their brain affected their understanding of the surrounding world (Rorty 2). Essentially, men in Eastern countries consider women differently than men in Western ones. For many Western representatives the limitation of freedom of Eastern women is immoral.

But Eastern men and women do not consider those actions as immoral ones, they were born in such society and it is natural for them. The information people learn from their childhood is kept in human mind and all the actions people do are based on that data. Obviously, the murderers who kill people do it consciously and no matter how cruel it is these people are sure that they act morally due to their personal vision of live, decisions, and actions they take.

Emberton has drawn a picture in his article having an intention to illustrate how human decisions depend on their mind. Thus, Emberton says that two characters live in human brain, Rex and Albert.

Albert is a one who is responsible for grounded and argumentative decisions while Rex is an impulsive baby who acts in accordance with human personal considerations. The most primitive example which may be drawn to illustrate how these two characters participate in making decisions is as follows. Hence, a person is forbidden to eat sugar as it negatively affects his or her health.

But there are situations when a person commits contrary to prescribed behavior. Having an intention to eat the smallest piece of sugar, Rex is going to do it no matter that Albert uses all the arguments and assures a person not to do it. The same is about other actions, sometimes very serious. It may seem that people act illogically, that it is impossible to conduct in such a way when there is another more relevant and appropriate way of behavior.

In this case Rex has dominated. Albert is a character who uses theoretical knowledge and practical skills in making decisions. However, when it comes to acting, personal inner desires come at the first place and no reasoning is involved. Of course, making decisions people try to rely on common sense, however, this is not always possible as there are human features which are uncontrolled (Emberton).

Therefore, these two articles give the examples of human vision of actions and decisions. These two authors offer the examples which show human actins as a result of behavior and social opinion. Being brought up in particular conditions people start thinking about morality as about obligation, and acting contrary to personal moral considerations seems inappropriate to them.

The main idea of the examples is that people learn something from their childhood and these actions make them act in this or that way. These learnt truths are human inner considerations and when people make decisions they unconsciously refer to those truths. Thiroux and Krasemann support this idea stating that people are brought up in a particular way and when they grow up they feel happiness in actions which have been their modes of behavior for many years.

When people have to act immorally, they are to behave contrary to what they got used to. In this case people feel bad. The morality is defined by Thiroux and Krasemann as the differentiation between good and bad. Therefore, the actions which bring happiness to people are morally correct, otherwise, they are wrong and bring bad mood.

Such theoretical vision of morality is right as when people are brought up in a particular way, they feel uncomfortable when they are made act another way round. Therefore, Thiroux and Krasemann also want to support the idea of brought up mind and as a result human actions. It is possible to create morality for a person if to grow up him/her in particular circumstances (Thiroux and Krasemann 16).

However, there is another vision on the problem. Hauser tries to assure that mind and morality are biological issues and people act in accordance with the instincts they have been born with. According to Hauser and his vision of moral actions, people are born with a particular set of moral considerations and no matter how they live and what they learn they usually refer to these considerations (Hauser 67).

Trying to apply this theory into practice many contradictions appear. Why do different people act in various ways? Why are there people who get pleasure from actions which seem immoral for others? If there are inborn moral considerations, why are people born with the negative convictions? It is obvious that it is impossible to answer such questions.

Returning to the issue of Western and Eastern vision of women’s role in the society, Western men are sure that people are equal and gender roles are not discriminated. If to follow Hauser’s vision of inborn morality, all people should consider women as lower than men from birth. The world is changing and human visions change. If several centuries before Western men also considered women lower from them, now the point of view has changed and human actions have also changed.

Making decisions people involve their brain, their mind influences their decisions greatly and the consideration whether the action is moral or not is defined from the truth people have learnt from their childhood. Depending on the place people are born at this truth may be different.

Works Cited

Emberton, Oliver. “How Do I Get Over My Bad Habit Of Procrastinating?” Forbes. 2013. Web.

Hauser, Marc D. Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, New York: Little, Brown Book Group, 2008. Print.

Rorty, Richard. “Born to be good.” New York Times. 2006: 2. Print.

Thiroux, Jacques P. and Keith W. Krasemann. Ethics: Theory and Practice, Oxford: Pearson, 2011. Print.

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How the Mind Can Influence Our Decisions

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