When it comes to decision-making, perception and so on, what are your beliefs about the role and merits of feelings/emotions vs reasoning?

Some common positions:

  • Emotions tend to get in the way of reasoning - we should primarily rely on our logic and rationality to guide us. When feeling strongly about anything we should block it out and try to think purely in a rational way.

  • Reasoning can distract us when the right answer is to empathize or trust our gut feelings; it’s easy to be misled by a convincing argument but gut feelings can see through that.

  • Emotions and logic each play a role in observation and judgment. If both didn’t have a use, why would we have evolved to have them?

A lot of people probably don’t go all the way one way or the other. Even if you don’t have a particularly strong reason for why you feel one way or the other, feel free to express what you believe.

  • Ace T'KenMEnglish
    2·
    10 months ago

    You’re correct. I typed it in a hurry and realized that some of my examples were poorly worded. I’ve now corrected them and added some detail.

    I agree that they can work in tandem, but it relies on a well-developed sense of logic and allowing it to take the fore. Certainly emotion can be useful, but only if you apply a logical process to it instead of a simple justification.