The Effect of Emotions and Reason on Decision Making Essay Example

be true, then it becomes imperative to believe that emotion is to be either ignored or given the least possible importance. Descriptions of successful ideas and acts, which had relied on reason, deliberately circumvent favorable allusions to emotion. If at all emotion is alluded to in such contexts, it is only to magnify its harmful effects . However, this is not the complete picture, if on the one hand people are diverted from their objectives due to the effect of emotions; then on the other hand, emotions reinforce and reinstate their goals.

In other words, emotions give direction to reason. This makes them merely dissimilar. Therefore, in the modern paradigm, it can be stated that motivation for an action emerges from emotions, whereas its implementation is the province of reason. Where emotion is involved, reason is unbiased. In the absence of suitable guidance from emotion, reason results in incoherent aims. This point of view has led to the conjecture that emotion is essential for rational behavior . In the opinion of one school of thought, judgment has two components.

The first is reason, which constitutes the rational and systematic portion; and emotion, the second part, has an impact on judgment and conduct. However, other equally prominent researchers have opined that emotion and reason are crucially affect social influence and that both of them have the capacity to engender radical change in attitudes and conduct. It has been suggested, and very significantly, by the majority of the researchers in this field; that emotion and reason should be supplanted by other critical concepts like attitude as the chief cognitive process, in the decision making process

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This reveals that considerable debate had transpired amongst philosophers, scholars and others in this regard. David Hume opined that reason can be considered as a slave to the emotions. Opposing this view, Kant established the vitality of reason in moral decisions. In addition, Antonio Damsio, the author of Descartes’ Error, found fault with both these theories, since reason and emotion are not opposing processes . No man can ignore his conscience.

In other words, human beings are moral creatures. The foundation of moral life is emotions, because they clearly tell a person whether a particular course of action is morally correct. Moreover, emotions have a major role to play in the decision making process and they also engender interaction with other human beings. Emotions that cause a person to assess himself are very important in taking decisions. They have highlighted the manner in which a person relates to the world that he lives in .