The Role of Emotion in Drawing Conclusions

  When it comes to determining what is right or wrong, correct or incorrect, true or false, our emotions or feelings should play no role in the process.  There is a role for emotion, but not here.

  When solving a problem in mathematics, does it matter than you may or may not “like” the proposition that 2 + 2=4?  Of course not; your feelings are of no consequence.  Do your feelings matter in physics when we say that “For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction?”  Of course not; here again feelings are of no consequence.  If we observe that every time we drop a stone from our hand it falls to the ground, do the feelings of the observer matter?  Again, they do not, with this one possible exception: if the feelings are so strong that they cause the observer to falsify the data, then they matter, but only in a harmful way.  We must always test our conclusions by whatever data are available.  We must always follow the data wherever they may lead, whether to affirmation of a proposition, rejection, or the admission that we cannot make a conclusion one way or the other.

   Does this sound like Mr. Spock?  If it does, then we must go on to the next point.  Emotions certainly do play a role in our lives, but they should not determine what we affirm or deny, what we hold to be true or false.  They certainly can, and usually should, determine the depth of our commitment to a particular position or proposition, but they should never determine the position we end up taking on a given issue.  When we allow that to happen, we lead ourselves into a world of “wish fulfillment.”  We can find ourselves approving a proposition because we want it to be true, or denying a perfectly valid and correct position because we want it to be false.  Either way, we will have betrayed our potential as rational beings; to return to the chariot analogy I spoke of once before, we are allowing the horses to lead the chariot.