From gut instincts to emotional authenticity, we increasingly treat our feelings as infallible. But philosopher of emotion Michael Brady argues this is not just wrong but dangerous. Emotions contain judgements, and judgements can be mistaken: fear can be wildly disproportionate, jealousy can accuse the innocent, shame can attach to things that aren't shameful. A world where no feeling can be wrong isn't kinder, it's stuck. Nobody can be corrected, and disagreement becomes a shouting match of feelings that can't be questioned. Instead of treating emotion as an answer, we should treat it as a question — the start of inquiry, not the end of it.

The notion that human beings are rational animals is one we probably owe to the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who claimed that “reason more than anything else is man.” But as Aristotle’s predecessor and teacher Plato made very clear, reason is not all that we are. We are creatures with appetites and desires. And we are creatures with emotional lives. Indeed, emotions seem to play a role in many if not most of the things that we do: in our enjoyments and relationships, in our social and political movements, in artistic and religious and intellectual endeavors. It is thus a platitude to say that emotions are important. 

How important? An increasingly common view—encountered online, promoted by mental health influencers, self-help hobbyists, wellness gurus, and similar—is that our emotions are very important indeed, since they are impeccable and wholly reliable guides to thinking and acting. Thus, we are exhorted to trust our gut because we won’t go wrong, or to go with our emotional instincts no matter what. We are told that emotional intuition never lies and will always lead us in the right direction. Our emotional experiences are all said to be “valid,” and our emotional instincts are held to be pure and authentic forms of counsel and advice. As the comedian Robin Williams wrote, “There are no rules. Just follow your heart”—which is one popular way of interpreting the famous words of the philosopher Blaise Pascal, who wrote, “The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.”

SUGGESTED READING Emotions are rational By Daniel Vanello

It is easy to sneer in the face of such positivity, and to be cynical about aphorisms such as “follow your heart.” For there are obvious cases where we ought not to follow our heart, and paradigmatic instances where emotions are not trustworthy guides to thinking and acting. Think, for instance, of the very common phenomenon of someone who is terrified of flying—such as the footballer Dennis Bergkamp, also known as the Non-Flying Dutchman—and yet who believes that flying is one of the safest forms of transport, indeed many times safer than the taxi that takes you to the airport. Here is a case where the emotional experience of fear seems to be getting things wrong. Or if this isn’t convincing—since flying poses some risk—think of someone suffering from koumpounophobia (fear of buttons) or xanthophobia (fear of the color yellow).