The Importance of Reason

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Despite these social science studies saying all the different ways in which human beings justify ourselves and make logical mistakes, you're optimistic about the extent to which we're reasonable. One reason is we have certain domains where rationality has proven to be very powerful and very useful. I think more controversially, morality is another domain. We're a lot better people than we were a thousand years ago. And part of it is, I think, to exercise a reason over time.

Within every person’s mind there is on ongoing battle between reason and emotion. It’s not always a battle, of course; very often the two can work together. But at other times, our emotions push us toward actions that our reason would counsel against. Paul Bloom is a well-known psychologist and author who wrote the provocatively-titled book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion, and is currently writing a book about the nature of cruelty. While I sympathize with parts of his anti-empathy stance, I try to stick up for the importance of empathy in the right circumstances. We have a great discussion about the relationship between reason and emotion. Support Mindscape on Patreon or Paypal. Paul Bloom received his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from MIT. He is currently the Ragen Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University. His research ranges over a variety of topics in moral psychology and childhood development. He is the author of several books and the recipient of numerous prizes, including the $1 million Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize in 2017. Web site Yale web page Wikipedia page TED talk on The Origins of Pleasure Amazon page Publications Online courses at Coursera Twitter See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.