The secret of practical reasoning

Elliot’s story provides one final clue to the secret of practical reasoning.

We’re now almost ready to solve our case. We’ve seen how the limbic system, the somatosensory cortex, and the VPC all come together in producing secondary emotions. And we’ve also seen how emotions can provide us with important information and guidance. Now we just need to put all of these pieces of the puzzle together.

Our mystery boils down to one final question: What role do secondary emotions play in our practical reasoning? To answer this question, let’s go back to Elliot’s story one last time.

One day, at the end of one of their many sessions together, the author was trying to schedule their next appointment. He proposed two possible dates, just a couple of days apart. Elliot pulled out his planner, looked at the calendar, and began enumerating all of the potential pros and cons of each date.

Curious to see how long Elliot would go on like this, the author restrained himself from interrupting. Half an hour later, Elliot was still mulling over the two options – considering everything from their proximity to other appointments on his schedule to possible weather conditions in the month ahead. At this point, the author couldn’t take it anymore. He suggested one of the dates. In response, Elliot simply said, “That’s fine.” And then he left.

Evidently, the decision wasn’t that important to him – he just couldn’t make up his mind. But unfortunately for Elliot, that’s the whole point of practical reasoning. It’s about thinking through our possible courses of action in order to choose the one that’s best for us. Elliot could do the thinking part of that process ad nauseum, but the choosing part eluded him.

Now, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with spending half an hour on a decision. If it’s something important to you, like making a big career decision, even more time might be warranted. But if it’s something trivial, like choosing between two dates that don’t make much of a difference to you, then it’s obviously a waste of time. And in our daily lives, we usually don’t have that much time to waste. We need to be able to make snap decisions: Cash or credit? Left or right? Yes or no?