When a magazine like The Atlantic asks its readers whether they think reason or emotions are currently dominating the public discourse, I'm worried to see what the response is – not only because I have little faith in the people who are giving the answer, but because I have little faith in the quality of the question. The most important thing to start with is that we can't reason without our emotions, because without our emotions, we can't have a reason to reason.  There's no good reason to steer clear of anything that doesn't upset us, and there's no good reason to attempt anything that doesn't attract us (unless it's a means to another end that does).  The whole of our lives is based on emotions like sadness and lust and disgust. and the question we really ought to be asking isn't whether reason or emotion is better, but whether one reason is better than another for the way we indulge our emotions. Few people...(Read Full Article)