I suggest reading how Emotions are made by Lisa Feldman Barrett and either Scattered minds (scattered in the US) or the myth of normal by Gabor Mate for illuminating discussions on the interplay between emotion and reason, as well as the nature of perception and the origin of individuals' behaviour.

Edit... Er... Addendum: Dr Mate concludes that Emotion and Reason are not only extremely compatible but also inextricable. Though the compatibility does not always lend itself to a logical or pleasant outcome. It's well documented that emotion precedes most any thought (my source for this is Behave by Dr. Sapolsky), and that the post-hoc rationalization that immediately follows an emotional reaction is often mistaken for intuition. What's excellent about this is that with awareness and mindfulness you can, over time, help guide how your emotions develop given certain contexts, thereby altering your innate, automatic reactions. For example: us-ing and them-ing; structurally induced racial bias resulting in outward aggression to perceived "outgroups" being entirely alterable with work and self- and societal awareness.

Man, I love the brain. It can be so frustrating to be a human with a brain but it's just so cool.

If reason is at least partially driven as a neurological function, then it would follow that an emotional brain would need to intentionally suppress that aspect of consciousness to “think clearly.”

However, humans have pre- and post-reasoning actions like anticipating and reflecting, too: if humans are emotionally responding to an argument before AND after an argument in which reason is applied, then we haven’t really separated reason from emotion yet.

The only way to mitigate this is to remove all emotion from the conversation, during as well as before and after. I find this rather disturbing as an absolute, because emotions have potential to be good drivers of instinct and direction of values. If I were a surgeon who felt nervous putting a patient on an operating table, the emotion of fear is quite valid in the reasoning to operate vs. using alternative means of treatment.

Great thoughts and discussion to be had.

This is merely a critique of false objectivity, not actual objectivity. The actual process of objectivity necessarily involves communal dialectics with people who disagree and challenge in order to weed out emotional processes. This takes time effort and discomfort.

The problem with these sorts of articles and how people interpret them is that they appear to be some sort of “gotcha” on the merits of objectivity when in reality they aren’t saying anything new or unaccounted for in the spheres that actually orient themselves around objective pursuit.

Guarding against this reality (of one individual or a monolithic group of people claiming to be objective) is the basis of science, peer review, American democracy via representation, and dialectical processes. It’s an indictment on dictatorships or loss of free speech to challenge ideas, not an indictment against objectivity. It is a critique on single individuals or like minded grouped claiming to be purely rational and thus immune from the necessity to participate in dialectics.

That’s not to say objectivity applies to everything: metaphysical values such as sacrificial compassion vs a survival of the fittest mentality are purely subjective. But we can still apply objective processes to them: ie we can tell if a person is holding and applying a stated value consistently or hypocritically; we can tell what the results of a value produce.

Science also is aware that we can’t know anything for sure which is why it relies on “verisimilitude”, that is, some things being more certain to be true than others, and notions of utilitarianism (ie what is our goal and will doing X produce this).

Ie a sole scientist is not able to be objective, but a group of 100 disagreeing scientists can work to hone in on and weed out subjective biases and cognitive errors in a collective effort to arrive at a 93% certainty that X is X, with a maximum certainty of perhaps 99%. Never 100%.

Doctors are trained in this way too. It’s why a good doctor won’t ever tell you that you have a 100% chance of survival in a surgical procedure or medicine. The best one could say is “this procedure has a 99% observed success rate without any serious complications to resolve issue X and we believe the benefits outweigh the risks”

And that was arrived at through long term dialectical processes, whose methodology can be applied to a myriad of other issues in life. This is what objectivism means - it is not a solo effort, it is not a short term effort, and it is not a certainty. Rather it is working together as humans through dialectics using specific methods intended to weed out biases and emotions.

It’s not perfect, it’s not easy, it’s not quick. But it does work towards a stated goal, ie, practically reducing suffering.

In summary - the entire premise of objectivity proper is that subjective biases exist and we are trying to control for them through specific communal methodologies and diverse dialectics.

Misunderstanding this leads to overly simplified ideas such as “one person can’t be objective, therefore all there is is subjectivity”.

It also overlooks the fact that while no group of humans can be perfectly objective (ie none will hit 100%), they can collectively be closer to or further from away objectivity.

Finally, I am not downplaying the value of emotional subjectivity it is to our being human. We need both. I am merely clarifying what I find to be a consistent abuse of the idea of objectivity. Your dogmatic uncle bob who loves to belligerently argue is not the definition of an objective person.

If emotions and reason are deeply connected, then maybe we should stop placing so much on the promise of objective rationality, especially since the concept of reason itself isn't entirely objective in the first place.

RIP Ayn Rand and Objectivists everywhere. 🤡

In this debate, Julian Baggini, Güneş Taylor and Tommy Curry analyse the nature of the relationship between reason and emotion. The speakers provide compelling arguments both for the view that reason must be detached from emotions and the argument that reason is crucially linked to emotional experiences. Güneş Taylor argues that it is appropriate to conceive of reason and emotion as separate: reason does not have a biological or physiological basis, while emotions do. Therefore, the power of reason is that it can be divorced from emotions, allowing us to make judgements about a situation even when we are not directly affected by it emotionally, she says. But it is important to understand the interplay between reason and emotion. Julian Baggini contends that we cannot make sense of emotions without reason. Similarly, Tommy Curry rejects that idea that reason can be entirely separated from emotion. Instead, he suggests we must understand it as post-rationalisation of our emotive reactions.

We're all wet electric meatballs running skeleton mechs. Objective rationality was never realistically on the table.

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At the end of the day, they're just two sides of the same coin. Getting what we want.

Reason and rationality is the slow long term view of getting what we want, while emotion is the fast hot immediate view of what we want. The latter informs the former - when we step back, we consider the potential gain and loss through all possible emotional outcomes, not just the active one.

But they don't exist independently of emotion - that is still the thing that gives you a desire or drive for anything at all, and keenly relates to helping achieve your homeostatic and reproductive outcomes (i.e. surviving).

I call bullshit. They are opposites.