Andrew Sullivan and Sam Harris have been indulging in an ongoing dialog recently. Harris' latest response includes the following quote:
More to the point, perhaps, I do not think there is anything unreasonable about love, or about valuing love, or indeed, about valuing it above most (perhaps even all) things. While love is not reducible to reason, it is not in conflict with it either. So I think it is time we retire facile oppositions between cold rationality and juicy aesthetics, between truth and beauty, between reason and emotion, etc.
Sam Harris
I agree with Harris, but I think that he has only touched the surface here. Not only is there no necessary conflict between emotion and rationality, "cold" rationality does not exist—at least in humans. We do nothing without some level of emotion motivating us, and this includes thinking. I consider an idea because I find it interesting (an emotional response) or frightening, or useful, etc. Each of these involves emotion, and consequently motivate my thoughts. If I think straight, it is because I care about things like consistency, accuracy, etc. I feel that they are important.
Anyone who cares to observe themselves when they are thinking logically about something will be able to detect the emotional cues that warn them that "this line of thought doesn't quite fit" or "something feels wrong about that", and motivate them to look deeper or change course.
Mr. Spock was a myth—a very entertaining myth, and perhaps a useful one in certain ways. But the idea that it is possible to be rational without being emotional is nonsense.
This is why thinking is, among other things, fundamentally a spiritual activity—whether the thinker is a deist, a Christian, or an athiest.
You can find Sullivan's latest posting, and other links to the debate here.
