Over the last decade, new research on the role of feelings in decision making has emergence. Martha Nussbaum’s Upheavals of Thought, Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, Barry Schwartz, Paradox of Choice, Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, Dan...
moreOver the last decade, new research on the role of feelings in decision making has emergence. Martha Nussbaum’s Upheavals of Thought, Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, Barry Schwartz, Paradox of Choice, Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, Dan Arliely’s Predictably Irrational, and Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide are perhaps the most well know, comprehensive, and important works in this area of study. When this literature—which spans philosophy, economics, sociology, and psychology—is read alongside Bernard Lonergan's understanding of feelings as intentional responses to values, it confirms the basic contours of his thought and refines it, clarifying the role of feelings in decision making. This paper synthesizes this new research to present a Lonerganian account of feelings, one that draws upon but also develops Lonergan’s original work. It argues that feelings: a) “frame” one’s experience in b) an eudaimonistic way and, in doing so, c) propose a script, a possible course of action, that is then d) evaluated by a judgment of value.