Feeling Smart ― Why Our Emotions Are More Rational Than We Think

Distinguished authors like Daniel Kahneman, DanAriely, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb have written much about the flaws in thehuman brain when it comes time to make a decision. Our intuitions and passionsfrequently fail us, leading to outcomes we don't want.In this book, Eyal Winter, professor of economicsand director of the Center for the Study of Rationality at the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem, wonders: why? If our emotions are so destructive andunreliable, why has evolution left us with them? The answer is that, eventhough they may not behave in a purely logical manner, our emotions frequentlylead us to better, safer, more optimal outcomes.In fact, as Winter discovers, there is often logicin emotion and emotion in logic. For instance, many mutually beneficialcommitments such as marriage or being a member of a team are only possible whenunderscored by emotion rather than deliberate thought. The difference betweenpleasurable music and bad noise is mathematically precise, yet it is also theresult of evolution. And our inherent overconfidence the mathematicallyimpossible fact that most people see themselves as above average affords usadvantages in competing for things we benefit from, like food and money andromance. Other subjects illuminated in the book include the rationality ofseemingly illogical feelings like trust, anger, shame, ego, and generosity.Already a bestseller in Israel, Feeling Smart brings together game theory, evolution, and behavioral science to produce asurprising and very persuasive defense of how we think, even when we don't.