Sometimes you do the wrong thing even though it feels good. It’s a recognition failure — a kind of false positive.
When deciding what to do, there are two kinds of failures: doing something you shouldn’t, and failing to do something you should. I call these two failures delicious poison and disgusting cleanup.
When this happens, your emotional bias leads you to make a poor choice. Your reason may or may not warn you that it’s a poor choice, and you may ignore reason anyway because, hey, it feels good. Reason’s role is to overcome one’s innate emotional bias and give one last chance to avoid making a mistake.
A delicious poison is something we find really attractive, even when logic tells us it’s bad for us.
A disgusting cleanup is something we really don’t want to do, even when logic tells us it’s absolutely necessary.
Our emotion says “yes,” while our reason says “no.”
Our emotion says “no,” while our reason says “yes.”
We say: “we give in to temptation in moments of weakness.”
We say: “we do what needs to be done in moments of strength.”
Sometimes this is moral weakness, and we express disappointment in — or loss of respect for — people who do this.
Sometimes this is moral strength, and we express admiration for — and increased respect for — people who do this.
While we disapprove, we can all relate to behaving this way ourselves.
While we express admiration, we can understand reluctance to behave this way ourselves.
When emotion wins out over reason: see Softer now vs. harder now