Evaluate How Emotion Undermines And/or Enhances Reason as a Way of Knowing

I am, to a slight extent, in agreement to the statement that ‘emotion may undermine reason as a way of knowing’. Emotion may be defined as “a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others”, it can have a significant impact on the way we think therefore, clearly suggesting that emotions are dissimilar in different people and have the power to make them act towards something in contrasting ways. Whether reason plays a part is determined by the individual’s emotion as reason is a “cause, explanation, or justification for an event or action by a process of logic”; here, evidently signifying that whether reason is improved or hindered largely depends on emotion. However, though there are a number of ways in which emotion can undermine reason as a way of knowing, there are also some ways in which it may enhance it. These will be evaluated within this essay with specific reference to the 9/11 attack in the US, US troops, Einstein’s mentality of science compared to the AOK of the arts, the banning of Burquas in France, and my own personal experience.

On September 11th 2001, Islamic extremists hijacked four planes which were flying over the US. Two of the planes crashed into the world trade Centre in New York, one into the pentagon in Washington DC, and the final one crashed into a field near Pittsburg. The attacks silenced the world as it was the biggest attack in American history; with an abundance of lives claimed, the city’s skyline destructed, a huge impact on the world for years to come and years of trauma to those who survived. This tragic event has led to an era of endless wars between the US, Iraq and Afghanistan. In previous years, Americans viewed war as a deviation however this logic has changed within them especially in agencies such as the CIA, who are shifting their focus from gathering intelligence to targeting and killing terrorists. The emotions of the Americans after the 9/11 attack hindered their reasoning, therefore their anger, hatred and sorrow caused them to plan an attack back onto the Islamic countries that were involved. Additionally, a few minutes after the first two plane crashes, George Washington Bush announced on live TV that he would “hunt down and find those folks who committed this act”, clearly suggesting his anger and how he is not being reasonable by thinking about the consequences of these actions. However though during that time period their emotion was hampering reason, now, a decade later, since they have finally come to a realization that no one will ever win this war, their emotion of fatigue is enhancing their reasoning causing them to gradually pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Additionally, their perspective on the attack created them to cause more destruction through revenge. My perspective on the attack would differ my responses towards it as I did not witness the attack first hand, I do not live in America making