REASON AND EMOTION IN HUMAN DECISION-MAKING: A PARETIAN APPROACH

Can a person make a decision solely based on reason? Common sense answers this question affirmatively; often a person is asked to forget emotions, and decide only with reason. Classic scientific and economic approaches, which deal with the homo economicus model, also try to separate reason and emotion in the decision-making process. These affirmative statements are in review - other theories are trying to create models for a better understanding of the decision-making process. Based on that, this paper mainly works with the following question: what is the relation between reason and emotion in human decision-making? The sociological work of Vilfredo Pareto offer ideas for a new insight about this relation. To Pareto, people make decisions based on feelings or residues. Residues are not equivalent to feelings - they are manifestations of feelings or correspondent to them. His theory also deals with derivations - logical justifications in order to rationalize actions brought up by residues. Residues and derivations are mechanisms that provide balance to society. Thus, Pareto seeks to understand the human decision-making process based on the combination between them. From this standpoint, the argument for total separation between reason and emotion in the human decision-making process may not be accurate - the subject may not be as rational as it is thought.