Feelings and Decision Making

Abstract

Theology needs a better understanding of the role of feelings in decision making. Over the last decade, there has been an enormous amount of work-from neuroscience and psychology to economics and philosophy-that clarifies and develops how feelings aid in human understanding and acting.1 While theologians have attended to feelings in recent years, they have spent the bulk of their efforts recovering Thomas Aquinas' thought on the topic.2 While his work is important, Aquinas thought on feelings is couched in faculty psychology, a framework prone to not only marginalizing feelings but also valorizing the isolated, calculating individual.