Recalcitrant Emotions and the Two ‘Dogmas of Rationalism’: Lessons From Psychology and Behavioural Economics

ABSTRACT ‘Recalcitrant emotions’ are those emotions that contradict one's explicit beliefs, such as fearing flying while claiming not to believe that it is dangerous. Emotional recalcitrance has often been used to challenge cognitivism, because of its comparison between recalcitrant emotions and contradictory beliefs. There are two main problems: (i) the irrationality underlying recalcitrant emotions seems to be more common and less severe than that of holding contradictory beliefs, and (ii) while people are generally willing to acknowledge and correct inconsistencies in their reasoning, it is more challenging to convince someone with a recalcitrant fear of flying to change their mind. This paper argues that these objections are based on two dogmas of ideal rationality, which, according to psychology and behavioural economics, are systematically violated by ordinary people. I argue that findings from behavioural economics can provide a proper ground for defending a cognitive account of recalcitrant emotions.