Instinctive Judgments: A Narrative Analysis

In regard to instinct, Leda Comides and John Tooby stated that “our intuitions are produced by the human brain, an informative processing device that was designed by the evolutionary process” (47). Evolution provided humanity with tools, such as intuition, to survive much in the same way that it equipped mankind with the capability to know when it is proper to utilize these judgments. In connecting the links between ways of knowing and instinctive judgments, it will be made apparent the great extent to which they are intertwined as they often work to prevent some of humanities faltering characteristics. By viewing ways of knowing such as reason and imagination as a check on our instinctive judgments, we not only find that we can logically …show more content…
I did not have the option earlier in my years but when the situation is shifted, reason no longer poses a barrier as I would be the one inflicting the greater amount of damage. When observing one of our more instinctual and well-known human functions fight or flight, we find that when we have the capability to stay and pose a fight after being provoked, reason becomes less of a check. Walter Cannon once posed the notion that “When humans are faced with danger or stress, a biological trigger helps us decide whether to stay and fight or get the heck out of there—flight” (qtd. in Bryant, “Are humans wired to survive?” ). In this way, reason has little hold on our instinctive judgments seeing as how in fight or flight you are posed with an inquiry that only holds two answers. Therefore, it is made apparent that reason as a way of knowing may at times be very effective as our instinctive judgments but at others may not be an option when some of our most basic functions, such as fight or flight, take …show more content…
We are predisposed to wonder what the future beholds and as much as that can be related to reason it is often a product of plenty of imagination. After a stress-filled day at school two years ago, I felt a hunger that could only be quenched by the little food that was in the room. However, it was not for me to take despite my instinct to take the food because I was in dire need of it. I employed imagination in the sense that I pictured a scenario in which I was caught funneling the food into a bag and later censured for doing so. Though it might not seem significant, it was a time when I had to utilize my better judgment and imagining skills to not fall into such an intuitive trap. It was logical that I take the nourishment because of the circumstances surrounding it but by imagining a harsh future scenario I was more than capable to resist what could have inevitably been a very self-harming