Emotion is a weakness in decision making.

First off, I think it it will be useful to get a working definition of rational in this debate; I propose the following definition:Rational: Preference for actions that are in the self-interest of the actor. This seems to be the implicit definition that both my opponent and I are using, but having it spelled out will be useful later on. ------------On My opponent's arguments: Recall how I place the burden of proof on the affirmative: My opponent needs to show that his examples show conclusively show that in at least the majority of cases, emotion shouldn't play a role in decision making; something that his first examples fail to do and he has continued to not demonstrably show. Let's take a closer look at his responses to my arguments:"This desire to retain being exclusive leads to irrational thought and voiding facts. " By what measure is this decided? Under the way that the assumptions present in game theory work, they both just have a higher expected utility from engaging in conflict. In the activity that they're participating, the exclusivity is the highest payoff. They value exclusivity with person C as their highest payoff; there's no voiding facts or irrational thought. They're acting in their best interest, given their interest. The senator example still does little to no work for my opponent, and the quote has nothing to do with emotion, only with beliefs. Beliefs are certain propositional states that we possess; they are not emotions, which are non-propositional. His actions are still rational: He's presenting misinformation to help his cause. My opponent also failed here to show that there's a conclusive link between decision making that involves emotion and bad outcomes; don't let him answer this in his last speech. With this, you have NO reason to vote Pro. The thrust of the argument is that it leads to bad outcomes, but without being able to demonstrably show this, there's no reason to accept that there's actually a weakness to emotional decision making, because he doesn't trace out how it negatively impacts the actor. Again, don't let him bring this up in his last speech, as that would be a demonstratively abusive move on his part. I don't need the rest of 1b to win, but don't penalize me for kicking it, since my opponent puts no offense on it. My opponent fails on both counts to show how his two examples allow for the generality of the statement that emotions are detrimental to decision making, he only has two examples which cannot be generalized to an entire class of our internal lives. Further more, even if they could, both his examples are non-starters and don't relate to the subject matter at hand. ---On Game TheoryMy opponent says the following: "That exact quote is the problem with humans. People have a tendency to, as you said, rationalize with emotions and that is the problem. A person may not be completely rational with a bias of emotion. By removing emotion from the equation he or she may find a more suitable outcome within the situation. The cost is not getting the feel good about their decision. "This is an excellent way to completely miss the point of the argument. I never said that people rationalize with emotions, I said that emotions are the root of how we come to make decisions, that is, all of our decisions are based off some form of emotion, as my sources demonstrate. We act upon what we value, which is driven by emotion. My argument had nothing to do with rationalization and even less to do with 'feeling good'. The argument is that any decision one will make other than getting food, sleeping, or relieving yourself has to do in some sense with emotion. Game theory is predicated on the notion that our emotions modify our payoffs, because we act towards what we want the most, and making decision towards what we want the most just is what is the most rational action. Hence, when my opponent says "Yes you are correct about stark not so much for just eating. Clearly there is more to life than eating but I am thinking that line was meant to be a exaggeration. A person without emotion would just go about life as one does without any consequence. Desires as you have suggested I may argue would most likely be trivial to someone without emotion. "There's no exaggeration, I mean it quite literally. The basis for our actions are our desires and emotions, without those, we'd have no reason to prefer one action over the other, as Frankfurt says in Reasons of Love. If I have no desire, I have no reason to act, and hence, I have no reason to make a decision. This argument was cold conceded. The entirety of Pro's premise falls, because we couldn't make decisions without emotion, so emotion couldn't be detrimental to the action of decision making; it's a necessary condition for it. Even further, take a look at the highlighted part of my opponent's statement: Desires would be trivial without emotion. There should be no doubt in your mind that my opponent just conceded the argument. Since decision making is reliant on our desires and emotions, my opponent has conceded that under a "Pro world", we'd have no reason to really do much of anything. Again, conceding that we wouldn't have desires without emotions sinks Pro's entire argument, as desires and are the fuel for the decision making engine. Let's take a look as how to my opponent attempts to make an argument about value:"To reach something that he or she values by their decision making is justifying their means. To elaborate upon my opinion above, values are questionable. Ones values may not be the same as others which leads to a slight conflict of interest when a decision is needed between two people. It would be better as a species to void emotion from life entirely so that reasonable responses can be accomplished. "This seems like a pretty vacuous argument, for the following reason: My opponent values 'reasonable responses', and a lack of emotion. It seems like my opponent doesn't totally grasp what I mean by value; I'm not talking about normative values or virtues, but mundane values, such as my valuing that my apartment is clean, or that that I value the taste of cheddar cheese above that of American cheese. Furthermore, there's no reason to think that we'd not have conflicts without emotion. Conflicts of interest would still continue over things necessary to survival, such as food. Otherwise, I agree, we would have less conflicts, because that we'd be performing far less actions. However, this argument holds weight in the first place because of an implicit value for a lack of conflict. My opponent has failed to actually challenge Argument 2, which functions as a purely offensive argument. Because of this, you should be ready to already vote Con, since I've demonstrated that decision making is based off of emotion. Hence, decision making can't be weakened by emotion, and Pro's argument can't obtain. ---Argument 3: Counter examples Both of my counterexamples are, in fact, based off of emotion: Desires are based off of base emotions, and desires in turn fuel decision making. Hence, a decision based on desiring safety relies on emotion. In the second example, I'm not clear how my opponent can deny that being distraught over shame has nothing to do with emotion, because it seems fairly intuitive that anything involving shame, or fear, relates to some form of emotion. Hence, argument 3 still obtains, showing that there are cases where emotion is a beneficial factor in decision making. Hence, emotion is not universally a weakness in decision making. ---Overview:My opponent has failed to show that his examples can be generalized to make as strong a claim as he is. Meanwhile, he gives no reason to vote Pro. Both argument 2 and 3 go uncontested in any meaningful way, showing demonstrably that emotion is not a weakness in decision making.