It seems instrumental rationality is an even worse tool to classify “irrational” emotions. Instrumental rationality is about actions, or intentions and desires, but emotions are neither of those. We can decide what to do, but we can’t decide what emotions to have.
Emotions can be treated as properties of the world, optimized with respect to constraints like anything else. We can’t edit our emotions directly but we can influence them.
It seems instrumental rationality is an even worse tool to classify “irrational” emotions. Instrumental rationality is about actions, or intentions and desires, but emotions are neither of those. We can decide what to do, but we can’t decide what emotions to have.
Emotions can be treated as properties of the world, optimized with respect to constraints like anything else. We can’t edit our emotions directly but we can influence them.
We can “influence” them only insofar we can “influence” what we want or believe: to a very low degree.