Although feelings are notoriously unreliable as sources of knowledge, it should not be concluded that they are unimportant or that they should be ignored. Our feelings serve a vital, even indispensable function in situations where a full conscious evaluation is not feasible. For instance, a sudden feeling of fear may alert a driver to a road hazard, where there is insufficient time for a fully conscious judgment. In such emergency situations, a quick response based on immediate intuition may avert major injury or death. The good driver's intuition is not inborn, of course, but developed through years of observation and practice.

Intuitive feelings may steer one successfully through other complex situations where exigencies of time preclude a detailed conscious analysis, but where response patterns have been developed by conscious practice in similar past situations. The stage performance of a musician, dancer, or actor is typically guided by such well-trained intuition, although some performers are more spontaneous than others. Because reliance on such intuition is vital to the careers of performing artists, they are often distrustful of conscious reasoning in general and may seek to apply their intuition to areas outside of their expertise. For this reason among others, one should be wary of looking to movie stars, for example, for guidance in issues of ethics, politics, economics, and other fields outside of their specialization.