When the outcomes of a decision are uncertain, emotions play a role in guiding it. Emotions are the tools we use to simplify the world into heuristics, or general rules of thumb, as they allow our brains to take shortcuts and approximate rational thinking. Fear and anxiety detect risky choices, this is why we need emotions to make rational decisions.
Antonio Damasio made a groundbreaking discovery. He studied people with damage in the part of the brain where emotions are generated. He found that they seemed normal, except that they were not able to feel emotions. But they all had something peculiar in common: they couldn’t make decisions. They could describe what they should be doing in logical terms, yet they found it very difficult to make even simple decisions, such as what to eat. Many decisions have pros and cons on both sides—shall I have the chicken or the turkey? With no rational way to decide, these test subjects were unable to arrive at a decision.
So at the point of decision, emotions are very important for choosing. In fact even with what we believe are logical decisions, the very point of choice is arguably always based on emotion.