Your head is a map and your heart is a compass.
Your map (your head) lays out what the terrain looks like. It communicates causes and effects, means and ends, pleasant trails and hazards.
Your compass (your heart) tells you which way to go. It communicates values, morals, and destinations.
Your compass will still tell you things even if your map is upside down. East will look West. Bad places will look good, and good places will look bad. That's why it's important to draw your cognitive map first before you follow your moral compass.
If you follow your compass before you've etched out an accurate map, you'll be worse than stuck, you'll be lost. You won't only not move forward, you'll move backward. You'll travel against your values, against morality, and against your destination.
Lost people have trouble revising their maps. They've already committed to one direction, and the more you invest in something the harder it is to abandon it (sunk cost fallacy). They share stories of their travels with their friends. They build an identity out of it. After that, it's hard to admit your map is defective.
This doesn't put the map above the compass (or the head above the heart). Head first heart second is a temporal imperative, not an evaluative one. Just as the compass is no good without the map, the map is no good without the compass. You need both, but draw the map first. Plot the terrain before you navigate it.
This is a call to stop to think before embarking on a moral crusade. Sober reflection often dissolves moral imperative. Think of the social pressures and the moral righteousness of the people who burned witches and stoned sinners. Do you think you're so immune to those same sensations?
