Rational Beings

Human beings are rational beings, yes. But what does this mean? It is natural to assume that it means something good: that we are logical in our thinking and hence feeling and behavior. But clearly human beings are far from rational in this sense. Just read a book like Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow or Jonathan Haight’s The Righteous Mind to become disabused of that rosy view.

I propose instead, therefore, that the primary meaning of our being rational is simply that we are always prepared to give reasons for our beliefs and feelings and actions. But those reasons can be good or bad ones, that is, logical or illogical. (They can also be good or bad based on the truth or plausibility or falseness or implausibility of the premises. Indeed sometimes people simply lie in their arguments.)

A compromise view would be that we are capable of giving and accepting good reasons, even though mostly or often we don’t. This seems OK to me as a secondary meaning, but primarily, it seems to me, we are reason-givers, and to hell with logic (or even truth).

But the problem is even deeper than that, for it seems to me what we most typically do, and maybe inescapably do, is give reasons that are good, but not good enough to prove anything. The ultimate reason (that is, explanation – “reason,” like any word worth its salt, has many meanings) for this is debatable. I tend now to believe that the reason our reasons are never definitive is that our world is in a sense illusory, or more moderately put, perspectival. And an implication I see is that it is possible, maybe even always, to give good reasons for anything at all, and more particularly, for anything and its opposite (i.e., for both x and not-x). (See my essay “Reality” for more on this idea.)

But the reason why aside, here is an example from my own life of what I’m talking about. My dentist’s office had called me to set up a regular checkup. I had already canceled months ago when the pandemic hit and had been intending to tough it out until there was a vaccine (unless I had a noticeable problem with my teeth). But the dental assistant assured me they had set up elaborate safety procedures, so I agreed to the appointment, knowing I still had time to cancel again after thinking about it some more.

Well, sure enough, as the day of the appointment approached my doubts were making me very anxious. I have been scrupulously sheltering in place for 8 months, given my age and fortunate circumstances. I don’t go into stores or into anyone’s home, or let anyone enter mine, etc. It’s all deliveries and meeting outside. The only risky encounters have been, ironically enough, with doctors. But this one with the dentist would surely be the riskiest of all, since I’d have my mouth open for half an hour in a room where other patients had also had their mouth open. I had inquired about the ventilation, and the assistant told me the new system they had installed replaced the air in the room 7 times an hour and she’d schedule me in after the lunch break to make extra sure the room was clear of any virus from anyone who had been in there previously.

I was convinced, then, that they were doing the best they could. And of course I knew that they had a very big prudential reason on top of sheer concern for their patients, since it would hardly do the practice any good to have to close down if a patient contracted the virus and also have that smudge on their reputation. Thus had been my reasoning to agree to go in the first place.

But now my reasoning was that their doing their best was not the same as my having any kind of guarantee that I would not contract the virus in their office. Who knew if the air filter manufacturer’s claim was true? Who knew if this particular unit was functioning properly? And aren’t there always inadvertent happenstances that up-end the best laid plans? So … I canceled.

But as soon as I did that, I began to notice my teeth and my gums. Didn’t they feel kind of … icky? And wasn’t there a little ache in the upper left? Then it occurred to me to check when my last checkup had been, and lo and behold it was already over a year ago. I hadn’t realized. Furthermore it could easily be another half-year before I was vaccinated. I could not imagine living with the anxiety that my teeth or gums were rotting for all those months. True, I might have anxiety again about going to the dentist now. But I am much better at dealing with short-term anxiety than long-term. Decades of meditating have given me the power to put a disturbing thought right out of mind by directing my attention elsewhere; but over the long haul it is onerous to have to keep doing that. Also the ache brought to mind just how painful a tooth problem can be, and if it became acute, I might not be able to get an appointment right away under the circumstances (I might have some worrisome symptoms, or their office might even have closed if they were quarantining, etc.), or it might be under less favorable conditions (not after the lunch break, icy road conditions now that winter approaches, etc.). So I called back and, fortunately, they still had the same opening for me.

Now, isn’t that all ridiculous? Every step of the way I was reasoning, and not blatantly poorly. But as Jonathan Haight would put it, in every case the tail was wagging the dog. My reasoning gave me reasons, even good ones, but they hardly told me what to do. That was determined by non-rational factors having to do with my feelings. The reasons were relevant, but never decisive. It was how I felt (for whatever contingent “reasons” … that is, whatever caused them) that determined which reasons would actually move me to act.

This phenomenon is not confined to everyday reasoning, but even characterizes, indeed epitomizes, reasoning in the very temple of rationality: philosophical dialectic. For what is it that we philosophers do as naturally and as often as breathing? It is to give reasons why the reasoning of our interlocutor is mistaken … who of course, in the nature of the case, returns the compliment. And on and on, round and round it goes … forever.

I have pointed out previously why this explodes the anthropocentric myth that reasoning sets apart human beings as the exceptional species, above all the rest who act merely on “instinct.” Indeed, I see us as on a par with insects; see “IntrinsicDesire and Morality: Entomological Revelations” (especially in the section beginning “But are not human beings superior …”).