Reasoning: Another tool in the toolbox

As regards the supposed inescapability of rationality, or, alternatively, the impossibility of justifying it (or more broadly, its immunity to rational critique whether supportive or undermining), I offer the following considerations. 

To begin with, in the back of my mind has always been a kind of puzzle about reasoning -- an unexamined assumption, as it were, of which I have been inchoately and a little troublingly aware and am now attempting to articulate -- namely: Why is the legitimacy of any belief or claim (taking these as actual events and not merely abstract propositions) -- and according to a rationalist, this would seem to be legitimacy tout court, that is, legitimacy qua a belief or claim, and not just rational legitimacy (which term is a kind of redundancy), analogous to the way moral demands purport to be categorical and overriding of all other kinds as regards actions -- dependent on some other belief(s) or claim(s)? 

There would seem to be two ways to question the assumption that it is. (1) Why isn't the original belief or claim sufficient unto itself? Why should greater weight be given to some other claims? This seems a gratuitously (one might even say neurotically) roundabout or indirect way of establishing the legitimacy of the original belief or claim. (2) The process obviously has no formal end: Any further claim(s) invoked in justification of the first one will themselves require legitimation, and so on forever. This reveals the real neurosis: The original felt need to reinforce a belief or claim in this manner shows that the "real" motive has been either a fundamental uncertainty or lack of confidence in one's own judgments or lack of trust  in others' judgments (or integrity), which can never be assuaged, or a (however subconsciously) deliberate attempt to put off forever having to decide something (anything) or act (thereby perpetuating the status quo; so reason is a very conservative, unprogressive attitude).[i]

[i] A third way to question the assumption -- that rationality presumes no belief is sufficient unto itself -- occurs to me. When we “simply” believe, or for that matter, desire or do something “for no reason,” this could itself be conceived as a reason; for example, “My reason for going for a walk everyday is just that I love doing it.” Furthermore, gong for a walk “for its own sake” can in fact be broken down into components that begin to look like ordinary reasons.,  Thus, if someone were to ask, “What is it about going for a walk that you like so much?” you might reply, “I like to go for walks because it allows me to rest and expand my mind.” 

The alternative is to live the way most people do -- spontaneously -- which is to say: They believe what they see, hear, and think (and do what they feel or want). As I say: My first concern in adducing the above "consideration" is not to prove that the rational life is inferior to the spontaneous life (which BTW could also be thought itself to be the rational life in the sense of being endorsed by reason if in fact the above consideration did constitute a proof), but rather, more broadly and less contentiously although still contrary to settled opinion, that one can argue (rationally) about the merits of rationality as a predominant way of life. 

            I myself happen to value rationality. But, since my analetheist turn, I have attempted to lessen the neurosis by conceptualizing rationality as concerned not with truth but simply with the giving of reasons (to believe or feel or do something). I guess I would add sincere reasons. This does still leave me with the compulsion to “back up” any given belief or claim with other ones. But it is less neurotic, I would like to think, when divorced from the effort to justify (a belief or claim) as true, and is instead done either for its own sake, the way one might paint a picture or write a poem, or for some practical reason.

            And there surely are useful functions of reasoning apart from the faux or adulterated pretensions of rationality to ascertain truth or legitimacy. Foremost is persuasion. Reasoning is certainly a tool for this. (This essay is intended to be an example.) Reasoning can also be a means of seeking common ground with an opponent, for example, by finding an agreed-upon premise. It can also be used as a critical tool for exposing flaws in others’ arguments (which there always are), and so serve the purpose of “winning.” However, reasoning conceived as a practical tool for achieving these goals must recognize that it is (like morality for other purposes, as I have argued elsewhere) only one tool among others. And so, for example, reasoning, which is to say proper reasoning (that is, reasoning in accordance with the canons of logic or probability), stands beside specious reasoning on the shelf of resources for achieving the same practical goals once the concern with truth is put aside. 

            A final note: While it may seem a denigration of reasoning or rationality to call it a tool rather than deeming it inherently valuable, from another point of view this is actually a promotion (glass half full; yes and no). For qua inherently valuable, rationality is in a way indefensible. Certainly it is rationally indefensible. (This is a well-known paradox.) But qua tool, rationality is eminently rationally defensible, as I  have just shown. (It also happens, as I have also noted, that I value rationality intrinsically. But that is just a psychological fact about me, not an attribution of objective worth to rationality.)

[i] A third way to question the assumption -- that rationality presumes no belief is sufficient unto itself -- occurs to me. When we “simply” believe, or for that matter, desire or do something “for no reason,” this could itself be conceived as a reason; for example, “My reason for going for a walk everyday is just that I love doing it.” Furthermore, gong for a walk “for its own sake” can in fact be broken down into components that begin to look like ordinary reasons.,  Thus, if someone were to ask, “What is it about going for a walk that you like so much?” you might reply, “I like to go for walks because it allows me to rest and expand my mind.”

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