What Do You Mean When You Say Rational

"by Michael De DoraA couple of days ago I was perusing the Wikiquote page for my favorite philosopher, Bertrand Russell, and came across the following remark: "Man is a rational animal - so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents." I'd seen this quote before, but this time it got me thinking about rationality more in-depth than I had before. Russell, from what I gather, was lamenting the fact that most human beings believe in seemingly false claims, and commit unjustifiable and horrible acts. I am with him on that. But I have also said in public exchanges about religion that many of those beliefs and actions are what we might consider rational" given the requisite assumptions. This raises a question over which I have been stewing since re-reading the quote: what does it really mean to act rationally? I believe this question is best answered by making a distinction between two different conceptions of rationality, which I will call "interior" and "exterior ("or" rational "and" Rational)". This is the difference between acting a certain way given a starting point or context (interior or rational), and acting a certain way because it is right or true (exterior or Rational). Interior rationality looks something like this. People have beliefs. Upon those beliefs, they base other beliefs. For a mental image, this view of beliefs wouldn't look like a neatly stacked block of wood, but instead a jagged pile of rocks, or an intertwined mess of tree branches. The point being, beliefs are dependent on other beliefs, and together they give rise to certain behaviors, outside of what is true or not. Whether a person's belief is true or not when he or she starts the reasoning process, it might still be rational to engage in certain acts "given that belief". In short, a person can be rational within an irrational system. This is interior rationality: acting while maintaining as much coherence as possible with your beliefs and values. For example, say I cheat on my girlfriend or wife by having sexual relations with another woman. That would be an awful thing to do. But, if I believe I am a rational and nice person, then I might seek to justify my behavior. As Carol Tavris and Elliott Aronson point out in the book "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): "Because we are not irrational and mean-spirited, any negative feelings we have about another group are justified; our dislikes are rational and well-founded." In my example, I might wonder how a rational and nice person like me could act so irrationally and meanly. Aha! It must be someone else's fault (i.e., mistakes were made, "but not by me"). So I might think things like "well, our relationship was really on the rocks anyway," or "I think she cheated on me once, so I'm excused." Of course these "reasons" may simply be invented: was the relationship really on the rocks? Did I ever really suspect her of cheating? Again, the point is that it all makes sense if I also believe that I am a rational and nice young man. Yet, even as these beliefs and behaviors are rational given my assumptions about my niceness and reasonableness, they are not rational in the exterior sense. Exterior rationality does not mean acting in accordance with a given set of beliefs, but in accordance with our best assumptions as to what is right or true. Acting rationally in this sense would have me pondering whether I am really a nice and reasonable young man. If reason and evidence tell me it is not so, I'd have to adjust. When compared to exterior rationality, interior rationality is often dismissed as necessarily irrational. However, this need not be the case. Interior rationality is prone to mistakes, but we can use exterior rationality to keep it in line. Indeed, I think both of these rationalities are worth striving for, as they mean we are acting according to what we have decided is right or true within our system of thought, and in our somewhat objective study of it. The key is to closely monitor the reasons why we are assuming we are rational. It is vital to dig through our beliefs until we get to the roots - to the basic assumptions that make us decide our behaviors are rational. The accuracy of our beliefs is a good clue into whether we're really acting rationally. And this is critically important, because from my vantage point, while man might have impressively honed interior rationality, he has a long way to go before achieving rationality in the exterior sense proposed here.

Origin: ceremonial-magic.blogspot.com