Posted by
glen ropella on
Jan 07, 2014; 10:04pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/11-American-Nations-tp7584250p7584663.html
On 01/07/2014 01:43 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> I thought you were arguing exactly the opposite, that emotional
> behavior, however irrational it might appear, should be judged rational
> if it had some selective benefit at some point in its historical
> development. Like thus:
>
> people actually use irrational reasoning procedures. I think even
> so-called "irrational" things like _emotions_ are, somewhere deep down,
> rational. Those emotions are an evolutionarily selected decision-making
> ability that has its own calculus.
>
>
> But now you're saying that irrationality is just irrational, no matter
> what justification one can think up for it.
Sorry, I wasn't clear about what I think versus inference based on
others' positions. My main point is that rationality requires multiple
options. If there's only a single option, then whatever process you use
to get to that option is non-rational.
However, if Arlo's (or Nick's Peircian channeling) is correct, then as
long as a method can be identified, then it could be called rational,
perhaps weak or strong.
My counter argument to your post is simply that, if behavior is
unrelated to a mental process of rationality, then it is _unrelated_.
Hence, it would boil down to whether thought can drive behavior.
> Meanwhile, we've reached the curious situation where we have human
> actors making irrational arguments which attempt to disguise themselves
> as rational thought. That is, they don't say: "I'm going to do this
> because I'm batshit crazy"; they say: "I'm going to do this because of
> <fallacious logic> and <more fallacious logic> and <non-existent
> evidence>." We're actually quite rational by habit, we regulate most of
> our lives according to logic and evidence, we make most decisions
> rationally. It's only a few subjects that drive us batshit, but we
> still justify the batshit as if it were the result of a rational decision.
If thought _always_ drives behavior, or if thought _is_ behavior, then
no matter what one does, we can call it rational (absent any requirement
for transparency/observability of the inner logic). But if thought can
(sometimes) be separate from behavior, then one can behave irrationally
yet still think rationally.
My counter argument to your post was simply that latter... that
non-rational behavior would not be "rational irrationality". It would
be simply irrational.
--
⇒⇐ glen
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