We are not as rational as we think we are.1 What I mean by this is that we think our beliefs and attitudes, and even our feelings and moods, are more determined by a reasoning process that brings us to them than they are.

We think that we are in control of such mental states through their being the result of a reasoning process over which we have control. We might make mistakes in our reasoning, or reason from false premises, but that is something which we have the power to work at and get right. We are not thereby just brought to a belief or attitude or mood (from now on I shall simply group these under ‘mental stances’) by a series of steps over which we have no control, that rather we are at the behest of.

That process is causal, that is to say non-rational. This contrasts not only with the rational but also with processes that are irrational, that is to say, that involve going against what reason indicates, when going with what reason indicates is what we should do. If a tree falls on someone’s head, what leads up to it is a series of non-rational causal factual events or steps that are neither rational nor irrational, but are rather a matter of what happens or does not happen. Whereas with the rational we are looking at a process, or series of steps that are normative, that is to say, they may involve a judgement or account of what should or should not2 be occurring in the process regardless of what in fact does or does not happen. So that if someone writes ‘2+2=’, and we are asked to write what follows the ‘=’, we should write ‘4’. It is not a matter considered as a process of reasoning of the 4 in any way being merely determined by factual causal processes, rather we should write ‘4’ in the normative sense of it being the right answer, and not the wrong one. With processes considered merely as non-rational causal ones, right and wrong, making a mistake or not, does not come up, rather it is simply a matter of what happens or does not happen.

That we are not as rational as we think we are may seem a disturbing or depressing conclusion, but I shall go on to show why this is not wholly the case, especially if we accept and are aware that we are less rational than we think we are.

First, we must note that we should not, should not want to, control and determine our mental stances, indeed our very lives, in all instances, by reason.

Some things we think of as being appropriately and rightly determined by reason. There are many examples of this, and not only among the obvious such as mathematics. We might be considering …

Originally appeared on Daily Philosophy Read More