Rationality has an image problem. For many, the word rational means without emotion, cold, clinical, somewhat inhuman, and certainly not warm, cuddly, and friendly. To be able to think rationally is seen as being free of any considerations of empathy, sympathy, care for others, or even humanity. The picture of the rational person is someone who is hard-nosed, logical, dogmatic, uncaring.
For anyone who considers themselves a rationalist, this is a complete nonsense, and insulting. So why is it a prevalent view?
Rationality necessarily excludes the irrational, and so the implicit identification of emotion and feeling with the irrational gives rise to the prejudice. If a person is rational, then they must not be irrational and if emotion is irrational, then they must be devoid of emotion. And of course, if they are devoid of emotion, they are “outside” normal society in some way, unable to take part in the emotional world.
For those who cling to irrational beliefs, this is a useful means of circumventing the rational case, for clearly an unemotional person will fail to grasp emotional arguments, they’ll fail to empathise, they’ll fail to have faith. One doesn't need to consider rational people as feeling individuals, since we've defined them as being devoid of emotion, so we can denigrate them and treat them as geeks, nerds, robots, even. No other group of people could be expected to tolerate such prejudice and it is a measure of the passive acceptance of this caricature, that rationality is a kind of guilty secret.
The opposition between rational thinking and emotion is of course unfounded.
Rational thinking is a skill in just the same way as doing arithmetic is, or knowing how to use a washing machine, or being able to cook, or play a musical instrument. What distinguishes rational thinking is the ability to reason, to recognise when an argument is unfounded or questionable, to weigh up evidence and to think critically, regardless of how we feel emotionally.
We rely on rational thinking to control emotion in some areas of activity. For example, in designing an aeroplane, we would not want the decisions made by engineers to be based on their variable moods, or their emotional attachments to particular people or things. We want their work to be reproducible, testable, based on sound engineering principles which should hold whatever the emotions experienced by the people involved. That’s essential if we are to have confidence in the aeroplane. So rational people, far from being devoid of emotion, are a little more in control of it during certain activities.
What you feel and what you think are not necessarily the same, and in any case we should certainly not simply believe everything we think. Rationality gives us the ability to question what we think and this process provides some consistency with how the world really works.
For those lacking rationality, thinking is a process subject to their shifts in emotion; they are prone to believe what they feel. And in areas where we are not making significant choices, this emotional basis for thinking can work very well. But when it extends to more serious matters, such as designing machinery, making major life choices, etc, those with limited rationality are at a serious disadvantage, prone to believe specious advertising claims, easy prey for con-artists, likely to believe and follow fads. In a real sense, they are deprived of an important measure of control over their lives.
It used to be said that you shouldn’t let your heart rule your head (when it was thought the heart was the source of emotion). The fact is that everyone uses both. Rational people are emotional just like everyone else. They have feelings, prejudices, likes, wants, needs, and so on. But they also have an ability to think critically on demand, just like calling on any other skill.
Many people are quite defensive about their rationality as if it’s some secret vice, not to be seen in public. But it’s something to celebrate – look, we’re thinking rationally! We looked at those arguments and now we understand why they’re unsound! We chose to do that because…
Getting in control of our thinking gives us tremendous opportunities and satisfaction. It improves our confidence and emotional well-being, it makes us less subject to peer-pressure and fads, it makes our lives more in control. It opens the possibilities of understanding the world around us, and it even helps us understand the emotional reactions of other people. It makes us better able to relate to others. It’s something to celebrate.
“Are you religious?”
“No I’m a rationalist. I can think!”
It really is cool to be rational!
