(July 12, 2021 at 1:24 pm)Angrboda Wrote: Lack of emotion in decision-making tends to lead toward behavior that appears distinctly irrational.
There is a little bit of an ancient debate on the matter that comes to mind. IDK. You may find it pointless. Or you may find it interesting.
The Platonists held that reason is distinct from our emotions and our desires.
But the Stoics thought that there was a little bit of reason at work in every one of our impulses. -- ie. there is a little bit of reason at work in our hunger or anger etc. However, in the end, the Stoic concluded that we should go with what is most reasonable-- despite what our emotions or impulses command. That means maybe eschew our impulses when logic dictates, but also embrace them (or let them win) when logic dictates.
IDK. I like the Stoics' point. And I think there is a kind of reasonableness in emotion that may even be more reasonable than pure logic. If that makes sense.
(July 13, 2021 at 7:11 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: We could use addressing climate change as a specific example. We could zero out batshit non reasons for opposing this or that solution….and that’s probably what we’re thinking about when we say that if we were more rational we could solve the problem tomorrow.
However, there would still be entirely logical reasons to oppose or withhold support for any of those solutions. Those are the harder ones, the ones where we need to do a lot of basic work, still, to overcome hesitancy.
Insomuch, I think, as more or full reason might lead to a hellscape it won’t be on account of that being an essential attribute of rationality or full rationality- but that we’d be even better at pursuing our goals than we currently are. The goals might still be shit.
Well, look at it this way. In a capitalistic society, desire is what rules. We all know from economics 101 that economics is based on what people desire vs what they can obtain.
A "desire vs. reality scheme"... who will win? Well, reality always wins... but in capitalist consumerism, desire influences reality. It makes its voice heard. The desirous consumer is the almighty dictator. And desirous consumers want cokes and big macs. Not intact ice caps.
Plato thinks desire is bad to have in a rulership position (as capitalism has it). Better would be some ruling power that can say "We will reduce carbon emissions. Period. If people don't like it. Fuck them. The most rational course of action is to not allow our polar ice caps to melt. So that's not going to happen."
That's all fine and good. I think most of us would applaud if capitalism were sanctioned in such a bold way, at least concerning climate change. But, in the end, an entirely reasonable society (while its ice caps be unmelted) would be less fun, and less meaningful overall than a society that integrated and celebrated its impulses alongside its reasonable nature.
