If people were 100% rational, would the world be better?

[vulcanlogician]

I disagree. The problem is about people wanting burgers (and other things). Sure, they could have burgers and not destroy the planet. But that's Plato talking. That's what Plato thinks. That's not what capitalism thinks.

"I want burgers! and a plethora of other consumer goods." Planet be damned. THAT is what desire (unadulterated) asks. That's what capitalism thinks. That is the default state of capitalism. You can call incredibly bad desires "batshit" if you want. But what makes those desires bad is not their "batshitedness".... it's their unreasonableness. All ideas have foundations. "I want burgers" is a shitty foundation for a society. But it will work if no other foundation is around. It is a foundation of our current society... so what's that say?

I think it says Plato is still relevant.

[The Grand Nudger]

I want burgers may in fact be the founding assumption of any society, called by a million other names. Flavor out of the way, I feel that I’m not effectively communicating.

I certainly don’t want to get to mired down in arguments about capitalism. I’m thinking more along the lines of something like this. Two equally reasonable people can disagree over climate change and what we should do.

It’s not really anything as trivial as consumerism that got us here. We’d be here if we were full on property communists. If we conserved every resource from the dawn of man till now. The problem we currently face is an inevitability of human development. Had we been more rational we may have advanced, technologically, much more quickly. In that event we run into the wall earlier. Less rational, slower, hit the wall later.

Now, I think that one set of actions is the right thing to do, but that won’t mean that this set of actions would be a logical imperative for everyone. That all rational roads lead to me, effectively. Consumerism, capitalism, whatever-ism… any of these things may at any point be a thing that saves or condemns us. More rational people would simply be more logically forceful and compelling in the pursuit of -any- goal by whatever -ism. It’s quite possible that for some 100% rational person to hear an environmental proposition and pass. It’s entirely possible, even, that the rational response to climate change, is to continue what we’ve been doing regardless, and let the cards fall.

Competing goals may not have exclusive purchase on reason in conflict with each other.

[tackattack]

Competing goals would also allow people to pick the sort they fall on and give them some skin in the investment as long as they saw their perspective as rational. Then we could take a stork view of what’s been trying worked and what hasn’t been the most rational solution will get us there faster.

Back to what is rational about emotion, even though it’s reactive fun still has positives like endorphin response, but you can’t script fun for yourself logically. What if two equally rational people scripted each other’s fun for the betterment of the other?

As a one side of that they would be rational and have the necessary uncertainty to promote creative thinking and ideas and passion. While from the other side you could say they were being “less rational” but it’s within tolerance because it’s scripted, just outside their scope.

Idk just spitballing here

[Silver]

I'm 99.9% rational most times.

It's when I'm emotional that I tend to appear most irrational.

[HappySkeptic]

Rationality means making logical choices that will lead to ends that correspond to your desires and values. It says nothing about the validity of those desires or values.

Can we evaluate desires or values as being rational? As others have said, we can rationalize any desire or value -- you can't derive most of them from logical principles.

[Angrboda]

Emotions are directed towards goals. Most people can agree on the top of the pyramid, staying alive, but from there the goals diversify like lines in a branching story. At the bottom, where goals are implemented, the variety of aims and purposes representing the top-level goal are so varied, that all you can say is that whatever a healthy brain wants, that's appropriate to the goal. If rational means simply having a reason, then all these bottom-level wants become rational as they are all reasons justified by the legitimate top-level goal. In that case, rational becomes so dependent on subjectivity as to be empty.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Emotions are directed towards goals.  Most people can agree on the top of the pyramid, staying alive, but from there the goals diversify like lines in a branching story.  At the bottom, where goals are implemented, the variety of aims and purposes representing the top-level goal are so varied, that all you can say is that whatever a healthy brain wants, that's appropriate to the goal.  If rational means simply having a reason, then all these bottom-level wants become rational as they are all reasons justified by the legitimate top-level goal.  In that case, rational becomes so dependent on subjectivity as to be empty.

Alternatively, the oldest part of our brains provide a seemingly crude heuristic made of emotional responses that has, over eons, been remarkably refined by the time it has endured so very very long. Is it not wise to listen and often defer to the deep wisdom of our evolutionary history?

Do you have to know how you know to know that you know? To me, that is the greatest philosophical puzzle and also where 90% of the squabbles between atheists and apologists end up.

[The Grand Nudger]

Seems like an easy question, certainly nothing to do with gods.

[Ranjr]

A person with mental deficiency can make a rational choice that is a poor one.  Such questions tend to put grit in the gears.

[tackattack]

Ok another question. In this 100% rational world would the rationale be known before the decision or could we deem it rational afterwards.