Rationality demands
Definition
Sophia Maximus has always prided herself on her rationality. She would never knowingly act contrary to the dictates of reason. Of course, she understands that some of the basic motivations to action are not rational – such as love, taste and character. But not being rational is not the same as being irrational. It is neither rational nor irrational to prefer strawberries to raspberries. But, given that preference, it is irrational to buy raspberries when strawberries are just as cheap.
Right now, however, she is in something of a fix. A very intelligent friend has persuaded her that it would be perfectly rational to set off a bomb which will kill many innocent people without any obvious benefit, such as saving other lives. She feels sure that there must be something wrong with her friend’s argument. But rationally, she cannot see it. What is worse, the argument suggests she should set off the bomb as soon as possible, so thinking longer is not an option.
In the past she has always thought it wrong to reject good rational arguments in favour of hunches or intuitions. Yet if she follows reason in this case, she can’t help but feel she will be doing a terrible wrong. Should she knowingly follow the less rational path, or trust reason over feeling and detonate the bomb?
Source
TBC.
Motivation & Background
The lack of detail in this thought experiment may create some suspicion as to its validity. We are not told what this fiendish rational argument is that concludes it would be good to bomb innocent people.
This vagueness is not really a problem, however. We know from experience that people have been convinced by rational arguments to do terrible things. In Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China, for example, people were persuaded that it was for the best to denounce innocent friends. Those who oppose the use of the A-Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki will also accept that those who made the decision did so, for the most part, on the basis of reasons they thought were compelling.
But, it will objected, weren’t the rational arguments given in each of these cases flawed? If we could see the argument that perplexed Sophia, we would surely be able to show that there is something wrong with it. This, however, assumes there must be something wrong with the argument. If you believe that reason always demands what is right, then it may just be that, contrary to appearances, the bombing is right, not that the argument is wrong. To assume the argument is wrong is already to elevate an intuitive conviction over the dictates of reason.
In any case, the optimism that the rational always aligns with the good is misplaced. The problem with psychopaths, it is said, is not that they lack reason but feeling. The eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume would agree. He wrote, ‘Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.’ If reason is isolated from feeling, we should not assume that it will always lead us to good.
Even if this view is too pessimistic and it is never rational to do evil, the problem we still face is that we can never be sure we are being perfectly rational. To those who saw the reason in Stalinism and Maoism, the logic did not seem flawed at all. Sophia is bright, but how can she tell whether reason really does demand she place the bomb or whether she has simply failed to spot the flaw in the argument? It is one thing to believe in the sovereignty of reason. It is quite another to believe in the power of human beings always to be able to recognise what that sovereign demands.
