WMN: t3_3iz617_t1_cul2h8r

[TITLE]

CMV: The hyper-rationality of our age is detrimental to humans.

[basicbasicincome]

Let me begin by defining what I mean when I say hyper-rationality. Hyper-rationality is the social expectation and pressure that every human action and institution must be teologically justified by rational means, rather than a mixture of reason, emotion, tradition, religion, evolutionary instinct etc. I will use one clear example, for the sake of focus, while knowing that there are other examples of this as well. I will talk about producing off-spring. In my experience, people against procreating articulate 3-4 arguments against having children. Firstly, that having children will detrimentally affect the environment (1). New humans means more consumers of the Earth's resources and more producers of waste. The long term viability of the earth with exponentially more consumers and producers is uncertain. Secondly, the cost of having children can be astronomical (2). Thirdly, you become isolated to your social circle and to your spouse due to the time need to take care of your child. I present these arguments not because they uniquely matter, but because they seem valid. They are, shall we say for the sake of argument, true. However, in the pursuit of being rational, these arguments have contradicted one of the most basic and scientific principles of life, namely that animals produce off-spring to survive. It is basic evolutionary biology. We observe this in every known creature; we observe our own instincts to sexual activity and pleasure; we observe people's special fondness to babies (3). Yet, despite this obvious teology of humans, the rational arguments are given preference. This seems to play out on the societal level. Education levels and industrialization (a proxy for culture/rationality) correlate with lower birth rates (4). In conclusion, this is but one of many examples where hyper-rationality creates a social pressure that contradicts human instinct. _____ 1. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com//2009/08/07/having-children-brings-high-carbon-impact/ 2. http://money.cnn.com/interactive/pf/cost-of-children/ 3. reddit.com/r/aww 4. http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights13 > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

[philotrow]

There is a different between someone's proposed reasons for doing something and their actual reasons for doing something. A person who doesn't want to have a child might justify their decision with all the things you mentioned, but due to social pressure might fail to mention that they dislike children and that's why they're choosing not to have them. The other considerations like finances are just a plus. So, when you say that people have a special fondness for babies, you are not taking into account the fact that many people don't, or that there are other things they value far more highly (like a commitment to the environment that brings them fulfillment and purpose). ... As a source for the assertion above: https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/comments/3gif1d/ranimalaww_all_the_aww_none_of_the_kids/ A relevant comment from the post: [STA-CITE]>[–]SickRosecats not brats! >^..^< 6 points 20 days ago [END-CITE][STA-CITE]>Technically kids and babies are allowed on /r/aww, but they generally get downvoted to hell which I find kind of amusing. Once in a while kids can be cute or do cute things, but the newborn baby pictures are kind of gross. [END-CITE]... I also suggest r/childfree for a celebration of people who are following their instincts by NOT having children. They are bucking a strong societal pressure to live their lives like they actually want to. Is this due to an increasingly rational society? Possibly. But they are not fighting their animal nature. There is still a strong social pressure to procreate even if your circumstances make it an irrational choice, and you'll find examples of that on the subreddit. To say that higher education and industrialization (your rationality proxy) results in a lower birthrate because people are making a rational decision to not have children despite their desire to doesn't make much sense in light of Sweden. They put a lot of effort as a country into supporting parents and children http://www.oecd.org/els/family/swedenssupportforparentswithchildreniscomprehensiveandeffectivebutexpensive.htm yet they still have a birthrate comparable to developed nations that supply far less support to parents. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN ... Rationality doesn't seem to be causing people to completely dismiss their emotional desire to have children in most cases. All of the other factors of emotion, tradition, religion, etc are still very much at play. Perhaps more people now value the environment more highly than religious doctrine in their decision to have children, but to say that people all people who choose not to have children for an environmental reason are contradicting their instinct to do so is demonstrably false.

[Mahnogard]

Nice post. You've stated a lot of what I was thinking while reading the OP and the original comments. I know for myself, the choice to not have children has nothing to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion and lack of desire / instinct. I simply do not want to, period. But I'm expected to answer for this, so to speak. (Women with deliberately unused uteruses are rarely left unqueried, unfortunately.) If I were to just be totally honest, it would be like conversing with a reluctant toddler. "I don't want to." "But why?" "Because I don't want to!" "But you must have a reason!" "Dammit, I just don't *want* to!" That's hardly productive or pleasant. So, unless I'm in a situation where I feel comfortable cutting them off with a "Mind your business, harridan!", I have to come up with something that will end the discussion as politely and quickly as possible. What can I fall back on? Rationality, which has *not one thing* to do with my actual reasons, but makes for a far more effective response. Hyper-rationality isn't the reason why I'm not procreating. Lack of instinct and desire is. And I can't possibly be alone in that, and I'd imagine that I'm not the only one sometimes hiding my lack of reproductive drive behind disingenuous rationalizations. Edited to add: Just to be clear, I've been honest with many people - "I just don't feel the urge" - but the response to that is often so horribly negative that hiding behind less "unnatural" (yes, I've been told that) reasons are far more pleasant.

[ryancarp3]

Would you agree that some people shouldn't have children (for example, because they can't afford to provide for the child)? I'd argue that it would be more detrimental to have a child in an unstable/unhealthy environment than to not have a child and fight your biological instincts. I agree that we live in a rational age, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

[NuclearStudent]

Does teleology matter? There's no law or universal cultural mandate that says we have to obey all of our biological impulses. There's hardly any protest that we've suppressing our biological instincts towards violence on a society wide level. It doesn't particularly matter, from an emotional view, what emotions you choose to follow and what you choose to suppress.

[ScholarlyVirtue]

I don't think the dropping fertility in the industrialized world is due to this "hyper rationality", because this "hyper rationality" doesn't seem to be manifesting in other domains. For example, are humans even remotely rational when it comes to voting? Most seem to vote for whoever seems to be "of their tribe" (intellectuals, or go-getters, or soldiers or southerners, etc.) with very little analysis of policy. Or heck, just vote for whoever is tall and has a convincing smile, a nice suit, and a slogan with a couple feel-good words. Or how is watching dreck on TV "hyper-rational"? Or spending money on an impressive car or handbag, or doing drugs, or arguing with people on the internet, etc.? To get back to the birth example, I think it can be explained perfectly well witjout "hyper rationality" - people respond to incentives, and the incentive in the modern world (especially in a city) are very different from those of most of our more fertile ancestors. Put in our shoes, they would probably also choose to have less kids, for the same reasons we do: contraception is available; living space is very expensive; education is expensive; women work; there are many more other things on which one is tempted to spend money; hardly anybody has a job at which kids can be of any help, etc.

[basicbasicincome]

[STA-CITE]> To get back to the birth example, I think it can be explained perfectly well witjout "hyper rationality" - people respond to incentives, and the incentive in the modern world (especially in a city) are very different from those of most of our more fertile ancestors. Put in our shoes, they would probably also choose to have less kids, for the same reasons we do: contraception is available; living space is very expensive; education is expensive; women work; there are many more other things on which one is tempted to spend money; hardly anybody has a job at which kids can be of any help, etc. [END-CITE]I'm not trying to be an a-hole, but I think you and I are both illustrating the same point. The only real difference between you and I is that you could be suggesting that this is done subconsciously and/or instinctively rather than as a conscious, intellectual, thought-out process. I think that's conceivable. I'll toss a ∆ in your direction. [STA-CITE]>I don't think the dropping fertility in the industrialized world is due to this "hyper rationality", because this "hyper rationality" doesn't seem to be manifesting in other domains. [END-CITE]I purposefully tried to avoid discussing other topics, because then literally everything and anything could be talked about. I was hoping to show that it's conceivable or possible that if it's illustrated in this example, pregnancy, that it could also be happening elsewhere. Purely for the sake of time.

[WhenSnowDies]

[STA-CITE]>I'm not trying to be an a-hole, but I think you and I are both illustrating the same point. The only real difference between you and I is that you could be suggesting that this is done subconsciously and/or instinctively rather than as a conscious, intellectual, thought-out process. I think that's conceivable. I'll toss a ∆ in your direction. [END-CITE]How did saying the exact same thing as you "change your view"? What did your view change to?

[basicbasicincome]

The trend in a drop in fertility may have more to do with instinctual profit calculations than societal views of philosophy. That's a pretty big insight...

[WhenSnowDies]

Ohh I see.

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[ScholarlyVirtue]

I *think* one point we disagree on is what caused the drop of fertility: I'm saying it's due to a change in incentives (contraception etc.) whereas you seem to be saying it's "the hyper rationality of our age", i.e. the way we respond to incentives (or how we weight tradition vs. emotion vs. cold calculation). There may also be something wrong with the weight cold calculation vs. tradition vs. religion vs. emotion vs. instinct etc. - it's just that I don't think it's a purely modern problems, our ancestors made a shitload of bad decisions too (which makes the problem harder to solve, we can't just say "well we should go back to doing it the older way then!"). I agree that having children is one area where our decision making process seems to go wrong in some way, but it's not clear to me which way it should be fixed.

[ghotionInABarrel]

[STA-CITE]>I present these arguments not because they uniquely matter, but because they seem valid. They are, shall we say for the sake of argument, true [END-CITE][STA-CITE]> animals produce off-spring to survive. It is basic evolutionary biology. We observe this in every known creature; we observe our own instincts to sexual activity and pleasure; we observe people's special fondness to babies (3). Yet, despite this obvious teology of humans, the rational arguments are given preference [END-CITE]Are they? We still produce plenty of children after all. Also, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "rational." An argument that humans need to produce offspring to continue existence is perfectly rational and very strong, possibly more so than the rational arguments against reproducing.

[basicbasicincome]

[STA-CITE]>Also, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "rational." An argument that humans need to produce offspring to continue existence is perfectly rational and very strong, possibly more so than the rational arguments against reproducing. [END-CITE]On a personal note, when I think about having children, the biological instinct to have children is not a rational one. By rational, I mean that it is personally beneficially, socially beneficially or existentially meaningful. It is not personally beneficial because of the cost and the time investment. It is not socially beneficial because of the environmental impact. It is not existentially meaningful because eventually the human species will die or of course, the universe will ultimately end, so what's the point of "continuing the species" when we KNOW it is futile. Furthermore, if we know it is futile, any joy derived from it is superficial and purely egotistical. The human instinct to reproduce is not rational, as we currently understand reason.

[ghotionInABarrel]

[STA-CITE]>The human instinct to reproduce is not rational, as we currently understand reason. [END-CITE]Please define "how we currently understand reason" since I get the feeling we are using different definitions.

[basicbasicincome]

I provided a "working" definition of it when I said personally beneficial, socially beneficial, or existentially meaningful. More specifically, to reason, would be to do the mental math of tabulating those categories. Now, I'm being careful here because I am hoping not to devolve into a basic philosophy course discussion of the long history of reason and the many different definitions it had.

[ghotionInABarrel]

that's not the definition I would use but I'll work with it for now. Personally beneficial: This depends on how you define benefit, but if that includes happiness a lot of people expect children to make them happy (whether or not they're right is another matter). Children can also provide material support in old age and are a near-guaranteed part of that individual's social network. Socially beneficial: A certain amount of children are necessary for a society to maintain itself. A surplus is less problematic than a deficit. Existentially Meaningful: I have no idea what this criteria is supposed to mean.

[philotrow]

[STA-CITE]> By rational, I mean that it is personally beneficially, socially beneficially or existentially meaningful. [END-CITE]Here's a rational argument for having children, using your definition and the changes that have happened in your life. ***Having a child is personally beneficial for you:*** [STA-CITE]>My emotional life has changed incredibly. ... I have great joy from all the little things of the announcements to the names. It is wonderful to think about raising a child, teaching a child, and seeing it grow. These are all emotional benefits. [END-CITE]***Having a child is socially and existentially beneficial for you:*** [STA-CITE]> I have the feeling of purpose; I feel compelled to help where-ever I can. [END-CITE]Everyone invests time and money into something. Having a child is clearly a good investment for you: it brings you fulfillment. Further you said [STA-CITE]>The human instinct to reproduce is not rational, as we currently understand reason. [END-CITE]BUT, earlier, you described rational values as finite and personal: rationality is meant to promote things that are beneficial or meaningful. This meaning has to be within the context of human life. Rationality is a tool, not a system of values. You use a variety of methods (some rational) to decide what your values are, then you change your world in accordance with those values. To say [STA-CITE]>They are not reasonable nor can they be used in a pro-con argument. [END-CITE]is to misunderstand both reason and pro-con arguments. "Reasonable" is a value judgment. Most people would say it's reasonable for parents to love their children. Most people would say it's reasonable to derive pleasure from a good meal. A pro-con argument is just listing positives and negatives to a decision and making value judgments (and sometimes mathematical judgments) of the comparative results from both sides of the decision. ***Here's a simple pro-con argument:*** ***Pros for buying a motorcycle:*** I like motorcycles It would make me feel cool to ride it I will be less bored If I use it to commute I will use less gas than driving ***Cons for buying a motorcycle:*** I would have to take out a loan I would need lessons to learn to ride and get a licence, which takes time and money It's dangerous I wouldn't be able to pick my nephew up from school on the way home from work ... In this case, the cons are mostly practical considerations while the pros are emotional ones. To view the argument rationally, you would weigh your own personal values and necessities and decide which course of action is better. If you change your mind about motorcycles being cool because you learn more about the culture around it and it's not your style, you might decide not to get one. If your nephew can't take the bus due to health issues and your sister has no way to get him home after school because she works, you might decide not to get one. If neither of those are true but you win the lottery, you will no longer have to worry about debt and would decide to get the motorcycle. The decision to have a child is the same: it's a mix of wants and necessities weighed by their importance to you.

[basicbasicincome]

You are very close to changing my view. I think you've succeeded in showing the personal benefits of raising children (I still argue that a utilitarian would have a difficulty "assigning a value" to these emotions, because prior to finding out about my wife's pregnancy, I couldn't imagine how nice these emotions would feel. Maybe another example will make this clear. Someone tells you they have a new dessert but says no more. How are you suppose to make a decision about eating the dessert prior to actually eating, experiencing, and reacting to the dessert?) [STA-CITE]>BUT, earlier, you described rational values as finite and personal: rationality is meant to promote things that are beneficial or meaningful. This meaning has to be within the context of human life. [END-CITE]I think this is where your argument really succeeds. You are challenging my definition of meaning. I argue that meaning has to come from existential purpose (ULTIMATELY meaningful). You argue that meaning comes from purpose within the context of human life. I think you are implying that my inclusion of existential purpose in meaning is actually nonsensical. It is as if I called a square a circle. How can we ask the question: is this existentially meaningful, when meaning is by definition within the context of human life? My immediate reaction to this, after I've parsed it out, is that subjective/contextual meaning is not as meaningful to me (or humans in general) as objective, existential, ultimate meaning. I think this suggests some part of the way humans crave meaning, craves a meaning beyond just personal. At this point, I believe you would have to argue that this human craving for ultimate meaning is illusionary or irrational. We must be satisfied with personal, human meaning. However, using your original statement that the feelings and meanings of humans are valid, then this desire for existential meaning would also have to be valid. Sorry, lots of digging into what you said. Lots of assumptions.

[philotrow]

I agree with your first point about the difficulty in making utilitarian value judgments. Also, humans in general seem to be pretty terrible at knowing what will make them happy. I think that the consumer culture which seems to have spread into every economic class after the industrial revolution may be due in part to the creation of a need where there wasn't before, simply by virtue of learning about a new product. I've also read articles to the effect that some popular magazines are designed in such a way that the readers feel inadequate and bad about themselves, then the magazine displays the advertisements of products that promise to fix these inadequacies in comparison to the people portrayed in the magazine. The readers then feel they need to buy the product in order to be complete and happy. We are very prone to social manipulation. Your dessert example is one that has been used in an effort to convince me to have sex with men! I'm afraid we just have to play the probabilities when making decisions and try to keep a level head. It's one of life's frustrations. ... Humanity's desire for ultimate meaning is very interesting. Religion seems to be the only institution that caters to it. There might be a deep relationship there. From your posts, it seems that you are agnostic or atheist, so I'm going to use that assumption and share my personal musings on the evolutionary value of a desire for objective or transcendent meaning. Early humans had to deal with both a mysterious and unpredictable natural environment and mercurial, violent social orders. Two things that religions accomplish are creating explanations for the workings of the natural world (as well as cultivating a sense that humans can influence it through prayer) and creating an inviolable social order with deities at the top and humans who interpret the will and laws of the deities. Humans who believe in the deities respect the laws of the religious order and fulfill their biological drive for taking action to change unfavorable circumstances through ritual and prayer, which is far less damaging to established social orders than staging a coup on the current alphas in the community. Societies built on long term, objective, transcendent concepts are stable and have high levels of cooperation, because instead of being united under only a mortal human leader or within a constantly changing collection, the underlying, unifying concept stays the same for many generations. This stability helps societies to grow and prosper. It also encourages people within the societies to kill or exile iconoclasts who try to upset the order, because it would upset the balance of life and a new power structure might not be as favorable for the people currently at the top. After a million years where societies with long term conceptual underpinnings flourished, individuals who welcomed and appreciated that sense of meaning from upholding their religion (people of faith) were usually more biologically successful than people who didn't buy it. What do you think? This past century, we've had a surge of atheist philosophy as well as absurdist art movements as people try to cope with the lack of ultimate meaning in life. Some people try to fill this longing with unquestioned faith in religion. (Albert Camus calls this philosophical suicide. I like Camus; I think he's harsh, but he has a point.) The problem with this is that it's irrational. Some people are fine with that, but it requires a mental disconnect to both think rationally (understand evolutionary theory and modern biological science, for example) and believe in a God that is all-powerful, all-good, and who answers prayers. Faith is only valid if it is irrational; otherwise, it is just knowledge. The other options are 1) to decide that there is no ultimate meaning but find self-transcending value in some finite thing in the world, and 2) to decide that everything is inherently meaningless. I've been playing with option 2). It has helped me to value our biological nature differently. In an abstract sense, my desire for an ultimate meaning and purpose is pretty cool. Knowing it doesn't exist isn't so bad if I immerse myself in the wondrous absurdity of living. I still make all those weird biological value judgments, and I still get to make moral decisions and do the right thing, because these actions are still themselves, if that makes any sense. The fact that it will all be gone without a trace one day makes these infinitesimal experiences more interesting for the fact that they happened at all.

[AuthorizedWayne]

[STA-CITE]> subjective/contextual meaning is not as meaningful to me (or humans in general) as objective, existential, ultimate meaning [END-CITE]Not to be a party pooper here, but there are no hard lines that can be drawn to separate those two categories. In fact, your category of objective, existential meaning is kind of contradictory. The whole point of existentialism is that each individual must work to give their lives meaning. That is directly opposed to a worldview that claims there is some predetermined, objective meaning "out there" that individuals could discover and agree on. [STA-CITE]> At this point, I believe you would have to argue that this human craving for ultimate meaning is illusionary or irrational. [END-CITE]Sure, why not. Why does this mean that humans shouldn't pursue meaning if that is what they want to do? You are the one assuming that today's world is hyperrational (I have my doubts) and you are assuming that living in a hyperrational world means that a person discards all irrational desires (humans are not good at discarding our desires, irrational or not).

[NorbitGorbit]

i might agree that this is plausible, but i disagree that we currently live in a "hyper-rational age" or even a "demi-rational age"

[5510]

Yeah, ignoring whether OP is correct or not about detrimental or not, IMO the idea that we live in a "hyper rational" age is way way off target.

[caw81]

Your example is about valid "pro" arguments and they only bad thing about it is that it goes against a "con" argument. What does this have to do with "hyper-rationality"? Isn't that just the way "pro" and "con" arguments go? [STA-CITE]> where hyper-rationality creates a social pressure that contradicts human instinct. [END-CITE] How does hyper-rationality create social pressures? How does normal-rationality or irrationality create no social pressures?

[basicbasicincome]

[STA-CITE]>Your example is about valid "pro" arguments and they only bad thing about it is that it goes against a "con" argument. [END-CITE]You're redefining my example as a pro-argument. I labeled these arguments hyper-rational. It matters how you label them. A pro-argument demands a con-argument or expects a con-argument. A rational argument suggests or implies a superior argument. Contrast that to a natural instinct argument which suggests or implies an understandable but not necessarily noble argument. [STA-CITE]>How does hyper-rationality create social pressures? How does normal-rationality or irrationality create no social pressures? [END-CITE]That's a great mechanistic question. I could theorize how it does (any shared belief by a group of people creates a social expectation) but I don't think it's particularly relevant or important to the point that hyper-rationality decreases fertility.

[caw81]

[STA-CITE]> A rational argument suggests or implies a superior argument. [END-CITE]It may or may not be. It depends on the exact argument, not if someone labels it as "hyper-rational" or any other characteristic. It doesn't matter how many vowels an argument has or not. It doesn't matter if the Pope agrees with the argument or not. It doesn't matter if you call your argument "rational" or "hyper-rational" or not. The only thing that matters in an argument if it makes sense or not. If an argument seems strong, its because it is strong. If they argument against children seem strong, its because it is strong. [STA-CITE]> Contrast that to a natural instinct argument which suggests or implies an understandable but not necessarily noble argument. [END-CITE]If you say a natural instinct argument is not a "noble" argument, then that is what you put on it and not some global truth. [STA-CITE]> I don't think it's particularly relevant or important to the point that hyper-rationality decreases fertility. [END-CITE]Its relevant because social pressures is the one of the reasons in your view why hyper-rationality is bad. Rationality does not produce social pressures by itself and so you have no reason to fear hyper-rationality.

[basicbasicincome]

Which wins: a correct rational argument (more humans, worse earth) or a human instinct (procreate)?

[ScholarlyVirtue]

Eh, usually the instinct wins, the rational part of our brain just comes up with a nice justification after the fact. It's just that in this case, the (strong) instinct is "fuck", not "have children" (both of which could be called "procreate"), and only recently do we have reliable ways of having a lot of sex without having a lot of babies.

[caw81]

Depends on the arguments, you just can't make general statements like this. The example in your view, "have children vs. no children" is interesting but it won't decide your "hyper-rationalism" vs. "natural instinct" view. If I say "have children" does it mean that "natural instinct" arguments always wins in every issue? No, each issue has to be decided on the arguments itself, not if the arguments are "hyper-rational" or not. Again, its like saying if an argument has more vowels then it is "correct" - this is clearly not true.

[celeritas365]

[STA-CITE]> hyper-rationality creates a social pressure that contradicts human instinct. [END-CITE]Good. Human instinct is bad. We are better off without it. Why would you want to be like an animal? Look at our closest ancestors the chimpanzee. They have abundant food sources and no predators yet they spend a ton of time fighting each other for control. They murder, wage wars, even genocides. In primitive human tribes as many as 60% of males died from violence. In our society that number is minuscule. Even at the height of WW2 you were less likely to die by violence then a primitive human tribe. Living by instinct would make our lives short and miserable. [Source](http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2013/02/steven-pinker-on-deaths-by-violence-in.html)

[basicbasicincome]

[STA-CITE]>Living by instinct would make our lives short and miserable. [END-CITE]On a personal note, I found out recently my wife is pregnant. My emotional life has changed incredibly. I have the feeling of purpose; I feel compelled to help where-ever I can. I have great joy from all the little things of the announcements to the names. It is wonderful to think about raising a child, teaching a child, and seeing it grow. These are all emotional benefits. They are not reasonable nor can they be used in a pro-con argument. If the emotions spring from an action that is purposeless, the emotions are superficial, fraudulent or silly. For example, laughing when you stub your toe on accident; crying when you open the door. It's absurd, non-sensical. Even if we were to say these emotions are legit, how can we judge one emotion more important than another. How can we say the feelings of having a child are more important than the feelings of being a good friend, creating a good world, etc? How can we ask people to make a one-way decision (pregnancy) before they even know what the emotions are like? To me, these questions and concerns are the necessary product of rational thinking. They are of course, ridiculous and absurd. So rather than thinking that I made some logical error, I am arguing there is something wrong inherently with the process of reasoning or relying solely on it.

[ScholarlyVirtue]

"rationality" is mostly about *how* you reach your goals / fulfill your values, but is silent as to what those goals/values should be. Goals like "take care of your children"can't be judged by whether they're "rational" or not. I wouldn't say that "Emotions are the purpose of our life" (as you paraphrase elsewhere), but rather that the purposes of our life are manifested through emotion, and that this is not at odds with rationality. I agree that balancing different goals/values/purposes is not easy (it's been the subject of many plays and novels...), and it's not even clear how one should reason about that.

[Panzerdrek]

All those things you mention have a rational value and could be used in a pro-con argument. Indeed certain ethical systems like utilitarianism are predicated on those sorts of experiences being recognized as valuable.

[basicbasicincome]

In my reply, I alluded to the insurmountable hurdle to a decision that a utilitarian system has, aka assigning point values to emotions of different people and trying to compare, to emotions not already experienced, etc

[celeritas365]

I disagree. Emotions are the reason why we live. They are what we use rationality to maximize. If your child makes you happy that's great. The meaning of life is to be happy. However, a lot of instincts only create misery on a systems level. When I said human instinct is bad I meant more a life based upon them is bad. You keep the instinct to love your child not because it is an instinct but because it pleases you. I am sure you would try to get rid of a more violent instinct. This is because as humans we can take a step back and decide what is best.

[basicbasicincome]

[STA-CITE]>Emotions are the reason why we live. [END-CITE]Let me rephrase this. Emotions are the purpose of our life. Could you elaborate more on this. What arguments have justified this idea to you?

[Zorander22]

Surely from an evolutionary perspective, it is much more likely that emotions evolved in order to help us continue to live and reproduce - emotions are one of a useful set of tools that help us to exist and thrive.

[funwiththoughts]

Sure, from an evolutionary perspective. However, there is no reason why the reason why something evolved should be the purpose we use it for now.

[Zorander22]

It seems arbitrary, and self-defeating to me to see emotion as the reason we live. If emotions evolved to help us be able to live and thrive, then understanding that can help us make better use of our emotions, and also foster positive emotions if that's what we choose to do. For example, many people consider the purpose of life to be to maximize happiness, or positive emotions. From an evolutionary perspective, this is nonsensical. We also know that trying to do things specifically to be happy often backfires, which from an evolutionary perspective makes perfect sense - happiness is an indicator that we have a life that we think is worth living. Recognizing that, focusing attention on having meaningful relationships, control over our lives, developing our own skills and excellence... all of these produce more happiness than the "consume more" approach that seems to be driven by a desire to maximize happiness.

[funwiththoughts]

[STA-CITE]>Recognizing that, focusing attention on having meaningful relationships, control over our lives, developing our own skills and excellence... all of these produce more happiness than the "consume more" approach that seems to be driven by a desire to maximize happiness. [END-CITE]You're saying we shouldn't focus on maximizing happiness... in order to maximize happiness?

[Zorander22]

I'm saying that pursuing happiness as the goal and meaning of your life is self-defeating, and will paradoxically lead to less happiness than working on living a life that you believe is worth living.

[funwiththoughts]

You're saying pursuing happiness as the goal and meaning of your life is bad because it doesn't maximize happiness. *That reasoning implies that pursuing happiness is the goal and meaning of your life*.