[lit-ideas] Re: Faith
- From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 13:11:02 -0400
Phil: Sure, and we encounter these things all the time. I like
chocolate ice cream over vanilla. I don't have a reason for this
preference and I can't justify it. But it wouldn't make sense to say
that this preference is irrational. I also love my wife. I don't have
a reason for this love nor can I justify it. But it wouldn't make sense
to say that my love for my wife is irrational.
Eric: Both choices are rational. In the case of ice cream, the taste you
prefer agrees with your conditioned expectations of ice cream taste.
In the case of your wife, she gives you affection, companionship, sex,
and bears your children; she supplies you with ego-syntonic affirmation
of your personal worth and your self-image. It would be irrational of
you not to love her unless she betrayed you.
These decisions are quite rational, but your inability to supply ready
reasons for your choices does nothing to advance or detract from their
rationality. A refusal to examine motives and grounds is just that--a
desire not to analyze the grounds of a situation.
If one the other hand, you preferred an ice cream flavor that made you
vomit, or loved a wife who undercut and humiliated you, that would be
irrational.
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