Does Reason Always Offer an Answer?
I think of myself as rational. This means (as I conceive rationality) that if the facts tell me that the way to achieve what I desire is to do x, then I am thereby motivated to do x. (Note well: Reason is not inherently egoistic; I could just as well be reasoning about how to fulfill my desire to help others. Also, “what I desire” refers to all things considered, and I am motivated to do x other things equal.) For example, if I read at a reputable blog that dimming the lights is a way to induce sleep, then if I want to fall asleep, I dim the lights. But what if I’m in an environment where I can’t dim the lights but I want to fall asleep? I could of course close my eyes. But maybe I’m not sleepy yet and was hoping to read myself to sleep. Can reason always be relied on to provide a solution of some sort?
It would seem not. Reason may tell you to jump from a burning building, but has it anything to say once you are plummeting to the sidewalk hundreds of feet below? (I am writing this on the anniversary of 9/11.) It is wishful thinking that there is always a James Bond “out,” such as when he is strapped to a conveyer belt with a laser beam about to slice him in half. He says to Goldfinger, “What do you want?” Goldfinger calmly replies, “I want you to die.” But our hero thinks of a solution at the last second. Alas, that’s just not always the way it is.[1]
So at times … many times in the course of a life and not just when it’s about to end abruptly … one must reconcile to the fact that there is no solution, no way to get what you want, no matter how urgent or intense or pivotal the desire may be.
And yet, one may not be able to reconcile to this fact. If the desire is urgent or intense or pivotal enough, one’s mind may just not quit trying to satisfy it. This is when and where obsessive compulsion enters the scene: One keeps on reasoning nevertheless. Or delusion: One comes up with a “solution” that is not real or rational.
We might ask: Could either of these strategies itself be rational? After all, sometimes one gives up too soon. Other times, when there really is no plausible solution and the only “option” is utter bleakness, perhaps a benign illusion would be good to embrace.
Note: Not that one need or even could sensibly reason oneself to such a conclusion. So to call it rational I mean here that reason would endorse it; in other words, somebody else reasoning about your situation would approve your delusion as beneficial.
Yet a third strategy would be to examine the desire. Thus, suppose you were sad because you realized you would never be able to eat peanuts again because of a deadly allergy you have developed. Perhaps you could let that desire go over time and develop a taste for walnuts instead. Aspiring vegans learn how to ignore their desires for many foodstuffs and focus instead on alternative foodstuffs, presumably because their desire to become more effective animal advocates, or their desire not to have another heart attack, has gained ascendancy over their desire to enjoy the tastes and textures of meat and dairy and eggs.
The Buddha advised us to forgo desire itself. This could prove highly beneficial when plummeting from the 90th story of a building. Supposedly this is even a blessed state. It is not clear to me that it is a viable one for actual living, since desire may be a requisite of motivation; but when about to die, that would not be a consideration. Or perhaps there is a less radical interpretation of the Buddha’s prescription; for example, maybe he only meant to advise giving up noninstrumental desires for one’s own welfare or survival. A person with no self-interested desires could still have a wonderfully happy and fulfilling life devoted exclusively to helping others ... provided the “others” in question could in fact be helped, thereby satisfying the bodhisattva’s desires. Or perhaps even only a moderating of selfish desires would provide the best balance and life, since as things stand, selfish desires may normally be too intense to allow for adequate satisfaction. Of course anything can be desired intensely, so on this interpretation the Buddha would be advising a general dispassion: Don’t make the pendulum swing from too much selfish desire to too much altruistic desire, which would be asking for just as much or even much more frustration.
Of course one cannot just snap one’s fingers and change or eliminate one’s desire. This is typically a long-term process, not accomplished by an act of will but again involving reasoning to figure out how to achieve the desired desire-change and then acting accordingly. For example, one could embark on a regime of exploration and self-study to learn about animals and animal agriculture as a means of curbing one’s appetite to eat flesh. However, when plummeting from the 90th story, one does not have the luxury of time to modify one’s very strong desire not to be plummeting and about to die, if that were even possible. On occasions when one must act despite one’s concurrent desire, therefore, reason advises (so to speak) that one re-direct one’s attention. This too answers to a desire, namely, not to be suffering from the thought of what is or is about to happen. Thus, instead of dwelling on what is happening or is about to happen, one could think about happy memories … or attend to some non-threatening, even marvelous aspect of the present moment, as does the stewardess sucked out of an airplane in James Dickey’s poem “Falling.” The drama of the moment itself could induce this state of attention, or in preparation for the countless moments of life’s large and small disappointments, one could embark on what is itself a long-term project of cultivating the ability to direct one’s own attention. That is how I understand the practice of yogic meditation.
A takeaway from this discussion of rationality, therefore, is that reason does indeed always have something to say, but once it has spoken, it is time to stop reasoning and do what reasoning advises (unless that happens to be more reasoning). But what if one cannot? One if one suffers from so-called weakness of will? Well, the simple answer is: Then one is not rational, or is not being rational at that time. One could still be rational in the sense of having the capacity to reason, to think rationally (though of course some people – well, probably all of us -- have difficulty with that too); and even if one has lapses of not being able to follow reason in one’s actions, one might, again, still be rational in the sense of having the general capacity to follow the dictates of reason, other things equal, which in the exceptional case they are by definition not (“equal”). There are puzzles about how one could be irrational in this sense, but I will simply take the phenomenon as a given for present purposes.
But even then reason has something to say, namely: Work on increasing the reach of your capacity for acting rationally. This could be a lifelong process (with perfection not to be hoped for). But how? Well, reason then advises finding out how, or what to try. This could be a lifelong effort with no guarantee of even partial success but only a guarantee that one will never reach perfection.
Might
reason ever advise just giving up? "Surrender" can be a very enticing
alternative ... perhaps even, for some or on some occasions, the rational thing
to do. "And suddenly he was enlightened" -- so goes the Zen story.
[1] I
seem to recall also from Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff that test pilots
are used to assuming there is always a way to pull out of a dive or at
least escape death. If you die, you did something wrong. This is the
self-reliant version of trusting in prayer. As someone has quipped: Every
single person on Earth today has had their prayer to be spared death answered.
Indeed, no one has ever died! (A survey of every living person will bear
this out.)