Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Should you always try to be as rational as possible, or are there dangers in being too rational?

“The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything but his reason” (G.Chesterton, 1874-1936). Should you always try to be as rational as possible, or are there dangers in being too rational?

I suppose if someone is too rational they can come off as very harsh and unfriendly. Sometimes people do things that are irrational because they might want to seem different or they aren't necessarily thinking clearly. But sometimes you can't help but be irrational even if we try really hard to. I do feel that when we are irrational we tend to base our opinions from emotions. I think heartbreaks are irrational, because all one does is cry and get distressed over what was once a person whom they had a connection with. But we as humans can't always be rational. A "rational" person would definitely move on, throwing away their ex's momentos and carry on with their daily life. However because human beings have feelings and emotions, the average person would most likely be substantially sadder than they would normally be. It would probably take one or two months months before they can get back up on our feet and continue life normally. So I guess even if we try to be rational, we aren't exactly robots either. We would always have some degree of irrationality in us.

I think in life or death situations I would defiantly be very rational. If we have to accommodate for our daily needs, we would most likely try to think of the most efficient way possible and maximize what we are given with. Being rational comes from deriving your way of knowing from reasoning, like having logical thinking and basing it on facts. I think in that way we should definitely try to be rational to avoid any complications in one-shot-moments.


1 comment:

  1. In a life or death situation, I would applaud you for being rational. Many people would probably let their emotions guide them which might impede rational decisions.

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