18. Rationality demands

Sophia has weird friends.

Big causes can make being rational argument really convincing. Stalinism and Maoism worked because people were motivated to work for a 'higher cause'. In these cases, they sold out their friends because it was rational to lock up those against the 'greater good'. Same reasons for the dropping of the A-bomb on Japan - no one bat an eyelid just so long as WW2 ended. Higher-scale motivations somehow always work - the misconstrued use of Jihad makes it easy for a Islamic terrorist to defend his/her actions. So it must be one hell of an argument that Sophia's friend put forward.

Where does morality go in all these big-ticket decisions? It's strange that no matter how rational an argument may be to blow people up that one's conscience doesn't raise a iota of objection. Reason can be wrong. Reason is based on logic and logic based on what we come to believe as the truth. For example, we believe it is wrong to hurt people. We should hence eliminate evil things that hurt people. Should we then we kill sharks because they have sharp teeth and bite about 5 people a year worldwide and are hence evil? Nope.

Rational argument is good for business, resolving arguments and thrifty shopping. It is isn't so good to apply 'if A, then B' logic to everything. We miss the big picture and can lose sight of bigger consequences of our decisions. The demands of rationality can make us cold and robotic - it may not be worth it.