Towards Understanding Rationality and its Limits Regarding Complex Issues

Rwahrens recently penned an article on this Blog addressing what he called real challenge for Democrats and “progressive voters” – should they support Obama for a 2nd term, or should they send a message to a party and president who is not being progressive enough. Rwahrens presented what seems a reasonable argument that Progressives should agree on one thing: “beating the Republican Party and preventing them from getting into office” For example he pragmatically cited the damage that a Republo-Conservative tide could effect which should override “every single other issue you may have.” It also makes reasonable arguments, including historical precedents such as what happened when moderates were beaten by ideological conservatives. But it is also true that some of the assumptions can be challenged. I’m not writing here to fight this specific battle, which is obviously an important one, but rather to briefly (very briefly) frame some of the problems that make it difficult to reach objective conclusions on such issues. The questions concerns conceptualization of truth and objectivity and why we think certain things (x, y, z) will happen if we have a or b. Well it is usually complex and there is a threefold mix of rational, empirical and pragmatic elements in all such arguments that make the pursuit of good judgment difficult.

All 3 elements (rational, empirical and pragmatic) are part of the humanist tradition, but the type of reasoning we call rational is probably a good place to start. The pre-Socratic Greeks, starting with Thales, gave us a style of natural/rational explanation of phenomena. History notes that Anaxagoras brought philosophy and the spirit of rational inquiry from it start in Ionia to Athens where it developed further. Much later the Enlightenment humanists built of this idea and its products using what they called reason and logic to create moral and ethical systems. This was not just armchair philosophy as they advanced the proposition of using reasoning as a progressive tool to effect good in society. It is natural for modern day humanists to pursue a rational system of inquiry to advance the good in and through the political realm. The Secular Coalition, for example, commits to:

“ promoting reason and science as the most reliable methods for understanding the universe and improving the human condition. Informed by experience and inspired by compassion, we encourage the pursuit of knowledge, meaning, and responsible ethical codes…” http://www.secular.org/

Which brings me to the scientific-empirical side of reasoning and logic. We now know more about the limits of human rationality and reasoning. It is deeply flawed and subject to leveraging by all kinds of biases. Indeed the American Pragmatists like Peirce, James and Dewey, who built on Kant’s critique of reason (pure reason ends in irresolvable paradoxes), were all over this limitation in the late 19th and early 20th century. Humans reasoning, as given to us through the building blocks of our animal evolution, is in practice, often limited and not strictly logical. Our reasoning includes adaptive heuristics that offers quick and compelling judgments, which ignore details that are too hard to compute. Indeed cognitive studies have shown that much of thinking depends on emotion, and that people’s rationality is bounded by limitations of attention and memory. This means for example, that we find it difficult to employ all relevant facts. For one thing facts and asserted arguments are not passive, objective things. People are actively trying to make their case and using selective facts, shading issues and fuzzing up arguments all the time. We live in a dynamic mix of half truths and manufactured positions. We often have to rely on external fact checking because, to paraphrase Twain, much of what we are exposed to in the media just ain't so. This inability to handle all the uncertainly and complexity that we find in our culture means we focus on some details/facts and avoid or dismiss others. We are aware of this in debates on complex topics, but often in debate we aren’t sure of why reasonable arguments, based on empirical evidence, do so poorly in persuading others. Can’t we see the facts, for example, of what a Conservative administration has done (2000-2008) and just extend the inferences to current and future situations? Well yes, but mechanistically it requires lots of assumptions and long lines of reasoning that can be challenged along the way. It is an inexact science and subject to influence by the intents of the reasoner.


Another way of speaking about such reasoning (and reasoning in general) is that it is practical and serves our pragmatic purposes. A tool for this pragmatism is to frame issues and using metaphors to organize our thought. This idea has been developed by the linguist George Lakoff, who argues that most (if not all) thought is based on unconscious metaphors that are usually physical in nature. So when arguing about the economy we heard then Fed Chairman Greenspan talking about “headwinds” slowing down recovery. This grounds us in the idea of resistance, but what exactly is the nature of these headwinds? They are certainly an uneconomic item. The familiar metaphor allowed him to ignore real economic details but give us a sense that we understand what is going on. Beliefs on complex issues, such as economics or politics, are largely determined by the metaphors in which these ideas are framed. Facts are organized to serve the purposes of frame designers and they influence how we feel about them. We see this in some of the arguments used in the Wisconsin union collective bargaining dispute. Actions by the executive, that seem extreme by one standard, are framed as powerful action to avoid fiscal disaster. Increasingly, such political arguments are understood in terms of physical conflict, struggle, disaster and war or sports metaphors –e.g. They shot down my argument, He couldn’t defend his position, or She attacked/tackled my theory. These are all motivating metaphors which can push rational argument to the back of the bus.

This view of our rational abilities is humbling. It further undermines the Enlightenment ideal of conscious, universal, and dispassionate reason based on logic. It even challenges an easy scientific formulation that empirical facts combined with reasoning gives us a privileged view of the world. This is possible, but it requires great discipline since we are attracted to compelling arguments that offer a good story (as previously posted on the Meme idea). Such narratives do make sense based on our experience, but these too are shaped by a non-logical process. To make sense of the world we inevitably see things from a particular point of view. This point of view includes the many experiences and biases accrued over our lives and is hardened into beliefs that serve our immediate needs. Beliefs and opinions are further shaped into belief systems by our cultural experience, exposure to stories and as member of political groups and parties. In most conversation these selective, easy to communicate and attention-getting, subjective experiences and judgments tend to be dominant over purely objective experiences.

Which I guess brings me back to the recent blog on “beating the Republican Party and preventing them from getting into office”. How do we decide? We are rarely isolated and reflective enough to have an objective base, but it may be possible to expose the issues involved, the relevant data and the chains of reasoning over time. It takes time and we need tolerance in our conversation to avoid continued conflict between formulated and preprocessed perception of reality. This is especially true in complex situations such as political topics which are generated from frame models of reality. This is not to criticize the Humanist tradition of rationalism, science or empiricism. Indeed these are important. It is just that these aren’t enough, without being integrated together into a system that deals with the imperfections of human cognition. These remain part of a larger systematic solution which includes a sustained effort to understand. Understanding rather than debate for its own sake is a useful goal and part of real process of inquiry. Open inquiry in turn depends on critical thinking, some tentativeness if not doubt and pragmatic ways of resolving uncertainty.

Secular Soothing (and Inspiration)

It is said that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose. Now we might add that they memorialize sacredly. It is understandable that Biblical quotes would find a place in memorial service such as in Tucson (“Together We Thrive: Tucson and America”). At the Tucson memorial service the closest thing to an actual minister or priest was Carlos Gonzales the Native American who gave a blessing and invocation. But was the Tucson rhetoric by President Obama and others a bit too slavishly devoted to religious language (what some call sanctimonious) or quasi-religious? It struck me that way at times although watching the early part of the memorial event, the audience behavior wasn't what you might find in a traditional church.

It was more like a religious revival or perhaps a warm up for a political rally with cheers and whistles. Obama himself felt something of this when he arrived at the lectern saying, "The decorum is a little un-nerving." And the Guardian newspaper seemed to pick up how the speeches connected the religious and political too. While praising Barack Obama for perhaps the finest speech of his presidency they noted:

“It is not just that, in performing the role of pastor to the victims of the shootings in Arizona, he shed his professorial reserve and became the empathetic head of state that everyone who crammed the National Mall on his inauguration expected him to be.”

Some saw the quoting of scripture as exactly the right tone for a largely Christian nation. It highlighted his Christian faith. And the pastoral tone was seen as statesmanlike and fatherly, which might help some people to rally around him and his policies. Perhaps for this larger reason some, such as the conservative blog Power Line attacked the atmosphere and ceremony. To them the Native American prayer along with Gonzales' comments on his Native American and Mexican ancestry were out of place. They wanted more Biblical language and concluded that the invocation "could have used more God, less Mexico, and less Carlos Gonzales."

But on the other side it wasn’t just me that saw a down side to approaching this event in a quasi-religious tone to handle intellectual, political and moral discomfort. One Guardian reader wrote:

“I so want this man to succeed, and the speech was beautiful, but please oh please will he take intense care of his own voice and not start talking like a preacher as a habit. Tony Blair couldn't resist that emotive "tug of the pulpit". It gives everyone bad memories.”

That’s why for me the part that made Obama’s a good speech was the personalized details blended with humanizing elements, such as captured in the phrase “expand our moral imaginations.." Other humanizing elements included the macro-theme of civility, listening to each other and a more balanced political debate. It linked these to the future by invoking the name of the 9 year-old Christina Green who died in Saturday's rampage and Obama’s idea that, "I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it."

As I listened I thought of Martin Luther King Jr phrase about capturing the conscience of the State. My imagination wandered to the idea of what quotes and ideas a secular, humanist president in a society that explicitly recognized the humanist values might serve a role here. How do secular humanists comfort in a time of death and grief to pull families and communities together and inspire them to move forward? To start I thought of Paul Kurtz’s 3 key humanist virtues: courage, cognition, and caring (What is Secular Humanism, 2007) which he contrasted with dependence, ignorance, or insensitivity to the needs of others. A good start and here are a few of the related ideas that came to mind as part of what one might talk about building on these.

Accomplishment and Promise

We lost talented, engaged and promising people so one might emphasize a commitment to improve human welfare in this world. The productive work that we accomplished during our lives (and the hope it inspires) helps those who remain or come after. This is comforting as we live and we should be remembered for the good we do, for as long as we do it. We should think of communities as our extended family, who are our beneficiaries. Indeed we should think of the Earth itself as our extended home and an exquisitely beautiful place whose protection is also our accomplishment and which will comfort those who come after us. This event is an opportunity to make this linkage.

Personal and Democratic Growth & Practical Action

We should be comforted by personal fulfillment, growth, and creativity. This and its promise was one of the compelling aspects of Christina Green and is seen is the still living, heroic intern Daniel Hernandez of Representative Giffords. The key to unlocking both personal and group progress and growth is within life experience. It is to face facts, to fashion realizable ends or purposes, to choose the best course of action, and to act. This is a message to convey in this teachable moment. Rather than being a Pastor-in-Chief, one might try to be a voice of Democracy and social participation. Democracy, as John Dewey noted in The Quest for Certainty, is a “way of life” that must be constantly nurtured and defended. It needs to be understood as a mode of existence, an ethical ideal that demand our active and constant attention. We should take comfort from people who maintain and support this non-dogmatic way of life. We should take comfort in life as a work in progress.

Centering on Life in this World

We should express concern for this life, as opposed to an afterlife. As Omar Khayyam, penned it in the Rubáiyát :

Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain -- This life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown forever dies.

We need to strengthen the commitment to making life meaningful here. The means to accomplish this are through Science, better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and conversation with those who differ with us. This means understand the world not as we would like to have it, but as science gradually helps use discover it in reality. This includes understanding our own mortality.

Ethics and Civics

I agree with Margaret Knight that “Ethical teaching is weakened if it is tied up with dogmas that will not bear examination.” Even comforting formulations that are tied up in such dogmas can be counter productive. We should stress an ethics based on critical intelligence and involved citizenry fortified by moral education. As John Dewey notes ethical knowledge is aimed at the improvement of actual conditions and moral values derive their source from reflected human experience. This is all connected to what some have called the search for viable individual, social, political and civics principles of ethical conduct. How much better we would be when we judge actions and goals based on a practical, grounded ability to enhance overall human well-being and individual responsibility. We need such ideas in these times.