Aristotle says, "We do not allow a man to rule, but rational principle, because a man behaves thus in his own interests and becomes a tyrant."
The Dashing Fellows have had related debates: read here and here. In this post, I use new approaches to expose the weakness of rationality and the power of faith. I won't bother highlighting the power of rationality and the weakness of faith because that should be obvious to anyone living in a liberal and progressive society.
Define Rationality
I am loosely defining rationality as the state of being optimal, which is often derived from empirical data. Irrationality is anything that does not fall under rationality.
Define Reason
I am loosely defining reason as the act of arriving at a solution that is derived through rational means.
Define Faith
I am loosely defining faith as the belief in a solution that is not derived through rational means.
Rationality at the Individual Level
Rationality is only as effective as the "time" and "data" needed to discover it. Too often, people are put in situations where they have neither luxury, and are consequently forced to "guess" or act on "faith".
As an example, a soldier, in the heat of battle, receives controversial orders from an unproven commander to blow up a bridge. The soldier rationally concludes a course of action that opposes the commander. The commander confronts the soldier, "Have faith in my abilities and do as I say for the enemy is slaughtering dozens of innocent villagers by the second."
The soldier is not privy to all the information the commander is privy too, so any rational solution he discovers is greatly compromised by the lack of time and empirical knowledge, and
to believe/act without empirical knowledge is ultimately irrational. In the meantime, the soldier can hesitate and deliberate over his conclusions while the innocent die, or he can take a chance by acting on the little faith he has in his unproven commander.
As another example, consider sports. Most athletes act on "intuition", which can be the furthest thing from reason or rationality. Part of an athlete's training is to condition the mind and body to automatically react to events without "thinking". An athlete has a split second to react to a jab, so he does not have time to analyze all the combinations of punches that can follow. He instinctively reacts based on his intuition. Although the overall strategy an athlete employs is rationally based, the individual tactics he employs are purely intuitive (and instinctive). This is especially the case when he is competing against an opponent he knows nothing about because each opponent has a unique style which requires unique counter measures. For an athlete, with
insufficient empirical knowledge about his opponent, to
rely on unproven tactics is an extreme act of faith. A successful athlete requires strong faith in his intuition.
In the absence of time and data, faith is the only option.
**if you need more convincing that intuition in sports is more faith-based, read the first two comments of this post.
Rationality at the Societal Level
Combat and warfare are extreme examples that illustrate the impracticality of discovering a rational solution under limited time and empirical knowledge. A more moderate example would be governing an impoverished nation. Time and data for individual reasoning translates to capital and education for collective reasoning. When a nation's people are poor and uneducated, they are incapable of effective collective reasoning. Consider in history all the times when impoverished people voted cruel leaders into a government based on the leader's charisma and ability to terrorize, with Hitler being the prime example of the 20th century. A people can not use a tool they do not have.
There are times when you need to put all your faith in a small body of power. When that body no longer acts in the interest of the people, it's time for a violent and bloody revolution. (USA was born out of a blood bath. The founding fathers realized that when rationality fails, Americans require the means to dispose cruel tyrants, hence the constitutional right to bear arms.) Civilizations rise and collapse, and although a revolution is bloody and peace is ideal, nature ultimately works in cycles. Nature is in constant flux and changes between between centralization and decentralization, between hard and soft, and between life and death.
Today, USA values a decentralized government that preaches reason, liberties and rights. But tomorrow, when they face a new existential threat, look for a centralized government that preaches faith, absolutism and conscripting men to wars. They did it before and they'll do it again because it works.
Nature does not accept absolute reason or absolute faith. Philosophies evolve and de-evolve to adapt to nature's changing ways. And until man completely conquers nature and imposes his order on the universe, man must yield and adapt to changing ways of nature.
The Faith-Reason Spectrum
Faith and reason should not be absolute black and white notions, but instead, opposite ends of a spectrum. If the soldier in the example above carried out the commander's controversial orders, he would be acting with 80% faith and 20% reason. He knows that any rational solution he discovers is greatly compromised by the lack of time and empirical data, and to believe/act without empirical knowledge is ultimately irrational. The 80-20% numbers are subjective and depends on how much a person believes in the empirical basis of a solution.
Perform a Cost Benefit Analysis
Before you seek a rational solution, perform a cost-benefit analysis. The cost being the time, data and possibly capital, and the benefit being any beneficial results. As an example, I feel ill so I seek the advice of two doctors, both of whom offer different medical opinions. My options are a) go to medical school and educate myself to determine the best solution or b) do what little research I can in a day and have faith in one of the doctors. A cost-benefit analysis deems option a) as impractical. Option b) is the more practical despite requiring me to believe/act without sufficient empirical knowledge.
As another example, when I vote, I do not have time to understand all the facets of finance, economics, international relations etc...I research what I can, but ultimately, my vote is 60% faith driven and 40% reason driven. I simply have to have faith in my choice, which is influenced by media-bias. When a leader betrays my faith, I bring on a revolution.
Faith Blinds You From The Truth
The notion "faith blinds you from the truth" simply means the cost of discovering a rational truth outweighs the cost of fabricating a faith-based truth. This typically happens when the value of truth equals zero. Why spend gross amounts of time to discover an insignificant rational truth when I can cost-effectively fabricate one from faith? When rationality fails a cost-benefit analysis, people ignorantly interpret it as "faith blinds you from the truth".
As an example, is the existence of God really that important? No it isn't, so I will fabricate a faith-based truth to prove His existence. Although the existence of God IS NOT important, the ability to control the hearts and minds of a people IS important. I fabricate the existence of God so that I can bring a people together and control them. In ruling a nation, why pay for an expensive rational truth when an inexpensive time-proven faith-based alternative just as easily manipulates a people? The ultimate truth should give you power over your environment, otherwise the truth is worthless.
Is Religion Really Necessary?
Faith-based systems (such as religion, personality cults, brainwashing etc...) flourishes in the absence of reason. Since reason's prevalence is not permanent, faith is the natural consequence. Faith naturally leads to religion, which naturally leads to centralized governments, which naturally leads to corruption, which naturally leads to revolution, which naturally leads to "the people", which naturally leads back to the beginning (because people make mistakes). So yes, religion is always going to be part of this cycle. It often takes centuries to complete a single cycle.
Accessibility
If I were to evaluate rationality for it's accessibility, I'd give it a mediocre C+ because the time and data requirements can be costly. Sure rationality is great because it gives us reason, science and optimization. But can you afford all these goodies? Most of the world can't. Just ask the people in Darfur.
Aristotle says, "We do not allow a man to rule, but rational principle, because a man behaves thus in his own interests and becomes a tyrant."
Combat and warfare are extreme examples that illustrate the impracticality of discovering a rational solution under limited time and empirical knowledge. A more moderate example would be governing an impoverished nation. Time and data for individual reasoning translates to capital and education for collective reasoning. When a nation's people are poor and uneducated, they are incapable of effective collective reasoning. Consider in history all the times when impoverished people voted cruel leaders into a government based on the leader's charisma and ability to terrorize, with Hitler being the prime example of the 20th century. A people can not use a tool they do not have.
Interesting article.
First, I'd argue that instinct and intuition, especially in sports, is more a result of one: natural gifts brought on by genetics and two: experience gained throughout years of practice. You don't simply know when or how to instinctively throw a jab versus a right hook, or to throw a behind the back pass instead of going around the boards, simply by having faith and guessing. You "instantly" decide or "know what do" because yeah, you sort of have faith that it'll work, but you also know from experience that the likelihood of you being successfully in your attempt is pretty good (i.e. you know your defenceman 9 times out of 10 is at the blueline to receive your pass).
Second, I'd also argue that religion as a means of organization leading to centralized governments does happen, but is by no means the only cause. Civilization and centralization of power emerged as a result of the agricultural revolution. Once people learned how to domesticate wild animals and harvest the land, they settled by watercourses, rivers and lakes, in order to construct irrigation systems to feed their crops. This in and of itself required some sort of top-down organization, and so a chief is named to oversee the works associated with agriculture, along with captains that preside over various districts of the land. Agriculture allows you to produce larger quantities of food than hunting and gathering, and therefore your population and settlement grows. In order to protect your land, you round up some men, form an army and fortify your settlement. Soon thereafter, your population is such that you don't require everyone to work the land, thereby allowing people to have free time and venture off into other pursuits and specialties, such as philosophers, musicians, blacksmiths, engineers, and yes...religious figures. Granted religion may have already been somewhat part of the society, but it does not balloon into a controlling force until much later in a civilization's history.