Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The necessity of Rationality?

As we've read through Kant he puts a large emphasis on rational and irrational actions.  Kant lays the founding for his work and on morality in wether an action is rational as well as it's being done for duty.  Rational people will make good, moral decisions where an irrational person would make a bad, immoral decision according to Kant.  Can we say this is always true though?  Is someone who acts irrationally always immoral?

In class we looked at Kant and what he believes.  He states that an action is rational if the person committing the action can will it as a universal maxim.  This meaning that a rational person could not will for it to be ok to lie because it would create a community of chaos where we cannot know if we are being told the truth or a lie.  Also, an action is moral if performed only for the sake of duty.  We explored this in Dr. Johnson's example of Dev helping an old woman across the street for twenty dollars, and Mark helping the old woman across the street out of duty even with a large range of problems.

The example of having Ann Frank in the attic of your house and the Gestapo were at the door asking if you had any Jews there was posed, and the question "would it be rational and moral to tell the truth or to lie" arose.  A normal person would say that it is rational to lie to preserve the life of another human being.  Kant, on the other hand, says it is moral and rational to tell the truth.  He declares this true for several reasons.  First, he states that we cannot know the future.  We cannot be sure of what will happen to her and therefore don't know if she'll be killed.  Second, as stated above, a rational person cannot will it to be ok to lie, even under certain circumstances.  Third, similar to the first reason, Anne Frank could have left the attic and be leaving in the direction you point the Gestapo.

During class I posed the question of "is taking a risk irrational or rational?"  We looked at someone diving in a lake to save a drowning person, even though they might be drowned by the struggling person.  While this was eventually discredited by saying that we cannot know the future and can't look at consequences, it doesn't necessarily take into account every situation of risk.  If one takes a financial risk would it be for duty or personal gain?  One could risk money out of duty for family to provide better, or they could risk it in hopes to gain more for themselves.  These are two opposing sides, one duty and one for personal gain.

  So are there actions that can be irrational and still be moral.  Also, can a person perform a rationally immoral action?

5 comments:

Omair Khattak said...

Firstly, I don't think Kant would have cited the third reason as to why it is moral and rational to tell the truth in the Anne Frank scenario as it delves into speculation upon that which we don't know and, more significantly, cannot know.

Now, as far as the question of risk in action is concerned, i argue that this is dependent upon whether or not the risk is premeditated. If so, then the risk is subject to criticism on the basis of rationality. If not-- this is where i feel Kant puts too much of an emphasis on human rationale while simultaneously discounting the nature of human impulse.

Instead of asking whether or not the basis of risking one's own life for the sake of another is a risk due to unforeseeable consequences, we must instead ask is one acting out of risk for the sake of helping the person in distress. If so, the will is good, the blossoms and beautiful, and Ken Watanabe dies in Tom Cruise's arms, thus making him the Last Samurai in Existence. However, if one jumps without having even thought about it- off of instinct- is this a good will? Similarly, if you are standing next to me and a killer comes into our midst in the act of assaulting me and you stand idle while his saber tears my flesh, are you at fault, when you had he capability to instead block and save me? (BTW screw you for letting me die. I'm totally going to try and bleed on your sneakers. Maybe tug on your pant leg for a second or two and cough blood while passively exclaiming KHAN under by breath.)

Mark Donnelly said...

I think someone could come to the conclusion that one should act out of duty through an irrational avenue. Its quite possible for some crazy person to think in this manner: Because Apples are grand and bannanas taste swell I dont think I could universalize commiting suicide. The irrational mind can arrive at a rational conclusion, in our eyes, because after all that is the mode through which we gauge rational and irraitonal behavior.

Octo-hobo said...

I understand the need for thought when it comes to extreme situations, (i.e. the lake scenario) but I think Kant does not take into account reaction time and human biology. A little something we learn from Muay Thai: the best fighters (or rather the best tacticians) are the ones that come across as the least intelligent. Supposedly, bloodflow has already been restricted to the brain, or at the very least the quality of oxygen is reduced under "normal" stress circumstances. When the adrenaline starts pumping and oxygen exchange is more frequent, the stress ends up increasing reaction time and the person's cognitive abilities. Had to learn that the hard way.

Anyway, this would make it very feasible for someone to have a well-thought out seemingly split-second reaction. So don't worry Omair...someone probably has that kind of brain functionality and if they are moral and dutiful they will save you while simultaneously upholding Kant's bullshit qualificatins.

MVP said...

From a Kantian perspective, irrational acts have no moral worth. I think the situations that you pose, a rational agent would act in line with the actions that you think are irrational. Out of duty, a rational agent would save the drowning person, for example. Out of duty to the family, a rational agent would take those risks. Kant removes the need for risk assessment, or cost and benefit analysis, when he speaks of rational and moral actions. This is because risk assessment implies that you are taking something into account other than duty (in this case, self interest) and that is not in line with a rational agent's thought process. That's what I got from Kant, anyway.

From this, we can see an example of Kantian philosophy in the recent Will Smith movie i, Robot. In this movie, Will Smith and another human girl are trapped underwater, and a robot jumps in to save them. The robot saves Will Smith instead of the little girl because Will had a statistically higher chance of living (60%) whereas the little girl has only a 13% chance to live.
While the movie argues that the robot was being logical and a human being trying to save the girl is illogical, I would argue the opposite under Kant's tenets. A human being, removed from self interest and motivated only by duty, would attempt to save the girl.

This scenario also coincides with Donnelly's "acting out of duty, irrationally" argument. Though I'm not sure how that works.

Andrew Campbell said...

I think this would be an interesting scenario that we didn't cover in class:

Speaking of rationality, what if you (the German) didn't have Anne Frank in your attic, but instead, your wife and children. Let's just say that you married a jewish lady and conceived children with her. The Gestapo knocks on your door and asks if you have any jews hide away. What would be morally and/or rationally correct to say?

1. "Sure Mr. Gestapo, here's my wife and kids"
2. Deny that you have any jews in your attic

In this case, i'm sure that we would agree that it's rational to lie to the Gestapo. Kant would say that it's immoral to keep your wife and kids. Do we agree with him? In my opinion, I think in certain circumstances, as the one presented here, Kant could be proved as being irrational (Wow, I can't believe that I just said Kant could be irrational).