Reason Is The Reason

Several years ago a commercial airliner crashed on takeoff into the icy winter waters of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. As the cameras rolled, the world watched a passerby leap into the frigid water to rescue a survivor of the crash who wasn’t going to make it to the shore. The rescuer was understandably deemed to be a hero.

What made people declare him a hero was their own uncertainty as to what they would do in the same situation, and that glimmer of doubt that perhaps they themselves would not measure up as well as the man they watched act without apparent hesitation. The question every reporter later asked him was, “What made you do it?”

What did make him do it? Altruism? The desire to be called a hero? Anyone who has been accused of bravery can answer those questions if he is honest enough. What motivated our hero to act was pure self interest. He jumped into the water because the only thing he could think of that was worse than jumping into the water was the thought of living with himself if he did not jump into the water. He acted without hesitation because the thought of standing there and doing nothing was for him, at that moment, unthinkable. For that particular passerby, at that particular moment, the thought of not acting was worse than the thought of acting. He acted so he would not have to live with the consequences of not acting.

Every action is the result of an action/inaction decision. Every action/inaction decision is taken to relieve unease.

Ludwig von Mises explained that all human action is motivated by self interest, and every action taken is taken to relieve unease, in Human Action. (He also used the same book to slap around Karl Marx, and to disassemble and discredit socialism, right down to the atomic level, but that’s another story.)

The motivation that made our hero jump into the water is exactly the same motivation that causes people to set an absolute limit on the number of times they will hit their snooze buttons. The unease caused by the thought of getting out of bed and enduring another shift in the salt mine is marginally less than the unease caused by the thought of staying in bed and not getting a paycheque. The altruist who volunteers at the local soup kitchen does so because it alleviates an unease, perhaps guilt or simply the unease of compassion, but the thought of not helping the poor causes greater unease in the altruist than the thought of the effort required in helping the poor.

Self interest has gotten a bad rap. Some people view it to be immoral, and the left loves to confuse it with baser motives like greed, but self interest has given us everything we have because it has led us to use logic as the primary tool with which to order our affairs. We do not create societies because we are moral or altruistic, we create societies because it is in our interest as individuals to do so. If it were more advantageous for mankind to live as solitary creatures, we would be solitary creatures. It is not, so we are not.

Imagine two primitive travelers meeting and, through rudimentary communication, deciding to team up for a while so one can sleep while the other keeps guard against predators. For the duration of the time they spend together they form a society, a society of two. There are only two laws that govern their society; the guard will do his duty and the guard will not kill the sleeper. That’s it, two laws.

For the as long as their society lasts, what motivates its members to obey the laws? We know nothing of their individual moralities, or if they have even developed morality, but we do not need this information to understand why the guard does not murder the sleeper, perhaps taking off with his spear. The guard obeys the law, when no one is there to force him to do so, because it is in his self interest to do so. If the guard obeys the laws of his ad hocsociety, he will get his turn to sleep safe from predators as a reward. What prevents the guard from murdering or abandoning the sleeper is pure self interest rooted firmly in logic and reason. The guard obeys the law not because he is moral, he obeys the law because he is rational and because he understands that the laws he must obey are rational.

Western civilization is successful, and its citizens are free and prosperous, because the dominant morality, sourced in Judeo-Christianity, is compatible with logic. So compatible, in fact, that it can sometimes be possible to confuse the two, or for it to be difficult to discern where one begins and the other ends. Is the overarching concept of our civilization - the end doesn’t justify the means - a moral imperative or a logical limitation? Or does its power draw from the fact that it is so perfectly both? Is there another idea where Judeo-Christian morality and rational thought more perfectly combine than in this defining concept, whose expression is western civilization?

The symbiotic compatibility of J-C morality and logic has resulted in a society where adherence to logic is a moral imperative. It is not only illogical to subject members of a free society to irrational laws, it is immoral to try. The condemnation, “He was warned that would happen,” is an addition of moral responsibility for not adhering to logic. It is a more serious moral charge than, “He should have known better,” which implies he should have used reason or he should have properly informed himself. In both cases the moral expectation is individuals will act with reason, and their moral culpability rises, when they fail to do, the more aware they were of the logic they were violating. This does not mean one is more legally obligated than the other, but it does mean one is more morally obligated than the other.

If logic violates your morality, it is time to reexamine your morality, because if your morality is sound there should be no conflict.

It is the misunderstanding of the relationships between logic, morality, and in how we govern ourselves that has weaken the position of principled conservatives and it is the exploitation of this misunderstanding that allows the liberals in society to prevail. Until principled conservatives are clear on these fundamentals they cannot hope to formulate the arguments which will persuade the broader public to the validity of our views.

Principled conservatives have been losing ground because we have allowed the liberals to frame the debate and define the terms. That’s a guaranteed losing strategy and the only thing that has kept us alive this long, while employing such a losing strategy, is the underlying strength of our arguments. If we continue to pursue this losing strategy we will never shed the socialist yoke the liberals are labouring to strengthen.

Principled conservatives have allowed the Liberals to frame the debate and define the terms so well that we live in an Orwellian world where Stockwell Day can be accused of planning to legislate morality by a political party which legislates nothing but morality. Liberals do not govern according to logic, if they did they wouldn’t be Liberals. This means that every Liberal law is legislated morality.

Affirmative action is an easy example of Liberal legislated morality. The logical inconsistencies and mental gymnastics required to support racist quotas and set asides are glaringly obvious to anyone who bothers to take a look. We need look no further than these egregious violations of reason to know racist quotas are 100% Liberal legislated morality. Racist quotas exist because they make Liberals feel good, they reflect Liberal morality (if you can get around the obvious contradiction of the terms), and they are both illogical and immoral.

Yet principled conservatives refuse to call the Liberals on their irrationality because they are afraid they will be beaten by the terms they have allowed the Liberals to define, most of those terms ending in -ist and -phobe.

The entire PC/Liberal Party wealth redistribution scam is irrational in the extreme, but principled conservatives refuse to attack it on those terms. Instead they allow themselves to be shouted down by those who only have emotion and audio volume as weapons.

Define the terms, frame the debate, win the argument. The PC/Liberals have been getting away with it for too long and they have been getting away with it because principled conservatives have been letting them get away with it.

The Reform Party grew, and succeeded in returning Canada to a two party system, because Preston Manning reframed the debate. Before Preston Manning, anyone who questioned anything about Canadian immigration policy was, by Liberal/PC Party definition, a racist. They tried their best to paint Manning as such but they ultimately failed because Preston stuck to his guns and used reasoned arguments to easily show the irrationality of the Liberal/PC position. The effects of that courageous stand are still felt in Canada today. The Liberal/PCs can no longer use the charge of racism to silence criticism of the standard idiocy that passes for immigration policy in Canada and the worst backlash from the Liberals we can expect these days is the lunatic rantings of Hedy Fry and her hallucinations of cross burnings.

What Preston Manning did as an individual the Canadian Alliance can do as a party and principled conservatives can do as individuals. Liberalism in any form is, by definition, irrational and immoral. It needs to be attacked in such terms at every encounter. Politicians seem to be afraid to say the words rightand wrong. Guess what, politicians, people aren’t afraid to hear them.

What the Liberal/PCs do is wrong, on every level, and they must be attacked on every level for what they do. They cannot be effectively attacked using their terms, which is why they use them, but they can be devastated by anyone using the terms of principled conservativism.

From above your border and below your influence level, the author is drawing on the old fusionism - putting together people of belief, and the Rand/Mises axiom that people act in their own self-interest to the extent of their capacity for consequence-anticipating and long-term thinking, by a defense of the principled life.

My own memory and gut tells me that the choices I made and implemented that seem flagrantly contrary to my own self-interest were usually done because I couldn't stand walking away from a responsibility, or was trying to reverse an earlier failure in that department. In that sense, you could say that I acted out of self-interest.

One issue arises, of course: how to fold people of faith into a schema that seems to preach opportunism and neglect of conscience.

You should consider if this above "philosophical motel" is one where you could stand to rent a room in for the purposes of politicking.

If logic violates your morality, it is time to reexamine your morality, because if your morality is sound there should be no conflict.I just don't buy it.

Logic tells us if we do this the result will be that. Morality says "Do this!"

It's not that Kant was right about the categorical imperative. On the contrary, one does have to take circumstances and consequences into account.

But logic in itself can't give the right answer between various hard choices. Logic can weigh the various alteratives and consequences, but it can't tell us which one to choose.

What to do when the sanctions against moral action are so great that acting immorally seems to be the only logical alternative? What to do if you're told that the greatest good of all requires that a few innocents be tortured and killed?

There is something naively optimistic about Rand, and I suppose Mises, that says "Follow me and there are no more contradictions or dilemmas." But there will always be such contradictions and difficulties.

I don't trust people who say that following their system will make things easy. Being human is harder than that.

I don't trust people who say that following their system will make things easy. Being human is harder than that.

I know what you mean. I have only read one body of work that doesn't say "follow me". Rather, it says read and make your own decisions and choices.

Being human in the world as we have known it for 2,400 years has been a procession of persons following external authorities. To embellish that point consider politicians. They claim to make life easier and that is why we should vote for them. They create a following. We have all heard the phrase, voting for the lesser of two evils. Basically that means politicians compromise their honest principles. Ironically, people follow right along and compromise their honest principles when they vote for their candidate who isn't as bad as the other guy.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that, while it may appear harder to be a self-leader than it is to be a follower, after a little practice it gets easier. Then it is realized that going back to being a follower would be much harder than being a self-leader.

Having been a follower in a world where being a follower has been ingrained in people for over one-hundred generations seems insurmountable, the walls to high, the idea to far out. But those are only illusions, for a self-leader has all the necessary tools and ability by nature. It is the follower psychology that is unnatural.

The heroism business seems so reductionist--reading the higher in light of the lower. Sure, the absolute minimum way you could get people to act "altruistically" would be to make them uncomfortable with cowardice, but isn't there a higher form of heroism which stems from love, not fear?

We do not create societies because we are moral or altruistic, we create societies because it is in our interest as individuals to do so. If it were more advantageous for mankind to live as solitary creatures, we would be solitary creatures.

This is straight out of Locke and Hobbes. If I may note, Locke and Hobbes had a lot more to do with Machiavelli than with Jesus.

Is the overarching concept of our civilization - the end doesn’t justify the means - a moral imperative or a logical limitation? Or does its power draw from the fact that it is so perfectly both?

I'd say it's more due to the former than the latter--the ring of Gyges comes to mind.

If logic violates your morality, it is time to reexamine your morality, because if your morality is sound there should be no conflict.

Again, on that principle if I can get away with doing evil, why shouldn't I do it?

For me, it's feeling their pain and mortal fear. Not because I'd fear living with myself if I do nothing. Rather, LIVE, FIGHT, I DO NOT WANT TO DIE!!! That is self-interest and human bonding that become inseparable and is beyond anything the author got close to. Love and fear inseparable.

In a different scenario, for me, I may be more influenced by self-interest with minimal human bonding if I saw a person about to commit suicide and I chose to act rather than live with myself having done nothing.

Anyone who has been accused of bravery can answer those questions if he is honest enough. What motivated our hero to act was pure self interest. He jumped into the water because the only thing he could think of that was worse than jumping into the water was the thought of living with himself if he did not jump into the water. He acted without hesitation because the thought of standing there and doing nothing was for him, at that moment, unthinkable. For that particular passerby, at that particular moment, the thought of not acting was worse than the thought of acting. He acted so he would not have to live with the consequences of not acting.

Should a time ever arise that I am in need of a hero, I hope its not the one described above. Successful heros, more often than not, do not have the slightest notion what motivated them. They do not think about making a decision or not making a decision. After the event, they usually see the whole event as an almost unreal event, where they were not in control of their own decision making processes.

What happens, is that a task presents itself. The hero becomes immediately single minded on the task, almost like being startled. The mind focuses only on solving the puzzle, as the body moves by reflex. All thought is on the task at hand. The decision making process goes into total shut down. One does not know why they jump into the freezing water, one just does it. Then afterword they speculate as to why, often baffled by what they had done.

The rest of the self interest arguments here, are a pretty good summary of the causes behind human decision making. But when the author reaches the description of liberals, the article fails in my opinion. It sounds like the typical see and hear what is put in front of you, but never go look to see what is behind it, type argument. Though I'll concede, that where methods used against conservatives are described, I did find them quite accurate. On the author's call for conservatives to use the same methods, I found a bit humorous. Reason being, is that he does not realize, that he is still letting the otherside define the terms.

I will never call a pseudo liberal, a liberal.

Even given the essentially mysterious or paradoxical inherent in Christianity I don't find it at all incompatible with logic or reason.
The human being operates on both faith and reason.
It's a conceit of reason to pretend it's apprehended itself the certainties of knowledge only faith supposes.
It's a failure of faith to grant undue emphasis to strictly reasonable proofs ... particularly those of a Bibliolator who uses Scripture, as personally interpreted by him, to evidence his proof. It leads to heresy and rigid Systems -- such as Calvin's -- of secondary truisms or assumptions which are not enduring as is Objective Truth.
What most "men of Reason" fail miserably to appreciate is that it's Human Faith in the operation of the natural moral law (just like our reliance on the natural physical law) that makes possible successful and fruitful human relationships.
Caught up in the materialistic heresy of atomistic Self-Interest, they fail to realize that their rabid individualist Men-as-Gods faith in themselves alone and the legitimicay of their divine Personal Values renders them and their Personal Values utterly meaningless.
Humans are not islands. The idea is absurd and tellingly "manmade" for that very reason. Only men create (and believe in) Nonsense.
Humans are family. It's not only the strongest irreducibly complex unit of human life (the only one that'll bring forth new humans with or without electricity until kingdom come) but it's an essential feature of our humanity.
It's human faith which is responsible for the Tao's being present -- to varying degrees -- in all human cultures. Reason would resolve that it's indeed okay to lie, to cheat, to steal, to kill, to divest oneself of one's obligations to father, mother, child ... all for good cause. The sole Good Cause for most being their own wellbeing.
Human faith KNOWS better. No culture, however advanced or brilliant its rationalizations will survive if ignoring either the natural laws OR the natural moral law with impunity.
That's just one reason the bells tolled for the Republic upon Bush's decision to make best use of already-been-killed Excess Human Lives.
Our nation was founded on a reasonable but significantly Christian truth: all men are created equal.
Our being "compelled by technology" to manufacture human life, our being "compelled by desperate women" to sell human life (despite our concerns for overpopulation ... ) and our being "compelled by the unfit" we'd normally cull in utero to use the unborn like mulch marks like no other decision our deformation of faith as we place it in technology, machines ... and Presidents who condition us to the state-sanctioned lowest common denominator that is accomodating the almighty "personal opinions" of others.
For human beings are possessed of both faith and reason by nature. Neither is like the conscience which can be ignored and starved and deformed into submission. Both will operate one way or another ... regardless how poorly placed is a man's faith or irrational is his "reason".

I love this example with the bear. The key phrase is "for a while." One traveller guards the other and keeps the bear away, because he can't get away alone with the other's money. Once that becomes possible, all bets are off.

The other thing is that this example presumes that the two are equal in power. If one partner has a gun and the other doesn't, he could take out both the bear and the other traveller, and that's the end of the society of two. If both travellers have guns, the bear isn't such a problem. But watch out for the other wayfarer.

And of course, in this example it's not possible for the bear to make a counteroffer to win over one of the two people. Had the predator been an human bandit, things could turn out quite differently.

If our two travellers don't kill and rob each other, it's more likely that they come from a larger society where such things are considered wrong, than that they improvise a workable moral code all on the spot. Even then, things can go terribly wrong, but if they don't have that common moral or religious heritage it's more likely that one will end up killing the other.

For the one "African Queen" in which Bogart and Hepburn are thrown together in jungle and end up loving each other, there are a dozen Bogart pictures in which such temporary pacts between those who have to work together end up with theft and murder.

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