Universalist Unitarian Church Santa Paula, California

Is Humanity Rational?
by Reverend John Alexie Crane

One idea common on campuses in the 1940s, had almost entirely faded away. This is the long cherished idea that humanity is a rational animal. It is true that everybody did not accept this proposition. There has always been disagreement over it, but most people nodded their heads when it was stated. We took it for granted that people were rational. Most of us still do, I think. Tacitly at least.

In the 1st century AD, the great Roman philosopher, Seneca, declared that "man is a reasoning animal;" and in the 19th century, Charles Darwin said, "Of all the faculties of the human mind... Reason stands at the summit."

I want to examine the proposition today because it has practical consequences. The question is do human beings govern their thoughts and actions by reason? Are we essentially rational animals? Or are we governed largely by non-rational forces and factors?

Our enthusiasm for the idea that humanity is a rational animal has been considerably dampened by the experience of the species in the 20th century. Up until the time of World War I, the enthusiasm ran high. In 1913 there was great optimism about the future of humanity.

It appeared then that we were well on our way to solving life's central problems. Science was bringing us a swiftly expanding knowledge of the nature of things, and it looked as though we could anticipate the progress of humanity onward and upward forever. Increasing control over nature and ourselves.

Then in 1914, the nations regarded as the most civilized on earth, the nations of Europe, fell into the brainless, bloody, destructive conflict of World War I. After the war, writers, thinkers, artists gave expression to widespread feelings of disillusionment about the future of the species. About its rationality.

The earlier optimism clearly had died, and this was heavily reinforced by the impact a few years later of the worldwide economic depression of the 1930s. It was a persisting, human-created disaster which reason and science were powerless to control.

This was followed immediately by the rise of Adolf Hitler, and the outbreak of World War II. Germany had been the intellectual leader of the world, a fountainhead of rational scholarship. Yet, under Hitler's leadership, it became a hideously destructive monster.

Then, following World War II, the incessant Cold War developed between the democratic and communist nations. The arms race. Nuclear deterrence. The constant overhanging threat of nuclear war and human extinction. The existentialist movement flourished soon after the disaster of World War II, and the theater of the absurd developed (as in “Waiting for Godot”). arguing that human life was pointless and absurd, that the best we could do was simply hang out and wait for who knows what.

It is easy enough to appreciate why there was a marked decline of interest in the proposition that humanity is a rational animal. We have been obliged by our experience in the 20th century to be sharply, painfully aware of the fact that human nature contains a dark side — non-rational.

Caught up in our nature, individually and socially, are urges, drives, forces, impulses, needs, pressures and patterns, conscious and unconscious, that move humans again and again into enormously destructive and self-destructive actions.

It is important that, from time to time, we remind ourselves of this shadow side of human nature; that we remember the millions of people who have died or been maimed for life as a result of its impact. We have wiped out whole cities of people: children, women, men; soldiers and civilians alike.

It is evident that humans have an enormous capacity for both creation and destruction. One of the principle tasks of religion is to encourage human creativity, and discourage human destructiveness.

Yet, organized religion has itself repeatedly been a source of bitter conflict, persecution, violence, mayhem. As the eminent religious scholar, Robert Bellah, put it not long ago: "No serious student of religion fails to observe that religion is often associated with the worst behavior of which human beings are capable..."

It is clear that humans often allow their thinking, their actions to be determined by considerations other than reason and fact. No doubt you have noticed this. It is much easier to observe it in others than in ourselves.

We will frequently overlook many important and relevant facts. The facts may be perfectly obvious to others, but we somehow do not perceive them. Or if someone calls them to our attention, we may then see them, but will deny them or discount their importance. Non-rational factors will be at work shaping our responses, our thinking, our perceptions, our actions.

What factors other than reason typically determine our actions?

Impulse, appetite, drive, urge, need, habit. Tradition, social conditioning, response to authority, our need for approval. Greed, anger, hostility, self-concern, fear, desire, fantasy. Wish, dream, myth, stories, symbols.

There must be many factors other than reason that heavily influence what we do or hold back from doing, factors both within us and in the world outside us.

What then is the role of reason in human life? How large or how small a part does it play in governing us, in shaping our destiny?

II. What Does It Mean to Be Rational?
Reason. Rational. What is the meaning here? Reason is the ability to think accurately in arriving at conclusions. People who are rational think logically and dispassionately, and they examine all relevant information bearing on a conclusion or decision. They think with a substantial degree of objectivity. There is, you see, an element of self-transcendence in rationality. Being objective means that we strive to rise above personal feelings, wishes, desires, beliefs.

Reason is distinguished from faith, revelation, intuition, emotion, sentiment, etc. When we function rationally, we organize all relevant facts and information that have a bearing on a particular problem or situation, then use our minds in an orderly, dispassionate way.

You will, I'm sure, remember the Star Wars national defense program conceived by President Reagan. Its purpose was to begin creating a fool proof shelter for our nation from incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles. The program is not yet entirely dead. However, a survey of the American people during Reagan's tenure revealed that a majority even then thought we already had a system of defense that would destroy enemy nuclear missiles aimed at us.

This in spite of the fact that our entire defense was rooted in the principle of nuclear deterrence: that is, that we could defend ourselves from attack only by being prepared on short notice to obliterate the enemy if they should attempt to obliterate us.

We had no way of protecting ourselves from incoming missiles. The thinking of most of our people here was determined by denial of the facts, by ignoring relevant evidence, by wish and fantasy.

To be rational means: to think logically and to take account of all relevant information bearing on the conclusion or decision toward which we are moving.

III. The Role of Reason
It is clear that we were overly optimistic early in the 20th century about the ability of the species to govern itself rationally. The role of reason in human life, while of extraordinary importance, is nothing like as large as we had earlier thought.

First of all, while a substantial number of individuals now strive hard to govern themselves rationally, the influence of reason is still limited to a minority of the species. Reason is not yet a major factor in controlling the larger movements of human affairs. On the other hand, there has been progress in a number of areas.

Science, scholarship, and technology have carried rational thought radically forward; and, in addition, reason has reached into many other areas of human life. A couple of examples occur to me in this connection.

I have travelled a lot by air in the past 30 years. It was in 1964 that the evidence was first announced indicating the connection between smoking and lung cancer.

At that time, almost everybody on each airplane I took was a smoker, including myself, and for about 10 years there was little change in the proportion of smokers to non-smokers. But then, the size of the non-smoking section began to grow, a little at a time, over the years, until just a few seats at the back made up the smoking section. Now, of course, smoking is no longer permitted.

Also, I have been for many years a faithful reader of Consumer Reports magazine, and have often used the information in it as a guide for buying substantial items. I find the rationality of the publication refreshing, particularly after being engulfed by advertising which sings the praises of products with little regard for the facts or for truth.

Consumer Reports carefully analyzes products in its laboratories, and reports on what these products will actually do and not do, what their strengths and weaknesses are. Never mind the advertising claims.

When I first encountered Consumer Reports, it was a very small operation; but now its findings have begun to make their way into the mass media. You see summaries of its reports occasionally in local newspapers, as well as on TV from time to time.

More and more people are discovering the value of rational consumership, as opposed to allowing oneself to be moved passively either by random, extravagant advertising claims or by impulse.

I said that it appears to me that rationality is limited so far to a minority of the species. If this is so, would we not do well to arrange the political structure in such a way as to ensure that it is the more rational individuals who emerge as political leaders?

We would not, and for a number of reasons.

Even if we could devise a perfect test for choosing the most rational individuals out of the general population, we would still be plagued by the fact that rationality isn't all that counts.

As Erich Fromm once put it, "I believe that to recognize truth is not primarily a matter of intelligence, but a matter of character." The level of understanding we can attain is dependent upon the quality of our character. Rationality is not all that we need in a leader. We also need a quality person.

This points to the role of reason in human life. Reason's role is found in lending order and harmony to both our inner and outer lives. It is a way of testing insights or intuitions that come to us. Though its action is still limited in human life, it is expanding gradually, unevenly, reaching into the lives of more and more people.

If we review the whole history of the species, we can see that our progress toward harmony has been decidedly irregular. We have had repeated outbursts of the habits of violence that we inherited from our ancestors, magnified in power by our ingenuity at creating weapons, by our lack of any instinctual restraints in expressing violence.

Ever so gradually, however, we have moved toward command of ourselves. Down through the centuries, humanity has fought against the chaos in its world, against the darkness within itself. The light of reason has only gradually expanded into the night.

We are beginning now to understand even ourselves, and this may well prove to be the entryway to a brighter world.

A dimension of our nature I have not yet mentioned is spirit. When rationality is linked to spirit, it rises above the destructive elements.

Spirit? What's that? It is a loose term that is intended to include feeling, values, will, personal character, commitment, meaning: those non-rational factors that so profoundly affect the life of the individual and the species.

Our urges, drives, impulses, and feelings empower our actions; spirit enables us to envision and strive for goals beyond the limits of our insistent ego needs.

Reason is the harmonizing element, providing the means of directing our energies toward the goals we have chosen. We require the activity of all three elements if we are to find our way to fullness of life. Reason alone is not enough.

IV. What Can We Do?
We began with a series of questions. Do human beings govern their thoughts and actions by reason? Are we essentially rational animals? Or are we governed largely by non-rational forces?

It is apparent to me when I review the contents of human history, when I consider myself and those around me, that reason has come, gradually, fitfully, to play an increasingly influential role in human life.

However, its impact on the life of any given individual or of the species as a whole, though expanding, is still far short of making it a decisive, determining factor in the course of human events. It is of extraordinary importance that we each of us continue to strive for rationality, and that we generously help each other with this life-giving task.

We must learn to be tolerant of each other's irrationalities. Rationality does not come easily to human beings. Like personal freedom, it is something we must struggle for continually. It matters profoundly to the quality of human life, but we have to work hard and persistently to attain it.

We should be aware that we are prone to think of ourselves as entirely rational, and of others as having limited ability in this regard. We must learn to accept the fact comfortably that even the best of us are only partially rational.

We should each of us have a support system made up of people in whose judgement we have confidence, with whom we may check out our decisions. A church community can be helpful in this regard. A counsellor can help. We can, in addition, help each other steadily by levelling with each other, by listening closely to each other.

Finally, we must never lose sight of the fact that, important as reason is in human life, it is by no means everything. It is not the only tool we need in order to develop a full life, free of destructiveness and self-destructiveness. We also need feeling, impulse, play, drive, will, commitment, values, goals, spirit in order to find our way.

It is reason's role to help create an inner and outer harmony of these essential elements, and we need each other's help continually if we are to move toward the achievement of this goal.

Dr Alexie Crane
2880 Exeter Place
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
(805) 682-3476

Lex1304@aol.com