Being Unreasonable About Reason

The cult of irrationality is growing in politics and more widely across society. Many people are ready to subscribe to groundless claims and harmful policies regardless of the evidence. When contradictions and lies are pointed out to them, they shrug and persist with their views.

Why is this happening? One key factor is the erosion of a shared understanding of the role of reason in resolving arguments. At the most basic level, we recognise discussions about what are to be believed should be free and open – with the critical proviso that what is said is relevant, coherent, objectively checkable, and not abusive or intimidatory. Overlooking the need for this proviso has led to some very confused reactions. Let’s look at some of these.

First we have the ‘Anything Goes’ mantra. Everyone is ‘entitled’ to have their own views, and they are free to express those views any time, anywhere. It does not matter that they are groundless and dangerous – declaring a life-saving vaccine a deadly potion; calling an innocent man a serial killer; describing a shelter for vulnerable people as a home for nasty criminals. Any attempt to restrict the propagation of such views is then attacked as ‘censorship’ or ‘cancel culture’.

Next we have the ‘better tough than reasonable’ outlook. We don’t want understanding, we are told, just action to sort things out. Overlooking the fact that without understanding a problem, you can’t solve it, those impatient (and in some cases, incompetent) with working out what a reasoned approach should be, fall for ‘strongman’ politicians, cult leaders, charlatans who claim to speak for God, and go with whatever thoughtless actions they call for.

Then there are those who, without any sense of irony, cloak their arbitrary dogmas by invoking their own twisted brand of ‘Reason’. From the Robespierre-led extremists in the French Revolution to those who believe that their grasp of dialectical history justifies Stalinist oppression, there are people who insist that they know what Reason declares to be unquestionably true. Alas, anyone who rejects critical analysis and rebuffs objective scrutiny can hardly be considered reasonable at all.

Finally, we have the random sceptics who are convinced that there is no distinction between what is in line with or what goes against reason. Reason for them is a mirage, and no one can tell them what is or what is not reasonable. They can believe or disbelieve whatever they want, and anyone trying to point out flaws in their views would simply be dismissed as lacking any coherent basis to do so.

The antidote to all this is to remind ourselves how we get through the most basic everyday decisions – understanding options, learning from experience, seeing what happens when different choices are made, reviewing assumptions in the light of new evidence or cogent arguments put forward by others, etc. We only get by if we work through ideas in an objective and non-contradictory manner. We all implicitly reason about what we are to believe and what to do. Anyone seriously making their choices without reasonable deliberations would find themselves in all kinds of trouble – with their home, their job, their health.

We need to apply our grasp of reasonableness consistently to wider societal issues and recognise that there is an important difference between reasonable ideas that merit consideration and unreasonable claims that should be exposed as unwarranted. To learn more, here are a few suggestions: Stephen Toulmin’s Return to Reason, P. F. Strawson’s Skepticism and Naturalism, Henry Tam’s What Should Citizens Believe, and Thomas A. Spragens Jnr’s Reason and Democracy.