Thinking and Deciding

66 RATIONALITY
A more serious objection to rationality, some claim, is that it stands in the way of
commitment, which is sometimes necessary. Apparently, President Richard Nixon
of the United States believed that the most effective way of preventing a first strike
by the Soviet Union was to maintain a powerful nuclear arsenal and to appear to be
mad enough to use it for retaliation, even at the risk of destroying civilization. The
best way to appear to be mad in this way is to be mad in fact.
More generally the ultimate objectives of rational decision making (decisions that
best serve our goals) are not always achieved by trying to make rational decisions but
by trying to achieve some other goal — such as retribution — which, by itself, is not
always rational. In some cases rational thinking is self-defeating (Parfit, 1984). Like
trying to “be spontaneous,” trying to be rational may ensure that we cannot succeed
in doing so. This objection does not undercut the idea of rationality as such. It does,
however, imply that people might be better off not knowing about rationality and not
trying to achieve it.
This approach, in my view, endangers the survival of rationality in a society. If
rational thought is useful at all, then it must be maintained as a practice. Parents
must teach it to their children, teachers must teach it to their students, and people
must respect each other for their rationality. If the practice of rational thought is not
to be lost, some group of people, at least, will have to maintain it. If that group is not
to be an entire society, then it will have to be some sort of elite that perpetuates itself
from generation to generation. This is not a foolish idea. It has been tried before in
history, and it is still being tried. It is clearly inconsistent, however, with the ideal of
an open society, in which all are given the tools and the opportunity to participate in
decisions that affect them. Suppression of the teaching of rationality — in favor of
some sort of blind faith in authority — can therefore interfere with the existence of
an open society itself. Without an elite that makes all important decisions, there is
no way to ensure that people will make decisions that serve their own goals except
by teaching them to think rationally.
A final objection to the concept of rationality is the claim that rational thinkers
cannot be happy. By this argument, happiness requires a certain amount of selfdeception.
If we questions our beliefs too closely, we may discover that we are not
as successful, competent, or well liked as we thought.
It is true that some of us maintain an overly rosy view of ourselves through a
kind of irrationality, in which we ignore the evidence against our rosy views. We
convince ourselves that everything is just dandy, without asking whether it could be
better. Many people may live their entire lives this way, happy as clams. If rational
thinking were defined as whatever led to happiness, we might well have to change
our view of what rational thinking is. Instead of respect for evidence, neglect of
evidence might turn out to be rational.
In my view, happiness does not require such irrationality. Often, the happiness
that results from irrationally formed beliefs goes along with irrationally formed
goals. For example, people who think that they are universally liked often have the
goal of being liked by everyone. Although it is surely rational to want to be liked, it
is, for most people, hopeless to try to be liked by everyone. A balanced, rational view