trc@houca.UUCP (08/30/83)
Response to Alan Wexelblat: {Rationality considered rationally...}
My fundamental points, since you did not respond to them, were:
How can one understand the meaning of spoken or written language, if one
does not have rational ability? (Though you *did* say "No" in response
to "are you saying that you dont have to think to understand". Is this
agreement? The context made it seem like you were disagreeing.)
How does one *come* to the state of being able to understand the
meaning of a language, if not by application of reason? - Rote learning
and grammar are not sufficient unless all examples of language one encounters
have meanings that have been learned , or can be modified by grammatical
rules to something that has already been learned. How would one decide
how to apply those rules - by instinct? If that is what you call instinct,
it is surprisingly close to what I call rationality, which would seem to
support my thesis that it is "in the nature of humans". (Not that *I*
think that rationality is an instinct.)
You did respond to the my points on the "exactly human" issue, but until
you can answer the above without reference to reason, your definition of
"human" is not any more inclusive than mine. Mine was not very exclusive,
since I claim that almost every human has rationality, and that learning
the of use and meaning of language is evidence of that ability. Your
definition is different, but equally limited. It excludes some people
(yes, the drastically mentally difficient) that are commonly considered
human, and deserving to be treated as such. Mine might also exclude them
(- though the few cases of idiot-savants seem to have managed to develop
some alternate means to language for reasoning in extremely limited
domains such as arithmetic or painting. However, I dont claim to be
an expert on such matters.).
You need to take the full context of the "learning" quote you gave - I said
'*that* "ability to learn"' - refering specifically to learning the use of
language and the understanding of language. I claim that rationality is
required to learn this. I did not claim that all learning (EG memorization)
requires rationality. Even parrots can "learn to talk" - but that does not
mean that they have mastered language. Apes can be trained to use grammar,
but it is debatable whether they actually understand language.
You make several "But I did not specify" type responses to my points on
the "Plato" example. OK, I assumed that you wanted to take normal cases,
so as to make show your argument as clearly as possible. To re-state the
story as you would now have it:
A comes to B's house, perfectly rational, having worked out his anger
on the way over, and asks for his sword back. ("Hi, nice day, mind
if I ask for my sword back? - I just want to kill my wife and her
lover") B doesnt know either of them, so this somehow makes it ok for
him to sanction their murder. ("Who? Never heard of them. Have fun!")
And if, for some unknown reason, B should object, A either wont get mad,
or will get so mad as to attack to kill B. (with his bare hands, against
a man with a sword? Well, OK.) After A goes merrily off and kills
the wife and lover, he will get away with it, because wives were property
back then. And B can then drop him as a friend, after the fact, with no
selfish loss.
I see more than a few flaws in this. If A is rational, and if (as you
seem to presume by your presenting this example as one in which altruism
is justified) it is somehow wrong to kill the lovers, then why is A going
to do such an irrational thing? And if A would truly not get into trouble
in his society, why did Plato happen to think this was a good example of
someone doing something obviously wrong? And you seem to have missed the
point of not letting a friend get in trouble - one (selfishly) doesnt
*want* to lose a friend, or to see a friend hurt. And if A gets violent
enough to attack B, B can defend himself if able within the limits of his
desire not to hurt a friend, but if not able, B should give the sword to A.
And finally, I still say that it is immoral to kill another, or to sanction
such killing. This is independent of what B *thinks* is selfish.
Tom Craver
houca!trc