On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Tor Forde wrote:
>
> Each person has his own rationality. Find his viewpoint, his priorities,
> his situation and his possibilities, and it is possible to see his
> rationality. It will be conflicting with others.
>
> A democratic society should develop according to the rationality of its
> members. If their rationalities becomes too conflicting the society can
> fall apart or only be kept together with massive violence.
>
-- Hi, Tor!
I just wanted to make some quick comments on this. First, you probably
know of Elster's work on rationality. Without getting into a rationality
debate, secondly, I think you're using 'rationality' with less care than
necessary. I don't think it has been convincingly demonstrated that any
person 'has' any rationality. If we say that people can "manifest"
rationality, it is clear that some people never manifest rationality,
depending on how you define it, and there are probably ten conflicting
definitions. Finally, if we can adopt the notion of 'rational interest,'
obvious individuals may have conflicting rational interests, and there may
be conflicting rational interests between individuals and communities. I
would argue that conflicting rational interests only lead to "massive
violence" on very rare ocassions, in fact, so rare, that I cannot think of
one now. This is the case, because "massive violence" is inconsistent with
rational interest. To take two cases, WWI started due to the break down of
rationality; nuclear war was avoided during the Cuba Missile Crisis
because of the recognition of rational interest on the part of both U.S.
and Soviet decision makers. Now I know these examples are debatable, so
let's call them metaphors. I would only argue that your inference and
conclusion about "massive violence" is incorrect. Generally speaking,
"massive violence" violates the principle of rationality, both for
communities and individuals, depending on what you mean by "massive
violence," of course.
//CJR
