Our Own Reason - Essay Example

Our Own Reason In this essay I argue that every competent adult ought to utilize his or her own reason in deciding how he or she ought to act ratherthan depending on others to tell them what to do. In a relativistic world with values and perspectives changing at a very rapid pace, the best possible way to make meaningful and responsible decisions is to rely on our own reason. We have to trust our inner insight, our inner voice, our inner being, in order to be honest and coherent with ourselves and to be really free in our quest for self-actualization. Many people around us will oppose this position on the grounds of considering us rebels, but men and women like Thoreau, Emerson, Helen Keller, Therese of Calcutta, Lincoln, Anais Nin, Whitman, Napoleon Hill, Churchill, Simone de Beauvoir, Edison, Einstein, Mohammed, Buddha, and Jesus traveled their own paths and opened new ones for a lot of people that would take their lives as examples of true leadership. They might call us rebels now, but tomorrow they could call us innovators. When we make our own decisions, we feel really better than when we follow somebody’s opinions or advice in spite of the fact that our emotions can interfere with our reason. For Professor Paul Thagard (2005) of the University of Waterloo both positive and negative emotions have their place and function in relation to reason: “In sum, both theoretical and practical reasons involve processes of generating alternatives and evaluating them in order to select the best. Both generation and evaluation involve emotions, and the involvement is often positive, when emotions guide the search for attractive alternatives and when they signal a gestalt that marks the achievement of a maximally coherent state of mind.” Thagard (2005) summarizes his position about negative emotions with the following assertions: “To overcome these negative effects of emotions, we need to adopt procedures such as informed intuition that recognize and encourage the contributions of affect to theoretical and practical reason, while watching for the presence of distortions. In addition to being passionately moderate, one should aim to be moderately passionate.” Risk is also a negative factor that can discourage us from making our own decisions. Christine Van Lenten (2005) in an article entitled “How to Decide; Reason Tackles Risk” deals with this issue in some detail stating with brief words a lot of practical wisdom when she said: “How you decide shapes what you decide”. Instead of taking the risk of making mistakes when following a fallible human being like us, it’s really much better to assume the responsibility of making our own mistakes. This gives us a sense of self-actualization in the long run. Even when we talk about extreme cases of disability or incompetence like in the case of a young girl named Liz who suffers from the Down’s syndrome, we find that to certain extent that disabled girl is making her own decisions with joy every step of the way. Her father, Al Etmanski (2005), argued that there is certain degree of injustice in the legal system when it comes to deal with her little girl. He made his point with the following words: “The standards of decision-making capability in our society remain firmly rooted in a narrowly defined, highly overrated form of intellectual ability. In our province, the legal test is your ability to demonstrate you understand the nature and effect of your decision. Using that standard, Liz, who has Downs syndrome, would most likely fail.” But notice that Liz is happily making her own decisions even though she is not a competent adult woman: “My daughter has a wisdom that eludes many of us. She understands her limitations and adjusts with patience and eagerness. She negotiates the complexities and inequities of her world with more ingenuity, courage, and equanimity than she should have to. She offers, for all those willing to listen, a course in perfecting a life.” (Etmanski, 2005), Many religious people will oppose our clear position about using our reason to make our choices arguing that we have to take faith into account besides reason. In The Concordant Literal New Testament (2005b) we have a very interesting translation for Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is an assumption of what is being expected, a conviction concerning matters which are not being observed.” In Acts 17:11 we have the following rendering: “Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, who receive the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures day by day, to see if these have it thus.” What is the point? Faith and reason are the sides of the same coin. Faith and reason work together, and they are not incompatible. They are interdependent with each other. So when we speak about faith we might be also speaking about reason. Everybody has faith even though they might not be aware of this fact. Just getting up everyday to a hard day’s work with a lot of enthusiasm and joy knowing that tomorrow we won’t be around is just an act of faith. Many people will label as egotist, or egotistical, or egocentric when we decide to follow our reason in our decision making. Michael Albert (2003) takes a strong position in favor of what he calls “Participatory Economics” or “ParEcon”. In his article entitled “Revolution Based on Reason Not Faith or Fantasy”, Albert states the following: “For me, the positive principle is that people should have a say in decisions in proportion to the degree they are affected by them. (…) If a decision affects only me, I should have full say. But if a decision affects lots of other people as well, then they should have a say too, perhaps even more than I have.” Albert favors self-management which is precisely what we are talking about. And self-management is not an egocentric approach at all. To the contrary, self-management or taking our decisions based on our own reason, is a driving force that can empower us to be leaders and ultimately to be better human beings with a higher degree of responsibility and commitment that people that rely on somebody else’s opinion or advice. This is what Albert (2003) has to say about self-management: “Some people think self management would reduce the quality of decisions by diminishing the impact of expert insight. In fact, however, we are all the worlds foremost expert in our own preferences. I need a nutritionist to tell me the relative merits of certain food choices. But I am the expert regarding what I want to eat, knowing the relevant facts. Self-management in expressing our preferences in decision-making plus, of course, prior communication of expert information, maximally utilizes expertise.” To sum up, we can state with confidence that self-management or making our decisions relying on our reason is the best possible approach to life. Not everybody will agree with us, but some day they might understand. That day they will free themselves from the hindrance of making mistakes on somebody else’s account. They will become responsible and their commitment will always be to act as honestly and coherently as possible following their own reason in the passage that leads to self-actualization. Works Cited Albert, Michael. “Revolution Based on Reason Not Faith or Fantasy”. 18 Dec. 2003. ZNet. 16 Nov. 2005. . The Concordant Literal New Testament. Acts 17:11. 15 July 2005a. In God’s Truth For Today. Translation: A. E. Knoch. California: The Concordant Publishing Concern. 16 Nov. 2005. . The Concordant Literal New Testament. Hebrews 11:1. 15 July 2005b. In God’s Truth For Today. Translation: A. E. Knoch. California: The Concordant Publishing Concern. 16 Nov. 2005. . Etmanski, Al. “Beyond Reason”. 2005. In Philia. 16 Nov. 2005. . Thagard, Paul. “Critique of Emotional Reason”. 25 Aug. 2005. Philosophy Department. University of Waterloo. 16 Nov. 2005. . Van Lenten, Christine. “How to Decide. Reason Tackles Risk”. 21 Apr 2005. New York Academy of Sciences. 16 Nov. 2005. . Read More