Questions about Logic and Reason

[sarahmichigan]

Some questions have come up in my mind or the mind of my LJ friends as I've been putting up logical fallacies, with examples, for discussion.

1. How much should we rely on reason and how much on emotion when making decisions about our personal lives? Setting law? Other decisions?

2. Are there circumstances where purely reason should be used to make decisions? Only emotion?

3. How much of our laws are based on morality? How much should be?

I tend to agree with the position that other people shouldn't be able to force their morality on me in the form of laws about private consensual adult behavior. And yet, some of our laws obviously reflect the majority's moral stance on various issues (i.e. "murder is wrong"). However, I think that while there is an *overlap* between morality and law, morality isn't the sole or even most important factor for determining law, because morals vary from good person to another good person, based on personal experience, religious and cultural background, etc. What I think is going on is a sort of "societal contract," in which we agree not to murder one another not so much for moral reasons as for practical ones. There's a reason that banishment was a terrible judgment thousands of years ago; especially in primitive environments, it's much harder to survive on your own than in a cooperative group. People who violate the unspoken social contract put the good of the group in danger, and that's why we agree to many laws that restrict our freedom-- it's because they're for the good of the whole group, even when they infringe on individual's rights.

Anyhow, additional thoughts on any of these questions?

Comments

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

"Murder is wrong" is one of the sublest cases of begging the question there is, because it's not "killing humans is wrong" -- the majority supports the death penalty, most people support defensive wars, and so on. What "murder is wrong" translates to is "we don't approve of killing humans in ways we don't approve of," which is tautological. The moral judgment comes in "what sorts of killing don't we approve of?". Generally, we can agree on "killing another adult human who did nothing to you, because you wanted to kill someone" being wrong. Beyond that, though, it's a mess (how about killing someone who abused you? who abused your children? who threatened to kill you? who was acting in a way that endangered you or your loved ones? who invaded your private space? ... and so on).

[http://users.livejournal.com/_earthshine_/]

Wow... a good point succinctly made. And, as you say, a huge question (mess)!