I guess it depends on your definition of “rational”. From a pure logic perspective (i.e. the math definition) being rational just means making optimal choices in pursuit of your goals. I can be perfectly rational, understand that others have feelings, and simply not care about them unless they benefit me. Being perfectly rational basically makes you a sociopath, only considering other factors or people when they further your goals. Emotions and feelings are irrational to begin with, but sometimes it’s better to be a little bit irrational
I think you’re just fundamentally misunderstanding what being rational means. There is nothing inherently rational in being selfish or only caring about your own goals and what benefits you, especially not when you are a member of a species that evolved to be extremely social and community focused. Emotions and feelings aren’t inherently irrational either. They can certainly be expressed in irrational ways, but they themselves are neither rational or irrational. They’re just a fact of nature. You might as well say it’s irrational for living creatures to have to excrete waste. Sure, it may be irrational to take a piss on your boss right before asking for a raise, but the act of taking a piss is not in itself rational or irrational. It’s just a bodily function. So if you refuse to take that factor into consideration because you claim it’s irrational, well that’d just be ridiculous.
Imagine a teacher refusing to let a student get up to go to the bathroom because they claim it’s irrational to need to take a piss, and therefore perfectly rational to force them to stay where they are and ignore their bodily needs. The teacher is being selfish in that situation, only making optimal choices in pursuit of their own goals (to teach the class without interruption), and doesn’t care about the other person’s need to perform bodily functions unless it benefits them. And yet I think most people with even half a brain cell will agree that the teacher in this scenario is not in any way shape or form acting rationally. They’re just being a dickhead.
Sociopaths aren’t more rational than other people or “too rational”, they lack the ability to feel empathy or they only feel a small amount of empathy but not enough to affect their decisions. It has nothing to do with being rational or logical, sociopaths can often be very stupid irrational people. Not to mention, while sociopaths often don’t care about how other people feel, they do often care about how other people perceive them.
This was a rough read. The leap to think it’s purely rational to be entirely selfish is absurd. You need help from other people to function in society. It’s also entirely logical and rational to benefit the group. Being selfish is not “purely mathematically logical”. That’s just being dumb and selfish. Are you going to steal from your coworker because you benefit from it or are logical enough to look a couple steps further and see helping them so they help you benefits both of you far more? There’s tradeoffs for sure but sociopaths aren’t just too rational
Uh what did you even read what I said? You’re not addressing anything I said. And you can’t just make up your own definition for a word that definitely has one. Quick search, Oxford dictionary says rational: based on or in accordance with reason or logic. Which being purely selfish absolutely is not for my previously mentioned reasons you’re ignoring. You can’t just redefine a word to suite your argument
Edit: this funny since you keep mentioning mathematics:
MATHEMATICS
(of a number, quantity, or expression) expressible, or containing quantities that are expressible, as a ratio of whole numbers. When expressed as a decimal, a rational number has a finite or recurring expansion.
I guess it depends on your definition of “rational”. From a pure logic perspective (i.e. the math definition) being rational just means making optimal choices in pursuit of your goals. I can be perfectly rational, understand that others have feelings, and simply not care about them unless they benefit me. Being perfectly rational basically makes you a sociopath, only considering other factors or people when they further your goals. Emotions and feelings are irrational to begin with, but sometimes it’s better to be a little bit irrational
I think you’re just fundamentally misunderstanding what being rational means. There is nothing inherently rational in being selfish or only caring about your own goals and what benefits you, especially not when you are a member of a species that evolved to be extremely social and community focused. Emotions and feelings aren’t inherently irrational either. They can certainly be expressed in irrational ways, but they themselves are neither rational or irrational. They’re just a fact of nature. You might as well say it’s irrational for living creatures to have to excrete waste. Sure, it may be irrational to take a piss on your boss right before asking for a raise, but the act of taking a piss is not in itself rational or irrational. It’s just a bodily function. So if you refuse to take that factor into consideration because you claim it’s irrational, well that’d just be ridiculous.
Imagine a teacher refusing to let a student get up to go to the bathroom because they claim it’s irrational to need to take a piss, and therefore perfectly rational to force them to stay where they are and ignore their bodily needs. The teacher is being selfish in that situation, only making optimal choices in pursuit of their own goals (to teach the class without interruption), and doesn’t care about the other person’s need to perform bodily functions unless it benefits them. And yet I think most people with even half a brain cell will agree that the teacher in this scenario is not in any way shape or form acting rationally. They’re just being a dickhead.
Sociopaths aren’t more rational than other people or “too rational”, they lack the ability to feel empathy or they only feel a small amount of empathy but not enough to affect their decisions. It has nothing to do with being rational or logical, sociopaths can often be very stupid irrational people. Not to mention, while sociopaths often don’t care about how other people feel, they do often care about how other people perceive them.
This was a rough read. The leap to think it’s purely rational to be entirely selfish is absurd. You need help from other people to function in society. It’s also entirely logical and rational to benefit the group. Being selfish is not “purely mathematically logical”. That’s just being dumb and selfish. Are you going to steal from your coworker because you benefit from it or are logical enough to look a couple steps further and see helping them so they help you benefits both of you far more? There’s tradeoffs for sure but sociopaths aren’t just too rational
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Uh what did you even read what I said? You’re not addressing anything I said. And you can’t just make up your own definition for a word that definitely has one. Quick search, Oxford dictionary says rational: based on or in accordance with reason or logic. Which being purely selfish absolutely is not for my previously mentioned reasons you’re ignoring. You can’t just redefine a word to suite your argument
Edit: this funny since you keep mentioning mathematics: