Lantz Miller

Rationality, once this chapter has laid it out into at least 21 complete and substantial senses, now appears overburdened, cumbersome, even messy, and hardly attractive for empirical analysis. It seems, then, we need a way, like a dentist prepares a procedure by cleaning up the target organ, to clean it. We need a plan, an alternative that circumvents all the proposed “rationalities” as a first broad attempt at possibly coordinating and, in time, unifying them. The idea emerging is that of a most explanatory theory or “sense” of rationality: The best that a given rationality provides us of why it can explain itself and other rationalities is now in the lead among theories of rationality.

Rationality is not merely an objective science but is a normative project. It seeks to make changes in people and society. But it has undergone steady abuse over the millennia, with reviling detractors and seemingly constant misunderstandings. But at the same time we do not know if the campaigns, no matter how little we know of the outcomes, can be guaranteed positive. So detractors do have a point. Rationality given via the 12 precepts and receiving strong philosophical support appears to have endangered life on Earth. Should we indeed keep loaning it more chances? This chapter offers it further support but also gives ear to the skeptics.

This final chapter attempts to tie morality with rationality—although they appear to insist of independence from one another. Common between them is normativity. The essay has contended that rationality is primarily (as witnessed when seen in the context) normative. That fact would mean that they arise in practical, not speculative, philosophy. To help put these assertions in a concrete background, consider the moral situation referred to in previous chapters: human reproduction. Can both rationality and morality have something to say that distinguishes one from the other, or do they coincide substantially? The answer, I believe, indicates the two indeed fall under practical philosophy, but still are of quite different ontology and even origin in the universe.

Being rational in complete social isolation seems veritably useless. One may remain credible religious if stuck for life on an otherwise uninhabited island. But rationality seems to concern how one behaves in a social context, not about merely what, say, one believes about the universe. A number of writers have looked to the seemingly, purely, inherent social context of rationality, notably Weber and Habermas. Their explicitly social concern adds further useful angles and insights into rationality. Can a society be considered an agent, and if so, can it act rationally? This question helps round out the argument of what rationality consists in.

We may believe we have a good intuition about what “rationality” is. It has something to do with reasoning. Employing it in daily use is reputed to help improve our lives. It is not tied to a religion, although the religious may use it as effectively as anyone. Perhaps some agents may use it better than others. It may involve a capacity. But, while all these cases apply to some degree to rationality, as a whole they do not even seem to capture rationality in one swoop. For that reason, this book aims to set forth a theory, explanation, and unification of the kindred and disparate understandings of this elusive concept, rationality.

Philosophers, scientists, and other researchers have increasingly characterized humanity as having reached an epistemic and technical stage at which “we can control our own evolution.” Moral–philosophical analysis of this outlook reveals some problems, beginning with the vagueness of “we.” At least four glosses on “we” in the proposition “we, humanity, control our evolution” can be made: “we” is the bundle of all living humans, a leader guiding the combined species, each individual acting severally, or some mixture of these three involving a market interpretation of future evolutionary processes. While all of these glosses have difficulties under philosophical analysis, how we as a species handle our fate via technical developments is all-important. I propose our role herein should be understood as other than controllers of our evolution