Humans vs. Other Animals: Rationality and Irrationality

The topic of rationality versus irrationality was discussed in Knowledge, Rationality, and Irrationality, where we assessed an article on the topic by the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah titled Dialectics of Enlightenment that was published in the New York Review of Books.  The hope was that philosophers could provide some explanation for why our political opponents insist on irrational behavior.  The unsatisfactory conclusion drawn was that the term rational is usually applied to describe behavior or beliefs with which we find consistent with our own behaviors and beliefs.  The term irrational then refers to actions and claims with which we disagree.  There is no political relief to be gained from that realization.

Another exploration of the differences between rational and irrational behavior can be found in Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina.  That author provided a fascinating look at what researchers have learned about animal cultures, behaviors, and capabilities.  Safina’s goal is to convince us that we should not underestimate our sister species.  We come in different shapes and sizes, but within, we have much the same body parts, and have become similarly remarkable given the constraints our external bodies and environments provide.  He includes a few pages of discussion of rational and irrational behavior as it relates to the differences he perceives in our characteristics compared to those of other animals.  Safina concludes that other animals are more rational than humans, but, perhaps irrationally, that human irrationality is a source of superiority for our species.

Safina appears to associate rational behavior with evidence-based reasoning; and that other animals are much better at it.

“Other animals’ actions and beliefs are evidence-based; they don’t believe anything unless the evidence justifies it.”

“…it is many humans who are demonstrably incapable of asking whether evidence justifies their beliefs, then adjusting their conclusions.  Other animals are consummate realists.  Only humans cling unshakably to dogmas and ideologies that enjoy complete freedom from evidence, despite all evidence to the contrary.  The great divide between rationality and faith depends on some people choosing faith over rationality, and vice-versa.”

The faith Safina refers to would include religious faith, but humans have demonstrated a capability to shun evidence in order to cling to cherished beliefs in economics, health, law, politics, and even sports.  Practitioners of the modern, major religions today may be startled to be told there is no evidence for their beliefs, but it should be recognized that belief in supernatural things has seemingly always been part of humanity’s makeup.  And the major current religions are evolutions from earlier, simpler beliefs.

“Many believe that rocks, trees, streams, volcanoes, fire, and other things have thoughts, that everything is inhabited by spirits that might act for or against us.  That’s called panpsychism.  The religion that follows from this primal human assumption is pantheism.  It is common among tribal hunter-gatherer peoples (our ancestors), and it’s also alive and well in modern life.  On the summit of Mount Kilauea, in Hawaii, I’ve seen offerings of money and liquor, put there by people who think that volcanoes have a god within who watches, tallies favors, and sometimes acts vindictively.  Don’t get the volcano mad by ignoring it.  A little more booze and a few more bills, some flowers and some food and a roast pig occasionally, and the volcano’s fiery goddess, Pele, will perhaps be mollified.  And this is in the United States, where anyone can just stroll into the visitors’ center and learn some volcano geology…It appears that deep belief in the supernatural comes easy to us.”

“While a dog might bark to rouse someone sleeping on the living room couch, they never seek assistance from the sofa itself.  Or from volcanoes.  They easily discriminate living things from inanimate objects and even from imposters.”

Faith is, by definition, belief or trust without a need for evidence.  Given that many humans are willing to believe without a need for evidence, then Safina’s claim that other animals are more rational than humans has some credibility; but how does this turn out to be advantageous to humans?  To get to that point, he requires a different perspective on irrationality.

“Perhaps believing false things comes bundled with our peculiar, oddly brilliant ability to envision what is not yet, and to imagine a better world.  No one has explained where creativity arises, but some human minds lurch along sparking new ideas like a train with a stuck wheel.  It’s not rationality that’s strictly human; its irrationality.  It’s the crucial ability to envision what is not, and to pursue unreasonable ideas.”

A major example for Safina of where human irrationality has led to human progress is the desire to fly through the air like a bird.  Safina seems to be selling his animals short by concluding that none of them were ever capable of watching a bird fly by and wishing that they could fly as well.  That is not irrational; it is the belief that one could actually fly that is irrational.  Once humans learned the technology that explained the flight of birds, the belief in human flight was not irrational; it was merely difficult—and highly rational.  Other examples provided by Safina follow this same sequence where knowledge renders dreams rational.

Until chimps start building temples, it seems the major difference between humans and other animals lies in the ease with which humans believe in supernatural agencies.  Or perhaps it is that humans have a need to believe in the supernatural.  We can all decide as individuals if this trait has been harmful or beneficial to humanity—and what it will mean for the future.