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The sleep of reason produces monsters: A farewell column and a philosophical defence

Thursday December 14 2017
Lakin

International Budget Partnership (IBP) Kenya country manager Dr Jason Lakin. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU | NATION

By JASON LAKIN

This is my last column. Earlier this year, I used this space to offer a few observations about Kenya as I transitioned into a new role. I want to use this final column to thank various people and share a few remaining reflections.

It has been a privilege to write for The EastAfrican over the past six years. I owe this opportunity to Murithi Mutiga, whom I met during my first week in Kenya, and who suggested that I get in touch with Nick Wachira, the editor then.

I am grateful to both of them, for they saw something in me that others would not have seen in someone whom they did not know particularly well. I also want to thank Pamella Sittoni for keeping me on when she took the reins, and to Ali Zaidi who has edited my work from the beginning.

My biggest thank you, however, goes to readers. Some of you reached out to me online to encourage me, or to provide constructive criticism. Others approached me personally at various events to thank me for writing on a particular topic or in a particular way.

Writing is an intimate affair. Even when you are not writing about yourself, you are exposing yourself to people you do not know. It is extremely gratifying (even to confident writers) to receive feedback from readers that take your writing seriously, even if they do not fully share your views.

Kenya is at a crossroads. There is nothing I can say or do to change this. But what I have attempted, in this column, and in my broader work in Kenya, is to try to ask and answer questions in ways that encourage reason and the use of evidence.

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Some believe that this endeavour is doomed, that the Enlightenment dream of a society based on reason is an illusion inconsistent with how our brains work and who we are as humans.
To be sure: We can be demonstrably tribal, irrational and petty in the ways we treat one another and in our politics. This is not an assessment of Kenya: It is a general observation about human nature.

Human reason

We often act rashly, focus too heavily on the recent past or near future without considering the longer term, rationalise selfish behaviour we cannot defend, and ignore or discount information that is inconsistent with our prior beliefs.

These realities constitute a formidable indictment of human reason and our capacity to use evidence to make good decisions. Recognising these limitations does not amount to the end of the Enlightenment dream, however.

To the contrary, it is human reason that allows us to study, analyse and recognise these limitations and to have this discussion in the first place. It is only because we accept the pre-eminence of reason that we can be dismayed by our failure to employ it.

Furthermore, it is not clear what reason’s critics believe should replace it. Recognising that we fall short of an ideal of reason is an empirical observation and does not provide a clear normative direction.

The only circumstance under which such an empirical observation could provide normative direction would be if we were to take the extreme view that humans are simply not capable of reason, and a normative agenda that aims at the impossible is not one we should endorse.

I agree with this logic, but does anyone truly believe that we are completely incapable of reasoning or of making decisions based on reason?

It is, in my view, an abuse of the science that demonstrate the limits of reason to suggest as much. As psychologist Paul Bloom has noted, we tend to spend an inordinate amount of time wringing our hands about deviations from rationality, but when people do act rationally, we pay little attention: This kind of conventional behaviour is simply not interesting.

Emotions to reason

Antonio Damasio’s work on the brain demonstrates that we need emotions to reason effectively, but the implication is that we must understand better how reason works, not discard it.

The alternative to reason is to see life as an endless series of struggles for dominance in which only power matters. If reason is an impossible dream, simply a tool to manipulate others, we are left with little motivation but to satiate our desires as effectively as possible.

Yet it is hard to believe most people want to live in a world bereft of reason, where naked power is all that matters.

If we do not want this, we have no choice but to return to the dream of reason. We must seek to understand the world through a set of common ideas, offer reasons that people everywhere can understand and debate, and define broad goals that we can all agree to. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Thanks for reading.

Jason Lakin is head of research for the International Budget Partnership. E-mail: [email protected]

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