Logic vs. Emotion... I

I feel bad because I didn't get a post in on Friday, so I felt obligated to write one tonight before I went to bed. The conundrum I address tonight is one that has faced intellectuals for years, and one which I hope the plethera of philosophy courses in which I am enrolled this semester will help me answer. The topic of conversation is logic.

We think of logic as a means. It is a tool of solving a problem. A way of thinking. Logic's power boils down to mathematical calculation more or less. Math problems are solved using logic, but more complex problems can be solved via cost-benefit analysis, which is essentially breaking down the various consequences of an action into positive and negative and approximate values. For example, "Do I want to walk to the store now to get some fresh fruit, or would I rather make this easymac?" When you ask yourself this question, the answer follows something like, "easymac is faster, but although it doesn't taste as good, nor is it as healthy, the time it would take me to go the store is more important, and so I'll just make it anyway."

There is a certain amount of foresight in that statement. You are predicting that you will be better off in the long run because of the time you save by making easymac. The alternative to logical thinking lies in what, for the sake of argument, we will call emotion. To answer the question illogically takes some ideological dogma. For example, "My religion commands me to eat fresh fruit every Saturday at 2 in the morning, so I must go get some fresh fruit to fulfill this obligation." Some might argue that this too, represents a logical conclusion, however, I would be inclined to disagree. There are some people who take religion very seriously and question its teachings. Yet even those people eventually develop some complacency in terms of everyday things. Devout Christians question why they go to church on Sundays only very infrequently. There is some type of implicit assumption then that religion is right for whatever reason, and so I should always follow it.

If you are uncomfortable with a religious example, I suggest a more political one, although this may generate some discomfort as well. Let's take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The logician, wanting to reach a logical conclusion about which side is "righter," would look at the history of the conflict and study the various events over time, looking at each good thing, and each evil thing both sides have done, and weigh in that either the Jews or the Muslims (or perhaps the Christians who carved out Israel) are most at fault for the conflict in the Middle East. The emotional American might simply say, "What America does is right, and America supports Israel. Israel must then be right."

Those very astute among you will now cry out, "But Alex, you have backed yourself into a corner, for these are logical claims!" Yes, they are logical, but they are founded upon something illogical, an ideological attachment to something - religion in the first example, a nation in the second. The question I pose to you, my readers, is whether or not it is a bad thing to act arguments which rest upon illogical foundations. Opinions would be most welcome.