First of all, I want to ask you not to assume this is how I feel about this topic, I just wanted to post this, to see people’s differant ideas about it. I’m a man of too many minds to have a single, set opinion on something.
The Dusk of Reason
Reason alone has no more meaning than any dogma, religion, and always contains a fallacy. When I speak of reason, I refer more to moral reasoning, than what we might call scientific reason. What I call moral reasoning refers to why you should do any particular thing. When I refer this type of reasoning to dogma and religion, I mean that most reasons are guided toward a particular end the person is trying to convince themselves to be the ‘truth’, and then provided any kind of even logical ‘reasons’ why this is the ‘truth’. I say that each one has a fallacy, because every reason is dependant on another. Let’s use an example for both these points, by looking at the reasoning for why you should not do murder, something that would seem perfectly reasonable:
You should not commit murder, because the person you are killing is being harmed, without the person wishing it (the person does not wish to die). You should not inflict harm on people who do not wish for it, because you would not want someone to do this to you. You should not do things to others, that you would not have them do to you; because if everyone did this, chaos could be created. Chaos should not be created, because it risks the deaths of all human beings. Human beings should not all die, because they are intelligent creatures. Intelligence is important because with it many things can be done. The things that can be done is important, because it can help all walks of life, and the world. Life and the world is important because it is a rarity in the universe. The universe is important because it’s all there is. But why is existence, at all, ‘all there is’, important?
This is one of many reasoning strings, which even complicated, eventually leads to a loose end. Though the example may sound extreme, my point is that all reasoning is dependant on another reason; and will have to eventually end, as even this one did. Even though existence itself seems crazy to even ask why it matters, my point is to say that it still does not have a reason (and if a reason is made, that reason would still be dependant on another). Now, this poses the question if reasoning that goes in a circle is effective reasoning. That is to say, a string of reasons which eventually returns to the first reason. This however, is also a fallacy. For example, in it’s shortest form: ‘you should not kill, because it is wrong. Killing is wrong, because you should not do it.’ In this case, why killing is wrong is never really answered. For example, it could be done by saying ‘You should not eat seeds, because it is wrong. Eating seeds is wrong, because you should not do it’ or anything else the person wants. In other words, it’s nothing more than what we call word-play.
Further more, what I call ‘independent reasoning’ is also with it’s own fallacies, because it will not give any further reason to itself. For example, ‘you should not break the law, because breaking the law is against the law’. In this case as well. It does not answer the question as to why the law should not be broken, and it is also word-play; as it could be used to defend anything, for example: ‘Eating seeds is against the law, because your breaking the law if you eat seeds’.
My point is that moral reasoning seems dependant other reasons; and even if the string of reasons never reach an end, they will still have to go on infinitely, forever requiring further definition.