Can you be both IMMORAL and RATIONAL? Examples?

Answer 1

Whenever you have to choose the lesser of two evils.

An example: every political decision.

Answer 2

The comparison here is between apples and oranges. As someone wrote earlier, morality is a subjective idea; rationality is an objective one. Rationale indicates, doing what is necessary to achieve a certain end. To get food, I must do x; to find/make shelter, I must do y; to secure a progeny, I must do z... The root of rationality is ration, as in securing or supplying a basic need. Morality is the determination for one's self, should I supply this need in this way? Understand, life is a series of choices; consider this: You and I are on a crowded city bus, you're sitting but I'm standing. My back aches, my legs are tired, etc. But unbeknownst to you, my simple moral constructs don't prohibit certain things. You stand briefly to retrieve a newspaper from across an aisle and I suddenly rush to sit in your seat. You seem appalled by me and state, "I was sitting there!" My morality has shown me that I have done nothing wrong, but according to your structures of right and wrong, I have... where does that leave us?

Answer 3

You cannot be immoral & rational -- unless you have "rationalised" the immoral act. Rationalisation is actually the process of psyching yrself to agree/believe or accept something that you would not normally have...

It's only called "rational" if the act was not "immoral" in yr core worldview in the first place.

Answer 4

Rational is subjective and so is immoral (but to a lesser degree, due to some guidelines). If someone is immoral and rational to me, then I must be subjectively agreeing with their immorality.

Answer 5

Sure, people who cheat on their spouses do this all the time. They cheat, therefore they are immoral, and they rationalize their behavior, by spouting cliches like, she doesn't understand me. She's lousy in bed. She's frigid. Blah blah blah.

Answer 6

Yes.
It is immoral to kill somebody for their kidney but it is rational if you need it in order to live.

Answer 7

Being promicious to an insane degree but only with a specific type of Woman/man.

Answer 8

Yes....of course a person can be like that......
For example.....a hooker....she is not so moral, ...right?
But she knows that she has to feed her kids and needs money.. and she do what she can for that........that is to be racional

Do u agree?

Answer 9

Cognition and ethics are tied together, but are seperate lines of development. Rationality, broadly defined, refers to the ability to reflect upon, manipulate, and find patterns in concrete ideas. So, for example, a pre-rational individual will see gravity and just assume that is the way things are; a rational individual is capable of reflecting upon gravity and asking why it works the way it works in order to find deeper patterns that explain this primary pattern.

Ethics, broadly defined, refers to the span of one's personal embrace of "others" as self. So that a highly ethical person, such as Mother Teresa, is someone who has the capacity to empathize with all human beings and thus treats them as she would treat herself, a less moral person is someone who can only empathize with people who are similar to themselves, and so extend ethical rules, such as not stealing or killing to their neighbors, but thinks nothing "wrong" about doing those things against a foreign people from another nation for example. A truly unethical person is someone who can hardly empathize with anyone other than themselves, and thus threats everyone around them cruely.

The moral and cognitive lines of development are linked, but still seperate. They are linked because one's cognitive line can allow one to reflect upon and more deeply engage the ethical line. For example, a pre-rational person may be taught that stealing is bad, and they will just assume that to be the case, but a rational person will have the capacity to reflect upon why stealing is bad, and after such examination may gain a deeper appreciation for the forces that cause people to steal, thus increasing their capacity to empathize with those people -- even though they have done "wrong" -- and thus relate to them more ethically (for example, trying to find treatment or help for them rather than just locking them up or executing them).

But again, these two lines of development are separate in that just having the capacity to reflect upon ethical values cognitively does not gaurantee a deeper ethical outlook. Indeed, such reflection can, in theory, cause one to dismiss ethics as a kind of delusion or "weakness".

It is because the two lines of development are separate that you can have a rational individual -- someone who is capable of reflecting upon and manipulating concrete ideas -- who is unethical (the mad scientist if you will). In fact, these individuals tend to make up the greatest villains, such as Hitler or Darth Sidius, or you name it, precisely because their cognitive sophistication gives them an advantage in gaining the power and control over others that they seek. They have the rational skills to be able to formulate what it takes to manipulate others, to gain wealth and power, and anything else that they seek. They have the ability to adjust to circumstances, to choose their battles, to decieve others about their intentions, to tackle the battle for power as if they were playing chess, because they have the rational capacity to consciously do so.

So, the main villain of most movies/tv shows is almost invariably rational/immoral because the irrational ones don't have what it takes to get to the top, and so just end up becoming the nameless thugs or whatnot. And, I don't think this is confined to movies/television, this is how things actually are in the real world.
Leaders who get in great positions of power, including the evil ones, whether that be corporate or national or your high school class president, almost invariably have higher degrees of intelligence, because intelligence is what is required to get them their in the first place. (There are exceptions of course, I suppose one could argue that George Bush is one. But even then, who can argue that the powers behind him operate from a degree of political genius, e.g., Karl Rove.)

So yes, it is possibly to be highly developed cognitively (i.e., rational) and yet very undeveloped ethically. Rationality can help one to become more ethical, but it does not necessarily do so.

Answer 10

Sure!
I cheated in exam carefully