Living With Preferences (Part One)

Being a rationalist, and someone who unflinchingly recognizes and lives in light of logical necessities, does not necessarily stop someone from feeling discomfort or frustration over specific truths.  Emotions do not cease just because someone is a rationalist, nor would anyone rational wish away their emotions just because they can sometimes be complicated or unwanted in specific cases.  The presence of any emotion at all is not what makes a given non-rationalist irrational in the first place; it is to ignore reason in favor of emotion that constitutes emotionalism.

Though emotions and preferences are not the same thing (the latter does not actually have to involve emotion), neglecting or betraying reason in favor of preferences can be an expression of emotionalism.  Merely having preferences, now, does not mean that someone thinks that they dictate or reveal reality.  Some preferences might be very strong and even be in favor of things that are ultimately logically impossible or epistemologically irrational, but even these do not mean someone flees from reason, makes assumptions, or is anything but perfectly rationalistic about the nature of their preferences.

What, however, of a rational person who still deeply struggles with the fact that they feel an attachment to certain preferences despite knowing that the desired thing in question is false or unknowable?  Some desires or general emotions might weigh down heavily upon a person as they repeatedly dwell on how irrelevant to logical necessities, how morally meaningless, and how subjectively burdensome some preferences can be, particularly over months or years.  It does not follow from someone being flawlessly rationalistic and moralistic that he or she does not face great psychological conflict, perhaps with their emotions refusing to become comfortable with what that person knows or even just otherwise would want to be true.

Once again, preferences are not inherently emotional in nature.  They can exist with or without emotions, but in either case, one can know with absolute certainty what one does and does not want by looking to the inward gaze of introspection while looking to the laws of logic.  As complex as they can be, they are not impossible to identify and understand without error.  It is the general irrationality of assumptions and philosophical apathy, as well as the desperation of personal terror or anxiety over what might be found lurking in a person's mind, that interfere with everyone perfectly knowing the contents of their own heart at any specific time.

If someone's preferences would be contrary to reason if they were to go beyond simply having those preferences to having beliefs based on them, they might be in psychological torment over what they would gravitate towards if it was not for their alignment with the intrinsic, transcendent truths of reason.  A rationalist and a Christian could just as easily be in pain over what they feel or desire as someone who is far from the light of reason and a concern for objective truth.  How are they to handle these burdens on an emotional and holistic personal level, though they can still cling to reason and its truths without falling into emotionalism or irrationality of any kind?  They are not without any possibility of optimism in their suffering even if they feel irrational or evil when they are not.