Living With Preferences (Part Two)

When rationalists struggle with having preferences they might not even wish to have, although they rightly identify them as mere preferences and not as logical truths or moral obligations, they are not succumbing to irrationality.  Reflection, willpower, prayer, and conversation might not change what they feel or desire, but they can still ease whatever psychological torment they might experience over preferring something they know has no truth or moral obligation.  Indeed, telling other rationalists or just being open about their wishes in general can trigger greater contentment with themselves as they live in light of how what they want to be true does not affect logical necessities.

Just as it is not irrational or sinful to have preferences, even if acting on some of them would make one irrational or evil, it is not erroneous to communicate those preferences to others.  Friends, family members, and strangers have not believed in a contradiction or assumption or committed an immoral act by being honest with themselves and with other people about their feelings and desires, however personal, conflicted, or intense they might be.  In fact, communicating preferences can be a cathartic thing that helps someone struggling with the longing for sinful things to be more at peace with not pursuing them, or the sheer existential sincerity could bring the two people closer together.

It cannot be erroneous to convey that which is not irrational or sinful to involuntarily wish for, no matter what the preference entails.  Someone else is not obligated to have those same desires themselves, for their own subjective, involuntary preferences are also not what determines their rationality or moral standing, and yet they cannot be in the right for misunderstanding or abhorring a person for honesty about things that do not reflect their beliefs or actions.  It would be inherently irrational to slander or oppose someone for simply having different preferences when they are not what dictates if a person acts on them improperly. 

Thus, having preferences, reflecting on them, communicating them, and, on the part of the person who is told about the desires, not sharing them can all be done rationally and without moral error.  To ignore or deny ones preferences can be very damaging to one's life even as the emotionalism or relativism of basing one's worldview around preferences destroys lives, and, more importantly, also cuts someone off from alignment with reason and its truths.  To recognize them is not to give in to them.  To discuss them with other people, as vulnerable or emotionally complicated as that could be, is not to demand that they also have the same subjective attitude, feelings, or wishes.

Informing someone engaging in this kind of potentially controversial or challenging vulnerability that one does not share their preferences is also not the same as dismissing them as a person.  It is to admit that one is not experiencing the same subjective perceptions or emotions.  Since preferences do not necessarily involve irrationality or sin unless they are shaped specifically by philosophical falsities, both parties need to embrace that they are not in the wrong unless they choose to believe what is false or assumed.  Each person can still be grateful for aspects of their subjectivity while fully realizing that subjectivity does not stop anyone from aligning with the intrinsic objectivity of reason and never making a single ideological misstep.