REASON

Wanted:  A definition of 'rational' that does NOT rely on the word 'reason'  which is essentially another word for 'rational.'

Science, properly performed, is said to be a rational system.

Law is supposed to be a rational system for

1.  separating the guilty from the innocent, i.e. criminal law;  and

2.  imposing liability for fault, tort law; and

3.  conducting trials of contested issues in all areas of substantive law; and

4.  evaluating the constitutionality of  statutes and acts of government.

Under the most deferential sort of statute evaluation, the only test of constitutional validity is either that the statute meet the test of reason, or slightly below that, that the legislature could have thought that the statute it passed  had met the test of reason.  Cases in point are:  Williamson v. Lee Optical, Ferguson v. Skrupa, and Railway Express Agency against the City of New York I think it is; citations come after blogging.

A statute is held to be rational, constitutionally, when it serves to promote the legitimate goal for which it was enacted.  Some statutes actually defeat their purpose and are held to be therefore irrational and unconstitutional.  "Arbitrary and capricious" is the term used by the Supreme Court to describe statutes and other government policy that it finds irrational. 

The mudflap case in Commerce Clause jurisprudence is an example, where a state regulation requiring all trucks entering the state to wear a particular form of mudflap would have the effect of causing truckers to avoid the state by driving around it, thus increasing the number of highway miles driven, hence the number of accidents, as the more miles driven, the more chances for accident.

The notion that the law is supposed to function rationally is as much Platonic ideal as reality, expressed by a few well-known expressions:

"The life of the law is experience, not reason." 

        Holmes, in The Common Law, 1st paragraph.

"An ounce of history is worth a pound of logic." 

        Anon.
.
"You're guess is as good as mine."

       Popular expression

Here is the California Evidence Code definition of "relevant" evidence, the prerequisite for allowing testimony or other forms of proof into evidence in any kind of trial conducted thereunder:

§ 210.

"Relevant evidence" means evidence, including evidence relevant to the credibility of a witness or hearsay declarant, having any tendency in reason to prove or disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action.

Notice the requirement that evidence have a "tendency in reason" to prove a disputed fact in issue.  That is a deceptively simple statement having enormous consequences to the way our legal system operates, for it allows us  to bring in, to import, the whole science of reason, starting with Aristotle, in our tradition of what is real, of determining truth and rejecting fiction in matters of consequence.

Aristotle described means of distinguishing true from false propositions, analyzing syllogisms and identifying fallacies or errors in reason.

The science of reason, or logic as it is called, sometimes known academically as "critical thinking," has certain requirements that govern debate, the practice of science, and the application of the rule of law.

Debate is our process for discussing issues. Animals don't debate.

Science is our more formal means of  testing debatable theories.  Children and animals investigate and draw conclusion, as to such things as food, and risk of harm.  But they don't debate.  Children don't know the rules.  This we have to teach.  We don't always do a good job of this.

Law is our way of regulating our behavior with one another according to how we should think, rather than the way we feel.

Other disciplines are built upon the ability to reason clearly and correctly, according to the rules of reason: medicine, engineering, architecture, to name a few.  But not religion, art, music, friendship, to name a few others.  Politics seems to be a mixed bag, doesn't it?  Part reason, part passion. 

War:  we study war, politics by other means, but, it is said, no battle plan survives the first attack. The ability to regroup and act together to achieve a war goal requires great intelligence in the face of great fear and passion.  'Brave' and 'courageous' are the badges awarded to those who succeed in doing it.

All three exercises, debate, science, and law, are designed to maximize  the use of one tool, reason, that provides humans with the survival advantage, assuming Darwin was right, needed to arrive at our present condition and to keep progressing.

Debate, science, and law must conform to certain rules of orderly argument.

In law, we require standards of proof according to the gravity of the issue:  proof beyond a reasonable doubt to impose criminal punishment, and proof to a preponderance of the evidence to impose civil liability, usually expressed as a monetary exaction.  There is an intermediate level of proof called "by clear and convincing evidence."

Our law allocates the burden of proof.  In a criminal case, the prosecution, not the defense, has the burden of proving that the accused committed a crime.  The defendant does not have to prove that he is innocent. 

Rarely is an accused required to prove anything in court, the exception coming to mind being that on a plea of insanity he is expected to show why he should be considered excused by that fact, if proved, because the evidence is likely to be peculiarly in his possession or ability to produce.

The argument is made, usually in debates over religion-based beliefs, such as the existence or not of God, or of Evolution vs. Creationism, now called  "Intelligent Design," that something is true because you cannot prove its opposite.

This turns the logic of debate on its head and is inadmissible on formal grounds.  Discussion has rules and the most basic of them is that the proponent of a proposition has the duty of going forward with his proof to try to establish with relevant evidence (see Cal. Ev. C. 210, supra) or proof .

He cannot be allowed to succeed in winning his point by shifting this burden to his adversary by saying, "You have lost the debate because you have not disproved what I am asserting."

Debate, Science, and Law, all rely on rules of clear, hard thinking first set forth for us by the ancient Greeks.

Occam's Razor holds that "Entities Shall Not Be Multiplied," meaning do not resort to building castles in the sky, i.e. make-believe piled on top of make-believe story in order to explain the truth of a matter.  As between supernatural story i.e., one resorting on a supernatural explanation, figure, or supposed deity, to account for a phenomenon ("The Devil made me do it";  or, "It was an act of God"), it is wiser to reject the more convoluted in favor of the simple, assuming that the simple explains as well as the convoluted.  Wisdom means knowing what not to believe.  I said that.

Reject the supernatural over the real.

Or, as a Greek friend advised with a laugh, the late Ted Lampros, "Explain why, apart from Athenes."  Athenes is the goddess Athena.

The Circumstantial Evidence Rule requires that if, from a set of circumstance, there are two conflicting but reasonable (that word, again) interpretations one pointing towards innocence and the other toward guilt, the defendant is entitled to an acquittal on that point, as a matter of the presumption of innocence. 

Circumstantial evidence is proof of the existence of a fact from which an inference, a mental leap, or a jump to a conclusion must be drawn in order for the alleged fact to be accepted and to be given meaning based on reason.

The presumption of innocence is not evidence, but a formal, legal means and requirement (meaning it is a rule of law, as well as a presumed fact, for purposes of trial) affecting the burden of proof.  It means that unless the proponent of the guilt theory, the prosecutor, satisfactorily establishes proof of guilt, the defendant is entitled to an acquittal as a matter of law.

As to what is satisfactory,  this relies on the above rules of law, all the other rules of law including the Constitution, the Penal and Evidence codes, and the rules of reason.

'Reason' and 'rational' mean essentially the same thing, and so are useless in trying to come up with a simple definition of either.

How, then, may we define reason?

We could say that 'reason,' and it's twin, 'rational,'  mean that for something to be regarded as real, and true, the proposition that it is must be proved by evidence that tends logically to support the proposition to the standard which we decide is appropriate, without resort to any burden shifting or supernatural story piling, and which conforms to established understandings of logical or critical thinking.

An assertion that fails to meet all of these criteria can be fairly said, in logic and reason, to be unacceptable as either false (or fallacious), untrue, or a lie.

There is a criterion that I left out, by the 20th century philosopher, Karl Popper, to the effect that if the assertion being put forth is incapable of being disproved, it is not a subject of science, but is pseudo-science. 

On this ground he rejected Freud's psychological theories as being hokum, another word for fallacious.  They could be used, as they were, to prove everything including contradictory propositions, hence they proved nothing.

Astrology and religion are faith propositions, not science.  Certain fundamental assertions of each are dis-provable by science through observation, experimentation, critical thinking, etc., at least to those who are willing to approach the subject with an open mind. 

For the rest the subjects are matters of faith, incapable of proof or disproof. 

Creationists, and the "Intelligent Design" folks appear to be in the latter category.  However, they are quick to accuse reason as being a form of religion because rationalists appear to "believe in" the capicity of reason to reveal truth as we understand it to be.  Rationalists, to the contrary, reply that what they rely on is not belief in any blind faith sense, as in matters of faith and religion, but a confidence born of the reliable use of the tools of reason, science, and the correct application of the rules of debate analysis, which can be done by one person in his head or on paper.  See Newton, Einstein, Feynman, and the like, including you'n'me. This a big reason why we spend so many years in school:  to learn to think straight.

I don't think you will ever get a devout Creationist to participate in a forum of rationally adjudicated discussion in which the Creationist, as the proponent of the proposition that God designed and created the world and all that is in it, as the Bible said in Genesis, will agree to assume the burden of proof, not burden shift, or commit any other logical error.  Reason is our survival tool, and faith is theirs. 

I acknowledge that faith has helped many individuals and groups of people to survive.  It has accounted, and still does, for considerable considerable integration of the human lives and of much of society in general.  Rational thinking, however, accounts for the technological and political advances that bring us to where we are today, however, however poor a showing this may be in light of opportunities lost.  See the 2000 science gap between Aristotle and Galileo, for instance.  See WWI, the war to end all wars.

Astrology was around for a long time before Galileo ground his lenses and turned them to the sky.

Faith and belief outweigh reason in every crisis.

We cannot see what we cannot believe or accept.

Popper's insistence on distinguishing science from pseudo-science through use of his criterion of falsifiability is called his Principle of Falsification.

In analyzing propositions, Popper warned against a common error, which is that of allowing ad hoc exceptions to the proposition or theory that you are advancing as a rule.

For example, if Isaac Newton proposes that there is a principle of force called gravity which postulates that all objects are drawn towards the center of the Earth when released from any constraint, a single apple falling up would disprove the theorem.

But suppose we found an apple that DID (!) fall up.  Newton, not being a Newtonian, might think, "H'mmm, I'd better think about devising an exception to the rule for certain strains of apple, or, maybe God did it."  This would be an ad hoc exception.  Newton was too good a reasoner, however, one of the best of all time, to have allowed himself such a cheap escape hatch.  He would look for a natural explanation despite his religious beliefs.  That's why he was Newton.

In the wonderfully comic, Martin Scorcese murder-trial movie, "My Cousin Vinnie,"  featuring Joey Pesci as trial lawyer Vinnie Gambino from Brooklyn, and his fiance Mona Lisa Vito, played by Marisa Tomei, who won an Academy Award for her performance, Vinnie cross-examines a Southern grits-eater about the length of time it took him to cook his grits  (Pascagoula polenta or cornmeal mush) that morning, which was critical to believing whether the witness was where he could see what he claimed to see, or was busy fixing breakfast, instead, where he could not.

Just a few minutes was the reply. 

But Vinnie, having personally conducted his Southern research, apparently by ordering grits in a restaurant one morning, knows that it really takes at least forty-five minutes to cook grits on a stove, or some similar long time. 

This is after the witness, a short-order cook well-familiar with cooking grits, has denied using instant grits, saying, "No self-respecting Southerner uses instant grits." 

You have to simmer the dried meal grits, chunky ground white or yellow hominy cornmeal, soaked in water, perhaps laced with lye to remove the germ, to crack the kernel, for a long time to soften the little chunks up.  The fine grind is used for cornmeal, after separation using a sieve, while the big pieces fed the Confederate troops and feed the South to this day the way polenta feeds the Italians.  Soul food, as it were.

"Do you mean to tell dese jurors dat duh laws a' physics exist everywhere in da world except on toppa yaw stove?" * asks the Brooklyn bred Vinnie, discrediting the witness using irony, which, as all trial lawyers know, is far more effective than using logic alone. 

Irony is logic with a sense of humor. 

I said that.

No ad hoc exceptions to the laws of physics for Vinnie.

So much for my attempt to define reason.  In an earlier post I noted how difficult it was to find a good definition of  'reason' or 'rational.'  The dictionaries seemed to prefer to define them in terms of one another, which seemed circular to me.  So I'll go with what I proposed above until someone comes along with something simpler or more accurate.  Here it is again:

"Reason," and it's identical twin, "rational,"  mean that for something, or proposition, to be regarded as real, and true, the proposition that something is real and true must be proved by evidence that tends logically to support it to the appropriate standard without resort to any violation of the rules of debate and analysis, such as burden shifting, supernatural story-piling, or ad hoc exception-making, and which conforms to established understandings of logical or critical thinking.

Is there room in the definition to allow non-rational subjective influences to decide controversies? 

I hope not.  There isn't supposed to be any room.  I hope I've eliminated any room, but you know what Holmes said about experience...

That about does it for me.

Rita Mae Brown has a wonderful summing up of faith and reason in our culture.  In her book on writing, the novelist states that each of us in Western Civilization rides astride to mighty chargers, each galloping in opposite directions.

One is the clear, hard thinking of the Greeks, and the other is the mysticism of the Jews and the Christians.

'Judeo-Christians' is the term she uses, but I've read that there are those who object to the combined term for reasons that tend to blur the long-standing differences, so I've used my editorial discretion.

Think of a scientist who goes to church and prays for a miracle.

* * *

* "Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than in any other place on the face of the earth?  Or perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove!  Were they magic grits?"

The mind, such as it is, is a funny thing. It remembers the gist of things, not the actuality.  See Gazzaniga, Michael S., The Mind's Past, U.C. Press, Berkeley 1998,   p. 143.   See also The Seven Sins of Memory, by Daniel Schecter, Houghton Mifflin, N.Y. 2001.

This bit about the magic grits, immediately above, is, I believe, the actual quote from "My Cousin Vinnie," brought to you by the magic of Google, the Internet, and an unattributed secondary source.  The other way is how it lives in my synapses, the few that are...fugeddaboudit!