Viswanathan K's Thoughts

“It is one thing to accept something in practice, another to justify it rationally.” -          Isaiah Berlin It’s no secret that rationality can’t always give you reasons for deciding what’s right and what’s wrong (Though rationality can help you decide whether or not to follow what is termed by the majority as right or wrong). In most cases, that doesn’t matter. Is stealing ok? You don’t need rationality to provide an answer to accept that it’s not ok. Morality, social norms, jail time are acceptable reasons (well ok, jail time would be a rational cost-benefit analysis based reason, but even the others are acceptable reasons to not steal). But what about something like athletes taking steroids to win? Lance Armstrong is the poster boy for drugs in sports these days. He is getting stripped of his many wins and the runner up declared the new winner (As an aside, that “solution” made me wonder: in sports like cycling or shot-put, ever...

When it comes to acts of charity or compassion, most people will give to that one individual in need rather than a huge number in distress. So produce a picture or details of one particular person who needs help, and you are more likely to get aid, help, whatever. Ask for money for thousands of faceless, nameless victims of an a genocide somewhere remote and you'll get little or nothing (most of the time). Agencies like CRY know this phenomenon which is why many of their schemes try to associate your contribution with one particular child, to give you status reports, to maintain that connection. It's for a good cause, so I guess we shouldn't mind being played this way. It also turns out that the more analytical mood that you are in when asked to donate, the less likely you are to give. Which makes sense when you think of it: giving without any expectation of returns is an emotional act, not a rational one. So I guess that a planet like earth will have more donations than...