A friend of mine on Facebook today posed a question: Was Adolf Hitler Rational? Several different people answered in several different ways… and many of them made the horrifying implication that… maybe he could be considered “rational.” “In his [Hitler’s] mind, he was rational”; “I am a Jew… I have come to this decision rationally”.
This is my answer to his question.
The idea of context and hierarchy has been discussed among Objectivist texts with absolutes, certainty, concepts, definitions, generalizations, integration, knowledge, logic, principles, and propositions. I have never read anything about context and hierarchy in connection with Rationality.
So this is my idea, but it is purely derived from Objectivist tenets: Rationality is contextual and hierarchical.
Rationality is a virtue that consists of an intellectual side and an existential side. When evaluating a person’s rationality, both must be taken into consideration. If there are irrational elements anywhere within the person’s context and/or the hierarchy, then the person can no longer be said to be “rational.” Just one contradiction can damage the entirety of a man’s rationality.
On the intellectual side: a person’s rationality on an issue, matter, or decision can be judged by answering the question: what is the widest context of knowledge relevant to the issue this person is involved with? One does not have to have omniscience, he does not need to know everything that Hitler knew… the key word is relevant. So say that I wanted to claim that the sun is a radiant violet color. The only relevant information you need about my context of knowledge is: is it possible for me to perceive that the sun is not violet, and that it in fact, appears to be yellow? The answer, in this case, is yes – which means you may judge me to be irrational for deliberately expressing an invalid idea as valid. But if it was possible that my perception has been distorted my whole life by some terrible neurological disorder that changes the colors I see, then you might answer no, for it was not in my power to attain first-hand knowledge that the sun actually appears to be yellow. If I was blind, on the other hand, you would have to answer “yes” since it would be completely dishonest of me to claim any first-hand knowledge of how things can be perceived unless I was a blind artist, because I myself could not see anything.
Still on the intellectual side: a person’s rationality on an issue, matter, or decision can be judged by answering the question: what hierarchy of knowledge has led him to his conclusion? If I venture to prove that God will help those who pray, I am making a case based off of several irrational foundations. Namely, I am assuming the primacy of consciousness principle, and I am assuming the existence of a transcendental, inapprehensible, all-powerful entity. These are both very irrational premises. Even if, by a terribly rigorous and meddlesome configuration of logical thinking was I able to somehow make my proposition appear to be “proven,” I would still be irrational, because my claim is based on irrational premises.
On the existential side: a person’s rationality on an issue, matter, or decision can be judged by answering the question: what is the context of events and actions relevant to the issue this person is involved with? Again, the key word is relevant. If I were President, and I decided, one day, to give presidential pardon to a guy who got himself arrested simply because he was an old friend of mine, that would be an action made irrationally. The context of events include: what did this person do to get himself arrested? Were his actions moral or immoral? Why is friendship more important than morality? In my own case, I did not take these questions into consideration. In fact, I rejected the importance of answering any of these questions. I simply thrust forward blindly and committed myself to a decision emotionally and, also, altruistically. This is very irrational of me. So even if, in the end, it was true that the person was innocent and should not have been arrested, my decision was still an irrational one. If the person was a murderer on the other hand, well, I’d be lucky if I wasn’t murdered myself.
Still on the existential side: a person’s rationality on an issue, matter or decision can be judged by answering the question: what series of events or decision have led up to this event or decision? Or: what is the cause? If I place God’s will as my means to the holy ends of the Church, it might be “rational” for me to act in such manners that I spread the word of the Bible, collect offerings, preach the Gospel and pray for people. But in fact, none of my decisions are rational because it is based off an irrational cause.
Now I can answer your question with much more depth and reasoning. Hitler was not a rational person! One commenter on Facebook provides us with all the relevant information we need to make this assessment:
Intellectual context: [Hitler] “believed that leading an ethno-centric superiority movement accross Europe was the best way to achieve his lust for power.
Intellectual hierarchy: Hitler [was] “a sociopathic monster;”
Existential context: [Hitler’s] “goal was power, escalating power exponentially; The tactics he used were means [death and destruction] to that end [gain power]; Hitler violated the rights of many people and led a movement that was one of the worst destroyers of humanity the world has ever seen.”
Existential hierarchy: “He used propaganda and fear tactics to gain power; he reasoned they [his tactics] were the best way to achieve that end.”
I think anyone seeing this can see where the error lies, then, in suggesting that Hitler “reasoned” anything. He claimed numerous times, in fact, to be an advocate of the mystics and an enemy of reason. Like in my example: even if Hitler followed all the rational steps to achieving his end, Hitler must be judged as an irrational man because of the basic context and hierarchy of his thinking. He completely ignored the basic human need of reason for survival.
Hitler was not rational even in his own mind. There is no such thing as a person being rational inside or outside of his own mind. A rational man is a rational man, period. If he can be judged as an irrational man extrospectively, he could judge himself as an irrational man introspectively. This is not always the case, of course, with everyone. A man can best be judged introspectively, i.e., personally, independently, of his own accord, since he is the man who knows everything he knows and everything he has done. If a person judges himself as rational while others judge him as irrational, when in actually, that person is in fact rational, then it is the extrospects who have judged incorrectly. But this is not the case when we, as extrospects, judge the rationality of Hitler. There is a grand scale of information that can guide us to our conclusion:
Hitler was an irrational monster.
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