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Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre  Well, fear evolved prior to intellect. So yes, fear doesn't have to be involved anymore, but it was initially. Hence there are situations in which fear once played the part that our intellect can now perform better.
However 'rational fears' are fears regarding situations which, if the outcome we feared actually came to pass, it could truly harm us. The fear of falling off a cliff would be rational, because you would really get hurt, there's no way to avoid harm once you fall helplessly. The harm is certain hence the fear is reasonable. But the fear of rejection is irrational because rejection need not cause pain, only our irrational reaction to rejection causes pain. The pain is uncertain, the harm is arguable, the fear is unreasonable. It can be rationalised but it's not rational. |
Ah, ok. So it's simply rational if it can be reasoned out to be useful, I see now, thanks.