First, was Spock rational or just wanted to think himself rational. I am not completely sure that was the underlying character trait of Vulcan’s in the show—though also agree that much can support it. Seems like their history was that of excessive passion, apparently to an uncontrollable and very destructive level. Their solution seems to have been to suppress their emotions, and so the passion, which then left the purely intellectual response to the external world and their own thinking/decisions.
Since I don’t see emotion and rationality as either opposites or necessarily antagonistic to one another I wonder if considering rationality through a third lens—epistemic, instrumental and emotional might help lead to some better decision-making than placing them in opposition. Principle #4 gets at this with the diagrams showing them as opposing but the argument questioning that approach. (I actually missed on this bit in my first comment.)
First, was Spock rational or just wanted to think himself rational. I am not completely sure that was the underlying character trait of Vulcan’s in the show—though also agree that much can support it. Seems like their history was that of excessive passion, apparently to an uncontrollable and very destructive level. Their solution seems to have been to suppress their emotions, and so the passion, which then left the purely intellectual response to the external world and their own thinking/decisions.
Since I don’t see emotion and rationality as either opposites or necessarily antagonistic to one another I wonder if considering rationality through a third lens—epistemic, instrumental and emotional might help lead to some better decision-making than placing them in opposition. Principle #4 gets at this with the diagrams showing them as opposing but the argument questioning that approach. (I actually missed on this bit in my first comment.)