Habits and rationality

An interdisciplinary philosophical study on autonomy in the Big Data era

Abstract

(This article is part of a project by Trans/Form/Ação: Unesp Philosophy Journal. It is the Authorial Philosophy Dossier, to be published in 2022.) In this article, the following dilemma is discussed: On the one hand, the growing impact of Technology of communication and information (ICT) in everyday habits seems to influence the dynamics of public opinion by reinforcing irrational beliefs, and creating the impression that the autonomy of people’s opinion and decisions is just a myth. On the other hand, people seem to act most of the time, under the normal circumstances of daily life, in a rational way, as if their habitual actions result from relatively autonomous decisions. A way out of this dilemma is suggested with the hypothesis that people can be rational most of the time, but nevertheless have their opinions influenced by insufficient, distorted information, or by previously acquired emotional dispositions. This hypothesis, in turn, is going to be scrutinized by considering, from a philosophical-interdisciplinary perspective, the role of rational choices in the dynamics of autonomous opinion. With illustrations of diagrams, we claim that the qualitative Complex Systems paradigm might help us to understand the possible role of emotional dispositions in the dynamics of autonomous opinion formation.