All Reasons are Individual Reasons

To be conscious is the trait of a human being that puts him in a different league from other living beings. A conscious person is a rational person and their reason for being rational is always an individual choice. Every decision taken at every broader phenomenon, whether on communal/societal level or national/international level, is primarily an outcome of choices made by an individual, or a few, on the basis of some reason. The reason behind taking a decision is a by-product of ‘cost and benefit’ analysis. Even though a policy could be considered profitable or futile based on the consequences, there always exists a reason behind every decision regardless of the rational intelligence of an individual. Lesser intelligence or a less rational approach shows lesser conscious development of an individual which affects better reasoning for taking a decision and the results could be worse outcomes, in comparison. Thus, fundamentally, there is no irrational man or woman and in every reason, even during the decision-making process, which affects the international political structure, there lies an individual reason and rationality.

All the reasons behind a collective decision when narrowed down to the primary cause, it is always individuality that makes the main difference. To understand the difference between individual and collective reason, it would be enough to state that an individual reason is based on personal benefits and goals of an individual while collective reasons are based on the fundamentals of collective growth.. However, if a group of people is perceived as a single social entity based on the intensity of social cohesion, then the collective reason and decision also lies in the singularity of that social entity. This claim is made on the basis: that the collective reason of a group of people originates from a single focal point where the reasons of all people of the group converge in harmony; or sometimes in conflict. Harmony and conflict possess a tendency of repeating themselves in form of ‘thesis’ and ‘antithesis’ to each other and thus drive the lives of social structures in dialectics. Although, the reason behind harmony and conflict in a group of people lies in agreements and differences among these people, yet the decision of being harmonious or conflicting is dependent upon the weightage of reason behind the decision of each individual of the group.

To put it in a more logical way, let it be assumed that in a group of people there are three types of rational decisions (reason-based decisions). The weightage of dominant decision will be based on most effective rational decisions among them which will converge to a single decision harmoniously with collective reason; regardless of majority or authority in the group. Let the three rational decisions be a, b and c while the successful rational decision be x. It be better explained with the help of the following mathematical equation;

Outcome ∝ kxn

(where ‘n’ can either be majority or authority and ‘k’ is any other contributing factor)

Here ‘x’ can be a, b or c. While ‘n’ represents either the number of people putting their weightage in a rational decision or the authority/authorities which can define the ultimate outcome of a rational decision. Thus, it seems obvious that a collective decision taken always contains the essence of an individual reason.

On a broader scale, the reason behind decision-making on state-level, taken by the government, is based on a rational reason. Behind any ultimate decision is the reason put forth by the decision-makers, which could either be a group of influential people or a single person in authority. For instance, four countries, i.e., US, UK, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq on 19th-20th March, 2003 to put an end to Iraq’s possession of WMDs and ending dictatorial rule of Saddam Hussein. Here the invading parties took a decision based on collective affirmation over the mutually agreed-upon reason, but in fact the most influential acting party was the US which convinced other parties to get aligned with their cause. The same case study can be applied to wars. From another perspective, the US’ decision of invading Iraq was taken by G.W. Bush, the 43rd President of the US and his administration, although they had to face criticism over this decision. However, the authoritative decision of Bush’s regime and their reason prevailed over conflicting opposition who had a more anti-war reason. Hence, it could be concluded that the ultimate outcome of a rational decision depends on an individual reason which leads to an individual’s rational decision.

Existence and reason go together. Indeed, reasons and ideas of individuals such as Plato, Mansur Hallaj, Ibn-e-Arabi, Al-Farabi, Rene Descartes, Niccolo Machiavelli, G.W. Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche etc. define, demolish and redefine the new boundaries of every aspect of individual as well as collective lives.