As the Confucius story illustrates, adhering strictly to an ideal like "honesty" can lead to heartless, disconnected outcomes. A truly "spiritual right action" is not based on a fixed rulebook but on a dynamic, present-moment assessment of the situation from a state of connection.

Humans are fundamentally emotional decision-makers. Neurological evidence shows that without the ability to feel emotions, people cannot make decisions, even if their rational faculties are intact. We choose based on feelings and then construct a logical reason afterward to justify the choice.

According to evolutionary psychologists, our capacity for reason didn't develop to be a dispassionate tool for finding truth. Instead, it evolved as a social mechanism to justify our positions and persuade others. This explains why factual evidence often fails to change minds and can even reinforce existing beliefs.

Work by Kahneman and Tversky shows how human psychology deviates from rational choice theory. However, the deeper issue isn't our failure to adhere to the model, but that the model itself is a terrible guide for making meaningful decisions. The goal should not be to become a better calculator.

Post-WWII, economists pursued mathematical rigor by modeling human behavior as perfectly rational (i.e., 'maximizing'). This was a convenient simplification for building models, not an accurate depiction of how people actually make decisions, which are often messy and imperfect.

The difference between a healthy disagreement and a destructive conflict lies in your assumptions. Conflict begins when you conclude that no rational or moral person could hold the opposing view, regardless of the topic's importance, such as how to store cauliflower.

The goal for AI should be to surpass human rationality, not merely replicate it. Just as a calculator is designed to be better at arithmetic, AI should be built to overcome our cognitive biases and be superior at manipulating probabilities to provide real value.

Economics-based rational choice theory frames decisions as a calculation of "expected utility," multiplying value by probability. This analogizes complex life choices—from careers to partners—to casino bets, oversimplifying non-quantifiable factors and reducing judgment to mere calculation.

Reasonableness is fundamentally a skill of evaluation. It's the ability to accurately map the "value landscape" of a situation—discerning what is important, what is trivial, and what the best course of action is. Unreasonable people aren't necessarily illogical; they simply make consistent mistakes about what truly matters.