Passion versus reasoning in human decision-making

Passion and Reasoning

Reason is defined as the (human) capacity for logical, rational or analytic thought, inference of discrimination. It makes the information available in the intellect for the will to act on. The use of reason in forming conclusions, inferences or judgments, which are used in thinking, is called reasoning. And passion is a strong, powerful emotion, or a state of mind, which is powerfully influenced by something external. Passion is also described as a state of uncontrollable excitement, or extreme and inordinate desire. But passion is not opposed to reason, as many believe. Rather, passion results from the absence of reason that ought to direct it.

Both Tartuffe by Jean Baptiste Moliere and Phaedra by Jean Racine are plays about passion and the momentary defeat of reason.

Tartuffe is as much a tale of hypocrisy as of passion and a suspension of reason. Orgon is so taken by the avowals of un-worldliness and sanctity by Tartuffe that he views Tartuffe as someone beyond reproach and an honored guest in his household. Although Tartuffe's unworthiness is plain to the rest, as in the eyes of the maidservant, Dorine:

Your daughter's not cut out for bigot's meat

Besides, what can you gain by such a match?

How can a man of wealth, like you, go choose wretched vagabond for a son-in-law?"

Act 2 Scene 2 lines 56, 58-60)

Orgon resists any assault on the virtues of this man, who to his eyes, is a living saint:

The less he has, the better cause have we to honor him.

His poverty is honest poverty

For he has let himself be robbed of all,

Through careless disregard of temporal things." lines 61-63)

Suspending or abandoning the reign of reason over his passion for the sworn personal holiness of Tartuffe, Orgon decides to render his ties with Tartuffe permanent by forcing his daughter Marianne to marry the living saint. But Marianne refuses, not only because of Tartuffe's unlovable qualities, but also because Marianne already loves Valere.

What makes Tartuffe more ignominious is his seduction of Orgon's wife, Elmire:

The trouble that I made about those visits, which your charms attract

Does not result from any hatred toward you, but rather from a passionate

Devotion and purest motives."

Act 3 Scene 3 lines 30-34) but Elmire parries his overtures in disgust over his pretensions of holiness, which "nothing here below can stay..." When Orgon appears unwilling to listen to reason, Elmire concocts a plan for him to catch Tartuffe himself. When this happens, Tartuffe shows his true color, lays claim over the house Orgon gave him out of consideration for his spirituality and even reports him to the authorities for a crime. Tartuffe reveals more than the masks people wear outside and the hypocrisy of those who claim to be religious or spiritual and the credulity of many, It underscores the weakness of reason and the supremacy of passion in many supposedly strong persons. The play exhibits not only Tartuffe's natural passion for deceit but also of opportunism towards those whom he wins because of his religious pretenses. His deception is made possible only by this lack of reason in others.

Phaedra is about a powerful and passionate queen who is mocked by the object of her passion, Hippolytus, her stepson. King Theseus habitually leaves his queen in the company of his son and this situation breeds not only a sense of repeated abandonment and philandering by Theseus, but also an obsession with Hippolytus on account of his improbability. Phaedra's own revelation to her nurse and Hippolytus himself is as explosive as it is guilt-ridden:

Have I lost my senses? What said I? And where am I? (Act 1 Scene 3)

There I see him! My blood forgets to flow,

My tongue to speak what I am come to say." (Act 2 Scene 5)

My heart, Oh I am mad, do what I will. I cannot hide my passion

Ah! Cruel Prince, too well you understood me, I have said enough

At the moment when I love you most, I feel my guilt

I am not so detestable to you as I to myself

Hating you more, I loved you none the less:

Weak purpose of a heart too full of love for you

To speak of aught besides!"

Act 2 Scene 5)

King Theseus himself is a victim of his own passion, not only because of his womanizing, but also in the impulsiveness and rage with which he banishes his son and implores the vengeance of Neptune, who eventually kills Hippolytus. But the ultimate passion is still Phaedra's when she takes her own life by drinking poison after admitting her guilt to King Theseus.

In his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas states that reason is that aspect of the intellect, which discovers what things, to what extent and under what circumstances the object of sense or appetitive powers are suited to human nature (Kilbreath). He teaches that reason trains passion to desire these objects only, as things they ought to desire. These objects include the desire for food to survive and the desire to preserve oneself. But unlike gross and simple sense powers for physical survival, the appetitive powers are of two varieties: the concupiscible and the irascible. Although both varieties are meant by nature to tend to their proper object, which is the end for which man exists, that natural disposition under the guidance of reason, is either defective or lost, because of original sin, or man's fallen nature. Without reason, man acts out of passion, i.e., in pursuit only of apparent good, or what injured imagination presents to the intellect as a proper good either for man's physical survival, protection or preservation. The condition can be corrected only by the practice and perfection of the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance (Kilbreath). The habitual practice of good works is called virtue.