The old theological problem
of “faith” and “knowledge”
– or, to be more precise, of instinct and reason
– and so, the question of whether, with respect to the value of things,
the instincts deserve more authority
than reason
(reason wants some ground or “what for?”,
some purpose or utility behind our values and actions)

– this is
the same old moral problem
that first emerged in the person of Socrates
and divided opinions long before Christianity came along.

Socrates of course
had initially sided with reason,
given the taste of his talent – that of a superior dialectician.
And, in point of fact, didn’t he spend his whole life laughing
at the shortcomings of his clumsy, noble Athenians,
who, like all noble people,
were men of instinct
and could never really account
for why they acted the way they did?

But in the end, silently and secretly,
he laughed at himself as well;
with his acute conscience and self-scrutiny,
he discovered the same difficulty and shortcoming in himself.

“Why free ourselves
from the instincts?” he asked himself;
“We should give them their fair dues,
along with reason
– we have to follow our instincts
but persuade reason
to come to their aid with good motives.”

This was the genuine falseness
of that great, secretive ironist;
he made his conscience seem satisfied
with a type of self-deceit.

Basically, he had seen through
to the irrationality
of moral judgments.

Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Judith Butler, aphorism 191

What’s reasonable, rationality seems at opposition to the quiet nudge of subterranean instinct.  The body prods us in a direction, but the voice of reason, shouts at us, “you must” not give in to that “lower” inclination.  The civil war between our “reasons” and desires antagonistic to any “what for” is familiar to everyone.

Like Socrates, shall we learn to laugh at ourselves?