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What is it to be rational?

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Dennett goes on to argue, as it seems to me rightly, that "[s]cientific knowledge is the royal road -- the only road -- to road—the only road—to evitability," i.e., to knowing "which interventions are apt to counteract which shortcomings" in an individual's making it over these two thresholds. His clear implication is that we have every reason to make any intervention that science shows to be indicated, asking rhetorically, "Why should it be important that you do all your self-improvement the old-fashioned way?" and calling us to acknowledge that "the environment we live in has been being updated ever since the dawn of civilization, elaborately prepared, made easy for us, with multiple signposts and alerts along the way, to ease the burdens on us imperfect decisionmakersdecision makers" and humbly confessing that "[w]e lean on the prostheses that we find valuable – that's the beauty of civilized life -- even life—even if we tend to begrudge those that others need.'"

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