Abstract

Roman Godlewski Unjustified Opinions as the Foundation of ActionsThe article concerns the phenomenon of religion. Religious behavior is thought to be an action based on unjustified opinions. Such actions are wrong but there are some exceptions. The exceptional actions are called “superrational,” unjustified opinions they are based on are called “regulative” and facts described in them “superreal.” The author gives a typology of acting in this way. The types go as follows: (1) putting scientific hypotheses, (2) practical pressure, (3) the will of no investigation, (4) the will to regard only some given sources of truth, (5) the will not to know, (6) symbolic or metaphorical behavior (religious included). The latter is described within a wider anthropological and evolutionary context. The author claims that irrationality of religious beliefs in respect to their content does not mean that actions based on them are irrational, but the question is whether a given religious practice fulfills the emotional needs of a particular person. From the evolutionary point of view, it is important to have emotionally stable biological units even if, in order to obtain this, one has to take fiction for reality with reference to facts of little importance for life. Keywords: religion, action, behavior, opinion, belief, justification, rationality, magic, symbol, evolution