Judging People is Good For Them—and For You
A rational judgment of a relationship's value to you is based primarily on the person's character and moral values, not merely the material benefits of the relationship.
When I promote the idea of making life decisions—including about what relationships to maintain and invest in—according to a hierarchy of rational values, one of the most common objections I hear is that it's heartless or unkind to judge the people in your life in terms of their value to you. The idea of evaluating relationships rationally sounds cold and calculating to many people.
This is understandable, if one accepts the popular idea of what it means to analyze something rationally—calculating something or someone’s material value without regard to moral values or emotions. Deciding which relationships to cut off or invest in based purely on the potential material advantages of each one—such as a person's professional connections, wealth, useful skills, and so on—would be callous and cruel.
It would also be irrational and self-destructive.
In reality, a rational judgment is not limited to material factors; quite the opposite. A truly rational evaluation recognizes the full nature and requirements of human life. It recognizes that we need to identify principles that support our wellbeing, emotionally as well as physically. A rational evaluation of a relationship, or any other particular concrete value, is based on your highest abstract values—the ideas and principles you believe are ultimately good and life-serving. Material things only matter inasmuch as they enable you to live a good life—one in which you can achieve and embody your highest values.
For a simplified example, imagine there are three people you think would be willing to have a romantic relationship with you:
The first person is deeply curious, and curiosity is a high value to you. That person is also fairly poor. You would probably be the one paying for a lot of things if you had this relationship, but you'd be with someone who encouraged and shared one of your deepest values, which would encourage you both to thrive in the long run.
The second person is somewhat curious, but not to the extent that you'd like in a partner. This person is fairly well-off, more so than you. In this relationship, you'd get the benefit of a wealthier partner, but only some of the shared fundamental values you need in a relationship.
The third person is fabulously rich but not curious at all. You might get a life of luxury in this relationship, but you'd have no deep shared value with the person you lived with.
Hopefully, it's clear as day that you'd choose the first person. The other two shouldn't be on the table at all. The financial benefits you'd get in those relationships would be useless for making you feel happy and fulfilled because your dissatisfaction with the relationship would undo that happiness and fulfillment. You couldn’t ever love those people because love is a response to seeing your highest values embodied in another person. (In a real example, far more than one abstract value would be in play—the person’s character and all his or her major values would be part of the decision.)
That's not to say that having a wealthy partner isn't good for you—it obviously is—but it is subordinate to the thing that makes it important: your life and happiness. It’s never going to be the thing that decides who a rational person gets into a relationship with. (Although people who hold rational higher values are far more likely to become wealthy in the long term, so there is a correlation between choosing partners with rational values and ending up with a wealthy partner.)
Now consider whether the other parties in each of these relationships would find true happiness and fulfillment with you. Would the second or third people find real happiness with someone who didn't really share their values? Who didn't really love them? Would they be happy when you sought that deeper value connection elsewhere?
Now we can see that rationally evaluating these relationships is good for the other person as well as you. This is an instance of the principle that living by reason—which means living according to reality—produces outcomes that improve your life and the lives of those around you.
The only time that acting your rational evaluation of a relationship might do lasting harm to another person is if the other person's values are not rational. For example, you may reject a person you know is infatuated with you but wouldn't really be happy with you. This will deeply hurt the person—maybe for years or decades—but that isn't your fault. That hurt is caused by the other person's detachment from reality. Detaching yourself from reality too by evading the fact that the relationship does not serve either of your rational values would only add to both of your suffering in the long run and would be a waste of your potential to achieve life-enhancing values.
In all other cases, a rational evaluation may lead to some short-term pain when you reduce or occasionally end a relationship that is not life-enhancing in its current form, but it will support both of your flourishing in the long run. Ultimately, the only way to know what course of action will maximize your happiness and further your deepest values—including such values as kindness and the well-being of others around you—is by using reason to identify your highest values and to evaluate everything in your life according to them.