Detachment, Freedom, and Rationality: Should we Accept McDowell's claim that we are essentially Rational Animals?

John McDowell argues that human beings are essentially rational animals. Their socialization endows them with a second nature, which enables them to step back from what they are doing, reflect critically on their current activity, and on their cultural norms, and then freely act on the basis of reasons. I argue that human beings can never be radically free in this sense. Rather human beings at their best are free to let themselves be fully involved in their current activity and in their culture. In skillful coping detached reflection usually undermines skillful action, and, in general, one cannot reflect on ones current activity without transforming it. Moreover, the norms we are socialized into are not rational and are so pervasive and embodied that we cannot step back from them completely and subject them to rational criticism from the ground up. The only way to change our second nature completely is not to free ourselves from it by subjecting our customs to detached critical reflection, but by staying completely involved and going native in another form of life.