Why Be Reasonable?

While one can have good or bad reasons for one’s actions, and a bad outcome can be done for a good reason, and a good outcome for a bad reason, reasonableness itself is thought of as a good thing because it refers to a willingness and ability to do things for reasons rather than impulses, grudges, emotions, and the like. And this is a good thing because reasons can be shared with others more readily than emotions or other individual states of mind, indicating that reasonableness is a social relation which enables coordination between individuals independent from subordinating relations put in place by custom and tradition. Now, while it might be reasonable in particular cases to conform in one’s actions to a subordinate relationship to another without a very good reason for it, but merely because “that’s the way things are” or something similar, it would be unreasonable to recommend it as a general rule because that would be tantamount to saying it’s reasonable to be unreasonable. But when is it unreasonable to be reasonable? If a citizen of a nation at war, for example, objects to it on grounds that it is engaged in for bad reasons, isn’t it reasonable to also object to those who carry it out? For although it may seem reasonable to support the idea of having an army and thanking those trained for it “for their service”, it seems clear that where it’s deployed for criminal purposes they shouldn’t be thanked but on the contrary condemned, even to the point of criminal prosecution, e.g. for following illegal orders. And this principle could be applied to other areas and even to society in general where structured in ways which lack good reasons for it, for example where wealth is concentrated in the hands of a privileged minority while others starve. Isn’t it, then, unreasonable to be reasonable under such conditions? Couldn’t unreasonability where reasonably constrained constitute a reasonable refusal to be reasonable?