Your article is based on the premise that it is important for us to help complete strangers who don't mean anything to us. That sacrifice is a constant of righteousness regardless of a person's beliefs or lack thereof.
From an objective viewpoint, sacrifice is wrong. Why should we have to give value in return for lesser value, or no value at all? We should help people because they have value to us, not because they are unable to be valuable at all.
"The man with guilt is the man who will do whatever you tell him to." The reason religious people do this is because they are taught from a young age that it is moral to sacrifice and amoral to trade with the acquisition of a value in mind. Their guilt does the rest.
Maybe the reason most rationalists don't devote as much self-sacrifice to the world around them is because they hold somewhat of an objective viewpoint, and a moral code that has no room for self-sacrifice. In short, most rationalists don't feel guilty for not helping people they don't know. Why should they feel guilty for that?
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I think you're pretty close to the core of this one. You identified that having something to protect gives you strength. And having a worthy cause to work for, for the same reason.
But what is that reason? What is it that gives you strength? What is the underlying cause of us gaining strength from certain causes?
I'm not certain I understand the topic well enough myself, but I think I have something that you might find insightful here.
Moral Idealism. That's where your power comes from. Whether you're fighting to protect a loved one, or you're fighting to promote a worthy cause, you have the power to dedicate yourself with every fiber of your being because you believe your actions are righteous!
You see it all the time. When people are completely confident in the righteousness of their cause, they will put their all into it. You see it when someone protects a loved one, you see it when someone works for a worthy cause, and you see it particularly with religions; their unwavering faith in their belief instills them with a sense of righteousness.
I think your mention of people being more afraid of the crowd disagreeing with them than dying highlights a very dangerous philosophical flaw people hold today. They don't believe that protecting their lives is a righteous cause!! Having grown up in an altruistic society, they've probably been hammered with the message that other peoples' lives are more important than their own. So they lack the moral justification to protect themselves and they have a flawed moral premise that works to enslave them to the whim of the crowd.
You're worried about people not having a good reason to be rational? Here's the answer. Your own life must be your ultimate value. It must be an end in itself, and not the means to anyone else's ends. You must judge value with your life as the standard of judgment. Don't think in terms of good and evil, think in terms of good for you and bad for you. Not only is logic and reasoning a tool to promote your life, you depend on it for survival. I can't imagine any way to throw away reason and promote your life at the same time.
(If you can instill people with the power of moral idealism to promote their own lives, you might also have a higher turnout of people buying into cryogenics life insurance policies. :P)