John Rawls in his Theory of Justice suggests that a person should lead his life so that at its end, he will approve of what he has done. An empiricist attempts to reduce all reality to experience. Thus, when we discuss a soldier who wants his country to win, we will not try to reduce this to his desire for certain experience, e.g. the experience of believing that his actions will contribute to the victory. We will take his willingness to sacrifice his life for this goal at face value - not as a construct in terms of the experience involved in making the decision to take the risky action. Reading Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Commencement address reminds me that I share some of his religiously motivated concerns without believing any of the religion.
Some people denounce rationality.
This can have two motivations, one bad, one not so bad. The bad one is willfullness. It looks bad, it computes bad, but I want to do it anyway, e.g. the brain-washing of the communist and other cults. The other is an objection to the conclusions that other people claim to get from rationality, coupled with an inability to find the mistake. Of course, this is somewhat of a self-indulgence is often mistaken.