Rationality: a Libertarian Viewpoint

"Allegations of 'irrationality' are invariably confused, ignorant, and biased."

rationality  In its basic and plain sense, “rationality” refers to “reasoning”, i.e., “thinking”. There seems to be no need to restrict this to what is expressed in language. Most of our everyday reasoning (conscious problem-posing and -solving) appears to be done without putting it into words: e.g., we don’t need to have an internal monologue in order to clean our teeth. Thus, to the extent that any animal’s behaviour is not purely automatic or instinctual, its actions are the result of some rationality. Neither does there seem any need to make “rationality” a success word: i.e., we are only being rational if we solve the problem we have set ourselves, and possibly in the most efficient way, or even the problem that someone else thinks we ought to have set ourselves. For if, by our reasoning, we see no problem, or reach no solution, or only a poor one, then we are still being rational. None of emotion, intuition, or ^*tradition is an alternative to rationality, as they are sometimes supposed to be, for they could hardly be understood without the use of some reasoning and their potential implementation is always reasoned about (however minimally, such as by a Hobson’s choice). In this sense, then, there does not seem to be any obvious problem with “rationality” in itself that needs addressing. Whatever is not rational is simply non-rational.

However, when many people use “rationality”, in ^*common sense and ^*academia, they often appear to be restricting it to, 1) linguistic (or numeric) reasoning, 2) that is often also somehow successful, and 3) more narrowly still about such things as one’s thoughts, or ^*beliefs, or objective conclusions achieving common sense, or prudence, or perfect calculation, or ^*efficiency, or consistency, or being unbiased, or ^*impartial, or ^*unprejudiced, or not “weak-willed” (see ^*akrasia), or fitting probability theory, or ^*“justified” (i.e., “supported” by “good reasons” or “strong evidence”; as ^*critical rationalism explains to be logically impossible), etc., etc. (there are too many examples to list let alone discuss). And “irrationality” is then typically used as the failure to, adequately, achieve each of these things.

In other words, “rationality” is often used as a plaudit while “irrationality” is a pejorative (it often appears to be conjugated thus: “I am perfectly rational”; “You are clearly irrational”; “He is a complete lunatic”). And this tends to encourage ^*dogmatism: there is no need to critically consider what is known to be “rational” or “irrational”. It also invites ^*state ^*paternalism to deal with all the alleged “irrationality”. People have become so intoxicated with the mere rhetorical use of “rationality” that they have thereby often confused even themselves. Attempting to place so many diverse and distinct things under the title of one very general word obscures any real, or alleged, problems or theories.

It might be said that these are simply different ^*legitimate senses of “rationality” that are all equally “valid” (whatever that is supposed to mean in this context). But given the unnecessary confusion that this evinces, it would appear to be more accurate to say that they are simply different illegitimate nonsenses of “rationality”. Humpty Dumpty, the notorious linguistic dictator, deserves to be pushed off the wall (see ^*harm principle). Far better to call things the distinct things that they are: being consistent is being consistent; being prudent is being prudent; etc. (and we can still be mistaken about theories of such things). This is not the folly of “merely arguing about words” in the sense that words must be mere labels for the content of any real ideas. This is the wisdom of arguing that some words amount to confused and confusing ^*propaganda that would better be replaced by words that are clearer, more accurate, and more neutral.

An analogy. Some animals can run and some cannot, for a variety of reasons. Let us call those that can run “runnable” and those that can’t “non-runnable”. We can further distinguish the runnable animals in an indefinite variety of ways: how fast they are over some fixed distance, or how fast they are relative to their size, or how much energy they consume, etc. Which will interest us might relate to any real problem we are trying to solve: for instance, how to make humans run faster in the Olympics (to take a frivolous ^*sporting example). But whatever problem we are trying to solve, it would be confused and confusing to present our specific chosen criteria as “the real” criteria of “runnability” in itself. And it would be compounding this error to call all animals that do not achieve perfection, or reach some arbitrary level, on these criteria as “irrunnable”. For “irrunnable” cannot be the opposite of “runnable” (as would be a natural interpretation): it can only be a confusingly named subset.

It is a very popular idea that “people are irrational (or not rational)”. But what is ostensibly being alleged here is not about general “rationality” at all, but some version of the thesis that people are imperfect reasoners by some implicit criteria. Stating what is meant more clearly and precisely is far more likely to lead to a productive debate than this absurd, and even misanthropic, generalisation. Au contraire, people are always rational. If you reason with them, you or they or both will likely at least move the argument along. If you alter their perceived incentives for what they are doing, then they will respond in a way that makes sense to them even if you do not, yet, understand it. And if they won’t reason with you or respond to your incentives, then they still have their own perceived reasons for their behaviour. Allegations of “irrationality” are invariably confused, ignorant, and biased. See especially the modern classic, The Myth of the Closed Mind: Understanding Why and How People Are Rational, by Ray Scott Percival.

See also ^*bounded rationality; ^*economic man; ^*wishful and fearful thinking.

(This is an entry from A Libertarian Dictionary: Explaining a Philosophical Theory [draft currently being revised]. Asterisks indicate other entries.)