Andrew Easterbrook

Something I think that people often underestimate both the truth and significance of is the fact that human beings are not always rational creatures. All the time we make decisions that are not rational, yet often the first criticism we make of other people’s decisions and actions is that they are irrational. I think that, in the spirit of accepting differences, tolerance and open-mindedness, perhaps we need a rethink of when criticism of rationality is justified.

A rational decision is a decision that an objective person would come to using available evidence and the rules of logic. But all too often, emotions play a part in our decision-making process, and cause us to overlook something, make a logical error, or otherwise impinge our capability of rationality. The criticism “you’re being irrational” seems to frequently (but I’ll admit not all the time) play on the feeling that we ought to be rational because we can be rational. But that argument is invalid – just because we can do something it doesn’t logically follow that we ought to do it – that’s ridiculous. For the argument to hold it would have to be supported by saying that rationality is a Good Thing All The Time (not just a transient or factually-dependent good but good absolutely, like 2+2=4).

The problem I have with that is that rationality is not always the right course of action. Irrationality happens often:

• Pursuing sexual liaisons one knows are a bad idea for whatever reason
• Playing computer games for longer than one should, especially when there are essays to write or readings to do
• Eating bad, unhealthy food when there are readily available, healthy and tasty alternatives

All of the above would often be condemned as a bad action on the grounds that they are irrational. But what about the following:

Mary is in love with Jake. Jake proposes to Mary, but Mary has a gut feeling she should say no. She declines, even though she thinks it would be very likely that she and Jake would have a very happy life together and live comfortably and have 2.5 kids and succeed in all their endeavours. Can gut feelings count as part of a rational decision making process? I don’t think so – because a rational decision should be the same in any person who has the same information available, and a person with the same gut feeling could well ignore it and say yes. So we have a situation where an irrational act ought not to be condemned. In fact, any case where unexplained emotion contributes to action would probably have the same result – people performing irrational acts yet in some sense being justified in doing so.

So sometimes there are justifications for irrationality, and if irrationality is sometimes justified, rationality is not always the best or right course of action. So we ought to so hastily condemn those who act irrationally soley on the grounds that they acted irrationally. Rather, one might have to accept irrationality, and work around irrational thought processes rather than deny their legitimacy.

*There are questions in this area about the difference between having reason to act and being rational – see Clayton. Does a note on the fridge that I do not see saying “there is no avocado” justify my impulsive and otherwise irrational decision to have granola instead of breakfast tacos? Of course not. But it might give reason to act, and that may give grounds for saying he was justified in acting the way he did.