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Rationality is the
quality Quality may refer to: Concepts *Quality (business), the ''non-inferiority'' or ''superiority'' of something *Quality (philosophy), an attribute or a property *Quality (physics), in response theory * Energy quality, used in various science discipl ...
of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person
acts The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...
rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ability, as in
rational animal The term rational animal (Latin: ''animal rationale'' or ''animal rationabile'') refers to a classical definition of humanity or human nature, associated with Aristotelianism. History While the Latin term itself originates in scholasticism, it r ...
, to a psychological
process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...
, like reasoning, to
mental state A mental state, or a mental property, is a state of mind of a person. Mental states comprise a diverse class, including perception, pain experience, belief, desire, intention, emotion, and memory. There is controversy concerning the exact definiti ...
s, such as
belief A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take ...
s and intentions, or to
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
s who possess these other forms of rationality. A thing that lacks rationality is either ''arational'', if it is outside the domain of rational evaluation, or ''
irrational Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking, or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate use of reason, or through emotional distress or cognitive deficiency. T ...
'', if it belongs to this domain but does not fulfill its standards. There are many discussions about the essential features shared by all forms of rationality. According to reason-responsiveness accounts, to be rational is to be responsive to reasons. For example, dark clouds are a reason for taking an umbrella, which is why it is rational for an agent to do so in response. An important rival to this approach are coherence-based accounts, which define rationality as internal coherence among the agent's mental states. Many rules of coherence have been suggested in this regard, for example, that one should not hold
contradictory In traditional logic, a contradiction occurs when a proposition conflicts either with itself or established fact. It is often used as a tool to detect disingenuous beliefs and bias. Illustrating a general tendency in applied logic, Aristotle ...
beliefs or that one should intend to do something if one believes that one should do it. Goal-based accounts characterize rationality in relation to goals, such as acquiring
truth Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belie ...
in the case of theoretical rationality. Internalists believe that rationality depends only on the person's mind. Externalists contend that external factors may also be relevant. Debates about the normativity of rationality concern the question of whether one should always be rational. A further discussion is whether rationality requires that all beliefs are reviewed from scratch rather than trusting pre-existing beliefs. Various types of rationality are discussed in the academic literature. The most influential distinction is between theoretical and practical rationality. Theoretical rationality concerns the rationality of beliefs. Rational beliefs are based on evidence that supports them. Practical rationality pertains primarily to actions. This includes certain mental states and events preceding actions, like intentions and decisions. In some cases, the two can conflict, as when practical rationality requires that one adopts an irrational belief. Another distinction is between ideal rationality, which demands that rational agents obey all the laws and implications of logic, and bounded rationality, which takes into account that this is not always possible since the computational power of the human mind is too limited. Most academic discussions focus on the rationality of individuals. This contrasts with social or collective rationality, which pertains to collectives and their group beliefs and decisions. Rationality is important for solving all kinds of problems in order to efficiently reach one's goal. It is relevant for and discussed in many disciplines. In
ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...
, one question is whether one can be rational without being moral at the same time.
Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
is interested in how psychological processes implement rationality. This also includes the study of failures to do so, as in the case of cognitive biases. Cognitive and behavioral sciences usually assume that people are rational to predict how they think and act.
Logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...
studies the laws of correct arguments. These laws are highly relevant for the rationality of beliefs. A very influential conception of practical rationality is given in
decision theory Decision theory (or the theory of choice; not to be confused with choice theory) is a branch of applied probability theory concerned with the theory of making decisions based on assigning probabilities to various factors and assigning numerical ...
: it states that a decision is rational if the chosen option has the highest
expected utility The expected utility hypothesis is a popular concept in economics that serves as a reference guide for decisions when the payoff is uncertain. The theory recommends which option rational individuals should choose in a complex situation, based on the ...
. Other relevant fields include game theory, Bayesianism,
economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...
, and
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
.


Definition and semantic field

In its most common sense, rationality is the quality of being guided by reasons or being reasonable. For example, a person who acts rationally has good reasons for what they do. This usually implies that they reflected on the possible consequences of their action and the goal it is supposed to realize. In the case of
belief A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take ...
s, it is rational to believe something if the agent has good evidence for it and it is coherent with the agent's other beliefs. While
actions Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fi ...
and beliefs are the most paradigmatic forms of rationality, the term is used both in ordinary language and in many academic disciplines to describe a wide variety of things, such as
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
s, desires, intentions, decisions, policies, and institutions. Because of this variety in different contexts, it has proven difficult to give a unified definition covering all these fields and usages. In this regard, different fields often focus their investigation on one specific conception, type, or aspect of rationality without trying to cover it in its most general sense. These different forms of rationality are sometimes divided into
abilities Abilities are powers an agent has to perform various actions. They include common abilities, like walking, and rare abilities, like performing a double backflip. Abilities are intelligent powers: they are guided by the person's intention and exe ...
,
process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...
es,
mental state A mental state, or a mental property, is a state of mind of a person. Mental states comprise a diverse class, including perception, pain experience, belief, desire, intention, emotion, and memory. There is controversy concerning the exact definiti ...
s, and persons. For example, when it is claimed that humans are
rational animal The term rational animal (Latin: ''animal rationale'' or ''animal rationabile'') refers to a classical definition of humanity or human nature, associated with Aristotelianism. History While the Latin term itself originates in scholasticism, it r ...
s, this usually refers to the ability to
think In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, an ...
and act in reasonable ways. It does not imply that all humans are rational all the time: this ability is exercised in some cases but not in others. On the other hand, the term can also refer to the process of reasoning that results from exercising this ability. Often many additional activities of the higher cognitive faculties are included as well, such as acquiring concepts, judging, deliberating, planning, and deciding as well as the formation of desires and intentions. These processes usually affect some kind of change in the thinker's mental states. In this regard, one can also talk of the rationality of mental states, like beliefs and intentions. A person who possesses these forms of rationality to a sufficiently high degree may themselves be called ''rational''. In some cases, also non-mental results of rational processes may qualify as rational. For example, the arrangement of products in a supermarket can be rational if it is based on a rational plan. The term "rational" has two opposites: ''
irrational Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking, or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate use of reason, or through emotional distress or cognitive deficiency. T ...
'' and ''arational''. Arational things are outside the domain of rational evaluation, like digestive processes or the weather. Things within the domain of rationality are either rational or irrational depending on whether they fulfill the standards of rationality. For example, beliefs, actions, or general policies are rational if there is a good reason for them and irrational otherwise. It is not clear in all cases what belongs to the domain of rational assessment. For example, there are disagreements about whether desires and
emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiology, neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or suffering, displeasure. There is currently no scientific ...
s can be evaluated as rational and irrational rather than arational. The term "irrational" is sometimes used in a wide sense to include cases of arationality. The meaning of the terms "rational" and "irrational" in academic discourse often differs from how they are used in everyday language. Examples of behaviors considered irrational in ordinary discourse are giving into
temptation Temptation is a desire to engage in short-term urges for enjoyment that threatens long-term goals.Webb, J.R. (Sep 2014). Incorporating Spirituality into Psychology of temptation: Conceptualization, measurement, and clinical implications. Sp ...
s, going out late even though one has to get up early in the morning, smoking despite being aware of the health risks, or believing in
astrology Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Di ...
. In the academic discourse, on the other hand, rationality is usually identified with being guided by reasons or following norms of internal coherence. Some of the earlier examples may qualify as rational in the academic sense depending on the circumstances. Examples of irrationality in this sense include cognitive biases, making arithmetic mistakes, and violating the laws of
probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set ...
when assessing the likelihood of future events. This article focuses mainly on irrationality in the academic sense. The terms "rationality", "
reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, ...
", and "reasoning" are frequently used as synonyms. But in technical contexts, their meanings are often distinguished. Reason is usually understood as the faculty responsible for the process of reasoning. This process aims at improving mental states. Reasoning tries to ensure that the norms of rationality obtain. It differs from rationality nonetheless since other psychological processes besides reasoning may have the same effect. Rationality derives etymologically from the Latin term '.


Disputes about the concept of rationality

There are many disputes about the essential characteristics of rationality. It is often understood in relational terms: something, like a belief or an intention, is rational because of how it is related to something else. But there are disagreements as to what it has to be related to and in what way. For reason-based accounts, the relation to a reason that justifies or explains the rational state is central. For coherence-based accounts, the relation of coherence between mental states matters. There is a lively discussion in the contemporary literature on whether reason-based accounts or coherence-based accounts are superior. Some theorists also try to understand rationality in relation to the goals it tries to realize. Other disputes in this field concern whether rationality depends only on the agent's mind or also on external factors, whether rationality requires a review of all one's beliefs from scratch, and whether we should always be rational.


Based on reason-responsiveness

A common idea of many theories of rationality is that it can be defined in terms of reasons. On this view, to be rational means to respond correctly to reasons. For example, the fact that a food is healthy is a reason to eat it. So this reason makes it rational for the agent to eat the food. An important aspect of this interpretation is that it is not sufficient to merely act accidentally in accordance with reasons. Instead, ''responding'' to reasons implies that one acts intentionally because of these reasons. Some theorists understand reasons as external facts. This view has been criticized based on the claim that, in order to respond to reasons, people have to be aware of them, i.e. if have some form of epistemic access. But lacking this access is not automatically irrational. In one example by John Broome, the agent eats a fish contaminated with salmonella, which is a strong reason against eating the fish. But since the agent could not have known this fact, eating the fish is rational for them. Because of such problems, many theorists have opted for an internalist version of this account. This means that the agent does not need to respond to reasons in general, but only to reasons they have or possess. The success of such approaches depends a lot on what it means to have a reason and there are various disagreements on this issue. A common approach is to hold that this access is given through the possession of evidence in the form of cognitive
mental state A mental state, or a mental property, is a state of mind of a person. Mental states comprise a diverse class, including perception, pain experience, belief, desire, intention, emotion, and memory. There is controversy concerning the exact definiti ...
s, like
perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
s and
knowledge Knowledge can be defined as Descriptive knowledge, awareness of facts or as Procedural knowledge, practical skills, and may also refer to Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called pro ...
. A similar version states that "rationality consists in responding correctly to beliefs about reasons". So it is rational to bring an umbrella if the agent has strong evidence that it is going to rain. But without this evidence, it would be rational to leave the umbrella at home, even if, unbeknownst to the agent, it is going to rain. These versions avoid the previous objection since rationality no longer requires the agent to respond to external factors of which they could not have been aware. A problem faced by all forms of reason-responsiveness theories is that there are usually many reasons relevant and some of them may conflict with each other. So while salmonella contamination is a reason against eating the fish, its good taste and the desire not to offend the host are reasons in favor of eating it. This problem is usually approached by weighing all the different reasons. This way, one does not respond directly to each reason individually but instead to their
weighted sum A weight function is a mathematical device used when performing a sum, integral, or average to give some elements more "weight" or influence on the result than other elements in the same set. The result of this application of a weight function is ...
. Cases of conflict are thus solved since one side usually outweighs the other. So despite the reasons cited in favor of eating the fish, the balance of reasons stands against it, since avoiding a salmonella infection is a much weightier reason than the other reasons cited. This can be expressed by stating that rational agents pick the option favored by the balance of reasons. However, other objections to the reason-responsiveness account are not so easily solved. They often focus on cases where reasons require the agent to be irrational, leading to a rational dilemma. For example, if terrorists threaten to blow up a city unless the agent forms an irrational belief, this is a very weighty reason to do all in one's power to violate the norms of rationality.


Based on rules of coherence

An influential rival to the reason-responsiveness account understands rationality as internal coherence. On this view, a person is rational to the extent that their mental states and actions are coherent with each other. Diverse versions of this approach exist that differ in how they understand coherence and what rules of coherence they propose. A general distinction in this regard is between negative and positive coherence. Negative coherence is an uncontroversial aspect of most such theories: it requires the absence of
contradiction In traditional logic, a contradiction occurs when a proposition conflicts either with itself or established fact. It is often used as a tool to detect disingenuous beliefs and bias. Illustrating a general tendency in applied logic, Aristotle's ...
s and inconsistencies. This means that the agent's mental states do not clash with each other. In some cases, inconsistencies are rather obvious, as when a person believes that it will rain tomorrow and that it will not rain tomorrow. In complex cases, inconsistencies may be difficult to detect, for example, when a person believes in the axioms of
Euclidean geometry Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry: the '' Elements''. Euclid's approach consists in assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms ...
and is nonetheless convinced that it is possible to square the circle. Positive coherence refers to the support that different mental states provide for each other. For example, there is positive coherence between the belief that there are eight planets in the solar system and the belief that there are less than ten planets in the solar system: the earlier belief implies the latter belief. Other types of support through positive coherence include explanatory and
causal Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the ca ...
connections. Coherence-based accounts are also referred to as rule-based accounts since the different aspects of coherence are often expressed in precise rules. In this regard, to be rational means to follow the rules of rationality in thought and action. According to the enkratic rule, for example, rational agents are required to intend what they believe they ought to do. This requires coherence between beliefs and intentions. The norm of persistence states that agents should retain their intentions over time. This way, earlier mental states cohere with later ones. It is also possible to distinguish different types of rationality, such as theoretical or practical rationality, based on the different sets of rules they require. One problem with such coherence-based accounts of rationality is that the norms can enter into conflict with each other, so-called rational
dilemmas A dilemma ( grc-gre, δίλημμα "double proposition") is a problem offering two possibilities, neither of which is unambiguously acceptable or preferable. The possibilities are termed the ''horns'' of the dilemma, a clichéd usage, but disti ...
. For example, if the agent has a pre-existing intention that turns out to conflict with their beliefs, then the enkratic norm requires them to change it, which is disallowed by the norm of persistence. This suggests that, in cases of rational dilemmas, it is impossible to be rational, no matter which norm is privileged. Some defenders of coherence theories of rationality have argued that, when formulated correctly, the norms of rationality cannot enter into conflict with each other. That means that rational dilemmas are impossible. This is sometimes tied to additional non-trivial assumptions, such that ethical dilemmas also do not exist. A different response is to bite the bullet and allow that rational dilemmas exist. This has the consequence that, in such cases, rationality is not possible for the agent and theories of rationality cannot offer guidance to them. These problems are avoided by reason-responsiveness accounts of rationality since they "allow for rationality despite conflicting reasons but oherence-based accountsdo not allow for rationality despite conflicting requirements". Some theorists suggest a weaker criterion of coherence to avoid cases of necessary irrationality: rationality requires not to obey all norms of coherence but to obey as many norms as possible. So in rational dilemmas, agents can still be rational if they violate the minimal number of rational requirements. Another criticism rests on the claim that coherence-based accounts are either redundant or false. On this view, either the rules recommend the same option as the balance of reasons or a different option. If they recommend the same option, they are redundant. If they recommend a different option, they are false since, according to its critics, there is no special value in sticking to rules against the balance of reasons.


Based on goals

A different approach characterizes rationality in relation to the goals it aims to achieve. In this regard, theoretical rationality aims at epistemic goals, like acquiring
truth Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belie ...
and avoiding falsehood. Practical rationality, on the other hand, aims at non-epistemic goals, like moral, prudential, political, economic, or aesthetic goals. This is usually understood in the sense that rationality follows these goals but does not set them. So rationality may be understood as a " minister without portfolio" since it serves goals external to itself. This issue has been the source of an important historical discussion between
David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
and
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
. The slogan of Hume's position is that "reason is the slave of the passions". This is often understood as the claim that rationality concerns only how to reach a goal but not whether the goal should be pursued at all. So people with perverse or weird goals may still be perfectly rational. This position is opposed by Kant, who argues that rationality requires having the right goals and motives. According to
William Frankena William Klaas Frankena (June 21, 1908 – October 22, 1994) was an American moral philosopher. He was a member of the University of Michigan's department of philosophy for 41 years (1937–1978), and chair of the department for 14 years (1947 ...
there are four conceptions of rationality based on the goals it tries to achieve. They correspond to
egoism Egoism is a philosophy concerned with the role of the self, or , as the motivation and goal of one's own action. Different theories of egoism encompass a range of disparate ideas and can generally be categorized into descriptive or normativ ...
,
utilitarianism In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different chara ...
, perfectionism, and
intuitionism In the philosophy of mathematics, intuitionism, or neointuitionism (opposed to preintuitionism), is an approach where mathematics is considered to be purely the result of the constructive mental activity of humans rather than the discovery of f ...
. According to the egoist perspective, rationality implies looking out for one's own
happiness Happiness, in the context of mental or emotional states, is positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia. ...
. This contrasts with the utilitarian point of view, which states that rationality entails trying to contribute to everyone's
well-being Well-being, or wellbeing, also known as wellness, prudential value or quality of life, refers to what is intrinsically valuable relative ''to'' someone. So the well-being of a person is what is ultimately good ''for'' this person, what is in th ...
or to the greatest general good. For perfectionism, a certain ideal of perfection, either moral or non-moral, is the goal of rationality. According to the intuitionist perspective, something is rational "if and only if tconforms to self-evident truths, intuited by reason". These different perspectives diverge a lot concerning the behavior they prescribe. One problem for all of them is that they ignore the role of the evidence or information possessed by the agent. In this regard, it matters for rationality not just whether the agent acts efficiently towards a certain goal but also what information they have and how their actions appear reasonable from this perspective. Richard Brandt responds to this idea by proposing a conception of rationality based on relevant information: "Rationality is a matter of what would survive scrutiny by all relevant information." This implies that the subject repeatedly reflects on all the relevant facts, including formal facts like the laws of logic.


Internalism and externalism

An important contemporary discussion in the field of rationality is between internalists and externalists. Both sides agree that rationality demands and depends in some sense on reasons. They disagree on what reasons are relevant or how to conceive those reasons. Internalists understand reasons as mental states, for example, as perceptions, beliefs, or desires. On this view, an action may be rational because it is in tune with the agent's beliefs and realizes their desires. Externalists, on the other hand, see reasons as external factors about what is good or right. They state that whether an action is rational also depends on its actual consequences. The difference between the two positions is that internalists affirm and externalists reject the claim that rationality supervenes on the mind. This claim means that it only depends on the person's mind whether they are rational and not on external factors. So for internalism, two persons with the same mental states would both have the same degree of rationality independent of how different their external situation is. Because of this limitation, rationality can diverge from actuality. So if the agent has a lot of misleading evidence, it may be rational for them to turn left even though the actually correct path goes right.
Bernard Williams Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams, FBA (21 September 1929 – 10 June 2003) was an English moral philosopher. His publications include ''Problems of the Self'' (1973), ''Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy'' (1985), ''Shame and Necessity'' ...
has criticized externalist conceptions of rationality based on the claim that rationality should help explain what motivates the agent to act. This is easy for internalism but difficult for externalism since external reasons can be independent of the agent's motivation. Externalists have responded to this objection by distinguishing between motivational and normative reasons. Motivational reasons explain why someone acts the way they do while normative reasons explain why someone ought to act in a certain way. Ideally, the two overlap, but they can come apart. For example, liking chocolate cake is a motivational reason for eating it while having high blood pressure is a normative reason for not eating it. The problem of rationality is primarily concerned with normative reasons. This is especially true for various contemporary philosophers who hold that rationality can be reduced to normative reasons. The distinction between motivational and normative reasons is usually accepted, but many theorists have raised doubts that rationality can be identified with normativity. On this view, rationality may sometimes recommend suboptimal actions, for example, because the agent lacks important information or has false information. In this regard, discussions between internalism and externalism overlap with discussions of the normativity of rationality.


Relativity

An important implication of internalist conceptions is that rationality is relative to the person's perspective or mental states. Whether a belief or an action is rational usually depends on which mental states the person has. So carrying an umbrella for the walk to the supermarket is rational for a person believing that it will rain but irrational for another person who lacks this belief. According to
Robert Audi Robert N. Audi (born November 1941) is an American philosopher whose major work has focused on epistemology, ethics (especially on ethical intuitionism), rationality and the theory of action. He is O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the Universi ...
, this can be explained in terms of
experience Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these conscious processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involv ...
: what is rational depends on the agent's experience. Since different people make different experiences, there are differences in what is rational for them.


Normativity

Rationality is
normative Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...
in the sense that it sets up certain rules or standards of correctness: to be rational is to comply with certain requirements. For example, rationality requires that the agent does not have
contradictory In traditional logic, a contradiction occurs when a proposition conflicts either with itself or established fact. It is often used as a tool to detect disingenuous beliefs and bias. Illustrating a general tendency in applied logic, Aristotle ...
beliefs. Many discussions on this issue concern the question of what exactly these standards are. Some theorists characterize the normativity of rationality in the deontological terms of
obligation An obligation is a course of action that someone is required to take, whether legal or moral. Obligations are constraints; they limit freedom. People who are under obligations may choose to freely act under obligations. Obligation exists when the ...
s and permissions. Others understand them from an evaluative perspective as good or valuable. A further approach is to talk of rationality based on what is praise- and blameworthy. It is important to distinguish the norms of rationality from other types of norms. For example, some forms of
fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion i ...
prescribe that men do not wear bell-bottom trousers. Understood in the strongest sense, a norm prescribes what an agent ought to do or what they have most reason to do. The norms of fashion are not norms in this strong sense: that it is unfashionable does not mean that men ought not to wear bell-bottom trousers. Most discussions of the normativity of rationality are interested in the strong sense, i.e. whether agents ought always to be rational. This is sometimes termed a substantive account of rationality in contrast to structural accounts. One important argument in favor of the normativity of rationality is based on considerations of praise- and blameworthiness. It states that we usually hold each other responsible for being rational and criticize each other when we fail to do so. This practice indicates that irrationality is some form of fault on the side of the subject that should not be the case. A strong counterexample to this position is due to John Broome, who considers the case of a fish an agent wants to eat. It contains salmonella, which is a decisive reason why the agent ought not to eat it. But the agent is unaware of this fact, which is why it is rational for them to eat the fish. So this would be a case where normativity and rationality come apart. This example can be generalized in the sense that rationality only depends on the reasons accessible to the agent or how things appear to them. What one ought to do, on the other hand, is determined by objectively existing reasons. In the ideal case, rationality and normativity may coincide but they come apart either if the agent lacks access to a reason or if he has a mistaken belief about the presence of a reason. These considerations are summed up in the statement that rationality
supervene In philosophy, supervenience refers to a relation between sets of properties or sets of facts. X is said to supervene on Y if and only if some difference in Y is necessary for any difference in X to be possible. Some examples include: * Whether t ...
s only on the agent's mind but normativity does not. But there are also thought experiments in favor of the normativity of rationality. One, due to Frank Jackson, involves a doctor who receives a patient with a mild condition and has to prescribe one out of three drugs: drug A resulting in a partial cure, drug B resulting in a complete cure, or drug C resulting in the patient's death. The doctor's problem is that they cannot tell which of the drugs B and C results in a complete cure and which one in the patient's death. The objectively best case would be for the patient to get drug B, but it would be highly irresponsible for the doctor to prescribe it given the uncertainty about its effects. So the doctor ought to prescribe the less effective drug A, which is also the rational choice. This thought experiment indicates that rationality and normativity coincide since what is rational and what one ought to do depends on the agent's mind after all. Some theorists have responded to these
thought experiment A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. History The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anc ...
s by distinguishing between normativity and responsibility. On this view, critique of irrational behavior, like the doctor prescribing drug B, involves a negative evaluation of the agent in terms of responsibility but remains silent on normative issues. On a competence-based account, which defines rationality in terms of the competence of responding to reasons, such behavior can be understood as a failure to execute one's competence. But sometimes we are lucky and we succeed in the normative dimension despite failing to perform competently, i.e. rationally, due to being irresponsible. The opposite can also be the case: bad luck may result in failure despite a responsible, competent performance. This explains how rationality and normativity can come apart despite our practice of criticizing irrationality.


Normative and descriptive theories

The concept of normativity can also be used to distinguish different theories of rationality. Normative theories explore the normative nature of rationality. They are concerned with rules and ideals that govern how the mind should work. Descriptive theories, on the other hand, investigate how the mind actually works. This includes issues like under which circumstances the ideal rules are followed as well as studying the underlying psychological processes responsible for rational thought. Descriptive theories are often investigated in empirical
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
while philosophy tends to focus more on normative issues. This division also reflects how different these two types are investigated. Descriptive and normative theorists usually employ different
methodologies In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...
in their research. Descriptive issues are studied by
empirical research Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. It is also a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empiricism values some research more than other kinds. Empirical evidence (the record of ...
. This can take the form of studies that present their participants with a cognitive problem. It is then observed how the participants solve the problem, possibly together with explanations of why they arrived at a specific solution. Normative issues, on the other hand, are usually investigated in similar ways to how the
formal sciences Formal science is a branch of science studying disciplines concerned with abstract structures described by formal systems, such as logic, mathematics, statistics, theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, information theory, game t ...
conduct their inquiry. In the field of theoretical rationality, for example, it is accepted that deductive reasoning in the form of modus ponens leads to rational beliefs. This claim can be investigated using methods like rational intuition or careful deliberation toward a
reflective equilibrium Reflective equilibrium is a state of balance or coherence among a set of beliefs arrived at by a process of deliberative mutual adjustment among general principles and particular judgements. Although he did not use the term, philosopher Nelson G ...
. These forms of investigation can arrive at conclusions about what forms of thought are rational and irrational without depending on
empirical evidence Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences ...
. An important question in this field concerns the relation between descriptive and normative approaches to rationality. One difficulty in this regard is that there is in many cases a huge gap between what the norms of ideal rationality prescribe and how people actually reason. Examples of normative systems of rationality are classical logic,
probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set ...
, and
decision theory Decision theory (or the theory of choice; not to be confused with choice theory) is a branch of applied probability theory concerned with the theory of making decisions based on assigning probabilities to various factors and assigning numerical ...
. Actual reasoners often diverge from these standards because of
cognitive biases A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, m ...
, heuristics, or other mental limitations. Traditionally, it was often assumed that actual human reasoning should follow the rules described in normative theories. On this view, any discrepancy is a form of irrationality that should be avoided. However, this usually ignores the human limitations of the mind. Given these limitations, various discrepancies may be necessary (and in this sense ''rational'') to get the most useful results. For example, the ideal rational norms of decision theory demand that the agent should always choose the option with the highest expected value. However, calculating the expected value of each option may take a very long time in complex situations and may not be worth the trouble. This is reflected in the fact that actual reasoners often settle for an option that is good enough without making certain that it is really the best option available. A further difficulty in this regard is Hume's law, which states that one cannot deduce what ought to be based on what is. So just because a certain heuristic or cognitive bias is present in a specific case, it should not be inferred that it should be present. One approach to these problems is to hold that descriptive and normative theories talk about different types of rationality. This way, there is no contradiction between the two and both can be correct in their own field. Similar problems are discussed in so-called
naturalized epistemology Naturalized epistemology (a term coined by W. V. O. Quine) is a collection of philosophic views concerned with the theory of knowledge that emphasize the role of natural scientific methods. This shared emphasis on scientific methods of studying k ...
.


Conservatism and foundationalism

Rationality is usually understood as conservative in the sense that rational agents do not start from zero but already possess many beliefs and intentions. Reasoning takes place on the background of these pre-existing mental states and tries to improve them. This way, the original beliefs and intentions are privileged: one keeps them unless a reason to doubt them is encountered. Some forms of epistemic foundationalism reject this approach. According to them, the whole system of beliefs is to be justified by self-evident beliefs. Examples of such self-evident beliefs may include immediate experiences as well as simple logical and mathematical axioms. An important difference between conservatism and foundationalism concerns their differing conceptions of the burden of proof. According to conservativism, the burden of proof is always in favor of already established belief: in the absence of new evidence, it is rational to keep the mental states one already has. According to foundationalism, the burden of proof is always in favor of suspending mental states. For example, the agent reflects on their pre-existing belief that the
Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...
is in
Agra Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra i ...
but is unable to access any reason for or against this belief. In this case, conservatists think it is rational to keep this belief while foundationalists reject it as irrational due to the lack of reasons. In this regard, conservatism is much closer to the ordinary conception of rationality. One problem for foundationalism is that very few beliefs, if any, would remain if this approach was carried out meticulously. Another is that enormous mental resources would be required to constantly keep track of all the justificatory relations connecting non-fundamental beliefs to fundamental ones.


Types

Rationality is discussed in a great variety of fields, often in very different terms. While some theorists try to provide a unifying conception expressing the features shared by all forms of rationality, the more common approach is to articulate the different aspects of the individual forms of rationality. The most common distinction is between theoretical and practical rationality. Other classifications include categories for ideal and bounded rationality as well as for individual and social rationality.


Theoretical and practical

The most influential distinction contrasts theoretical or epistemic rationality with practical rationality. Its theoretical side concerns the rationality of
belief A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take ...
s: whether it is rational to hold a given belief and how certain one should be about it. Practical rationality, on the other hand, is about the rationality of
actions Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fi ...
, intentions, and decisions. This corresponds to the distinction between theoretical reasoning and practical reasoning: theoretical reasoning tries to assess whether the agent should change their beliefs while practical reasoning tries to assess whether the agent should change their plans and intentions.


Theoretical

Theoretical rationality concerns the rationality of cognitive mental states, in particular, of beliefs. It is common to distinguish between two factors. The first factor is about the fact that good reasons are necessary for a belief to be rational. This is usually understood in terms of evidence provided by the so-called
sources of knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
, i.e. faculties like
perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
,
introspection Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's sou ...
, and
memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...
. In this regard, it is often argued that to be rational, the believer has to respond to the impressions or reasons presented by these sources. For example, the visual impression of the sunlight on a tree makes it rational to believe that the sun is shining. In this regard, it may also be relevant whether the formed belief is involuntary and implicit The second factor pertains to the norms and procedures of rationality that govern how agents should form beliefs based on this evidence. These norms include the
rules of inference In the philosophy of logic, a rule of inference, inference rule or transformation rule is a logical form consisting of a function which takes premises, analyzes their syntax, and returns a conclusion (or conclusions). For example, the rule of ...
discussed in regular
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...
as well as other norms of coherence between mental states. In the case of rules of inference, the premises of a valid argument offer support to the conclusion and make therefore the belief in the conclusion rational. The support offered by the premises can either be
deductive Deductive reasoning is the mental process of drawing deductive inferences. An inference is deductively valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, i.e. if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be fals ...
or non-deductive. In both cases, believing in the premises of an argument makes it rational to also believe in its conclusion. The difference between the two is given by how the premises support the conclusion. For deductive reasoning, the premises offer the strongest possible support: it is impossible for the conclusion to be false if the premises are true. The premises of non-deductive arguments also offer support for their conclusion. But this support is not absolute: the truth of the premises does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion. Instead, the premises make it more likely that the conclusion is true. In this case, it is usually demanded that the non-deductive support is sufficiently strong if the belief in the conclusion is to be rational. An important form of theoretical irrationality is motivationally biased belief, sometimes referred to as
wishful thinking Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs based on what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than on evidence, rationality, or reality. It is a product of resolving conflicts between belief and desire. Methodologies to examine wishful thin ...
. In this case, beliefs are formed based on one's desires or what is pleasing to imagine without proper evidential support. Faulty reasoning in the form of formal and
informal fallacies Informal fallacies are a type of incorrect argument in natural language. The source of the error is not just due to the ''form'' of the argument, as is the case for formal fallacies, but can also be due to their ''content'' and ''context''. Fall ...
is another cause of theoretical irrationality.


Practical

All forms of practical rationality are concerned with how we act. It pertains both to
actions Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fi ...
directly as well as to mental states and events preceding actions, like intentions and decisions. There are various aspects of practical rationality, such as how to pick a goal to follow and how to choose the means for reaching this goal. Other issues include the coherence between different intentions as well as between beliefs and intentions. Some theorists define the rationality of actions in terms of beliefs and desires. On this view, an action to bring about a certain goal is rational if the agent has the desire to bring about this goal and the belief that their action will realize it. A stronger version of this view requires that the responsible beliefs and desires are rational themselves. A very influential conception of the rationality of decisions comes from
decision theory Decision theory (or the theory of choice; not to be confused with choice theory) is a branch of applied probability theory concerned with the theory of making decisions based on assigning probabilities to various factors and assigning numerical ...
. In decisions, the agent is presented with a set of possible courses of action and has to choose one among them. Decision theory holds that the agent should choose the alternative that has the highest expected value. Practical rationality includes the field of actions but not of behavior in general. The difference between the two is that actions are intentional behavior, i.e. they are performed for a purpose and guided by it. In this regard, intentional behavior like driving a car is either rational or irrational while non-intentional behavior like sneezing is outside the domain of rationality. For various other practical phenomena, there is no clear consensus on whether they belong to this domain or not. For example, concerning the rationality of desires, two important theories are proceduralism and substantivism. According to proceduralism, there is an important distinction between instrumental and noninstrumental desires. A desire is instrumental if its fulfillment serves as a means to the fulfillment of another desire. For example, Jack is sick and wants to take medicine to get healthy again. In this case, the desire to take the medicine is instrumental since it only serves as a means to Jack's noninstrumental desire to get healthy. Both proceduralism and substantivism usually agree that a person can be irrational if they lack an instrumental desire despite having the corresponding noninstrumental desire and being aware that it acts as a means. Proceduralists hold that this is the only way a desire can be irrational. Substantivists, on the other hand, allow that noninstrumental desires may also be irrational. In this regard, a substantivist could claim that it would be irrational for Jack to lack his noninstrumental desire to be healthy. Similar debates focus on the rationality of
emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiology, neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or suffering, displeasure. There is currently no scientific ...
s.


Relation between the two

Theoretical and practical rationality are often discussed separately and there are many differences between them. In some cases, they even conflict with each other. However, there are also various ways in which they overlap and depend on each other. It is sometimes claimed that theoretical rationality aims at truth while practical rationality aims at goodness. According to John Searle, the difference can be expressed in terms of "
direction of fit The technical term direction of fit is used to describe the distinctions that are offered by two related sets of opposing terms: * The more general set of mind-to-world (i.e., mind-to-fit-world, not from-mind-to-world) ''vs.'' world-to-mind (i.e., ...
". On this view, theoretical rationality is about how the mind corresponds to the world by representing it. Practical rationality, on the other hand, is about how the world corresponds to the ideal set up by the mind and how it should be changed. Another difference is that arbitrary choices are sometimes needed for practical rationality. For example, there may be two equally good routes available to reach a goal. On the practical level, one has to choose one of them if one wants to reach the goal. It would even be practically irrational to resist this arbitrary choice, as exemplified by
Buridan's ass Buridan's ass is an illustration of a paradox in philosophy in the conception of free will. It refers to a hypothetical situation wherein an ass (donkey) that is equally hungry and thirsty is placed precisely midway between a stack of hay and a ...
. But on the theoretical level, one does not have to form a belief about which route was taken upon hearing that someone reached the goal. In this case, the arbitrary choice for one belief rather than the other would be theoretically irrational. Instead, the agent should suspend their belief either way if they lack sufficient reasons. Another difference is that practical rationality is guided by specific goals and desires, in contrast to theoretical rationality. So it is practically rational to take medicine if one has the desire to cure a sickness. But it is theoretically irrational to adopt the belief that one is healthy just because one desires this. This is a form of
wishful thinking Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs based on what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than on evidence, rationality, or reality. It is a product of resolving conflicts between belief and desire. Methodologies to examine wishful thin ...
. In some cases, the demands of practical and theoretical rationality conflict with each other. For example, the practical reason of loyalty to one's child may demand the belief that they are innocent while the evidence linking them to the crime may demand a belief in their guilt on the theoretical level. But the two domains also overlap in certain ways. For example, the norm of rationality known as enkrasia links beliefs and intentions. It states that " tionality requires of you that you intend to F if you believe your reasons require you to F". Failing to fulfill this requirement results in cases of irrationality known as
akrasia Akrasia (; Greek , "lacking command" or "weakness", occasionally transliterated as acrasia or Anglicised as acrasy or acracy) is a lack of self-control, or acting against one's better judgment. The adjectival form is "akratic". Classical approa ...
or weakness of the will. Another form of overlap is that the study of the rules governing practical rationality is a theoretical matter. And practical considerations may determine whether to pursue theoretical rationality on a certain issue as well as how much time and resources to invest in the inquiry. It is often held that practical rationality presupposes theoretical rationality. This is based on the idea that to decide what should be done, one needs to know what is the case. But one can assess what is the case independently of knowing what should be done. So in this regard, one can study theoretical rationality as a distinct discipline independent of practical rationality but not the other way round. However, this independence is rejected by some forms of doxastic voluntarism. They hold that theoretical rationality can be understood as one type of practical rationality. This is based on the controversial claim that we can decide what to believe. It can take the form of ''epistemic decision theory'', which states that people try to fulfill epistemic aims when deciding what to believe. A similar idea is defended by
Jesús Mosterín Jesús Mosterín (24 September 1941 – 4 October 2017) was a leading Spanish philosopher and a thinker of broad spectrum, often at the frontier between science and philosophy. Biography He was born in Bilbao in 1941. He studied in Spain, German ...
. He argues that the proper object of rationality is not ''belief'' but ''acceptance''. He understands acceptance as a voluntary and context-dependent decision to affirm a proposition.


Ideal and bounded

Various theories of rationality assume some form of ideal rationality, for example, by demanding that rational agents obey all the laws and implications of
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...
. This can include the requirement that if the agent believes a
proposition In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...
, they should also believe in everything that logically follows from this proposition. However, many theorists reject this form of logical omniscience as a requirement for rationality. They argue that, since the human mind is limited, rationality has to be defined accordingly to account for how actual finite humans possess some form of resource-limited rationality. According to the position of bounded rationality, theories of rationality should take into account cognitive limitations, such as incomplete knowledge, imperfect memory, and limited capacities of computation and representation. An important research question in this field is about how cognitive agents use
heuristic A heuristic (; ), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate ...
s rather than brute calculations to solve problems and make decisions. According to the
satisficing Satisficing is a decision-making strategy or cognitive heuristic that entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met. The term ''satisficing'', a portmanteau of ''satisfy'' and ''suffice'', was introduc ...
heuristic, for example, agents usually stop their search for the best option once an option is found that meets their desired achievement level. In this regard, people often do not continue to search for the best possible option, even though this is what theories of ideal rationality commonly demand. Using heuristics can be highly rational as a way to adapt to the limitations of the human mind, especially in complex cases where these limitations make brute calculations impossible or very time- and resource-intensive.


Individual and social

Most discussions and research in the academic literature focus on individual rationality. This concerns the rationality of individual persons, for example, whether their beliefs and actions are rational. But the question of rationality can also be applied to groups as a whole on the social level. This form of social or collective rationality concerns both theoretical and practical issues like group beliefs and group decisions. And just like in the individual case, it is possible to study these phenomena as well as the processes and structures that are responsible for them. On the social level, there are various forms of cooperation to reach a shared goal. In the theoretical cases, a group of jurors may first discuss and then vote to determine whether the defendant is guilty. Or in the practical case, politicians may cooperate to implement new regulations to combat
climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
. These forms of cooperation can be judged on their social rationality depending on how they are implemented and on the quality of the results they bear. Some theorists try to reduce social rationality to individual rationality by holding that the group processes are rational to the extent that the individuals participating in them are rational. But such a reduction is frequently rejected. Various studies indicate that group rationality often outperforms individual rationality. For example, groups of people working together on the
Wason selection task The Wason selection task (or ''four-card problem'') is a logic puzzle devised by Peter Cathcart Wason in 1966. It is one of the most famous tasks in the study of deductive reasoning. An example of the puzzle is: A response that identifies a ca ...
usually perform better than individuals by themselves. This form of group superiority is sometimes termed "wisdom of crowds" and may be explained based on the claim that competent individuals have a stronger impact on the group decision than others. However, this is not always the case and sometimes groups perform worse due to conformity or unwillingness to bring up controversial issues.


Others

Many other classifications are discussed in the academic literature. One important distinction is between approaches to rationality based on the output or on the process. Process-oriented theories of rationality are common in cognitive psychology and study how cognitive systems process inputs to generate outputs. Output-oriented approaches are more common in philosophy and investigate the rationality of the resulting states. Another distinction is between relative and categorical judgments of rationality. In the relative case, rationality is judged based on limited information or evidence while categorical judgments take all the evidence into account and are thus judgments ''all things considered''. For example, believing that one's investments will multiply can be rational in a relative sense because it is based on one's astrological horoscope. But this belief is irrational in a categorical sense if the belief in astrology is itself irrational.


Importance

Rationality is central to solving many problems, both on the local and the global scale. This is often based on the idea that rationality is necessary to act efficiently and to reach all kinds of goals. This includes goals from diverse fields, such as
ethical Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...
goals,
humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...
goals,
scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
goals, and even
religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
goals. The study of rationality is very old and has occupied many of the greatest minds since ancient Greek. This interest is often motivated by discovering the potentials and limitations of our minds. Various theorists even see rationality as the essence of being human, often in an attempt to distinguish humans from other animals. However, this strong affirmation has been subjected to many criticisms, for example, that humans are not rational all the time and that non-human animals also show diverse forms of intelligence. The topic of rationality is relevant to a variety of disciplines. It plays a central role in philosophy, psychology, Bayesianism,
decision theory Decision theory (or the theory of choice; not to be confused with choice theory) is a branch of applied probability theory concerned with the theory of making decisions based on assigning probabilities to various factors and assigning numerical ...
, and game theory. But it is also covered in other disciplines, such as
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
, behavioral economics, microeconomics, and
neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developme ...
. Some forms of research restrict themselves to one specific domain while others investigate the topic in an interdisciplinary manner by drawing insights from different fields.


Paradoxes of rationality

The term ''paradox of rationality'' has a variety of meanings. It is often used for puzzles or unsolved problems of rationality. Some are just situations where it is not clear what the rational person should do. Others involve apparent faults within rationality itself, for example, where rationality seems to recommend a suboptimal course of action. A special case are so-called rational dilemmas, in which it is impossible to be rational since two norms of rationality conflict with each other. Examples of paradoxes of rationality include Pascal's Wager, the
Prisoner's dilemma The Prisoner's Dilemma is an example of a game analyzed in game theory. It is also a thought experiment that challenges two completely rational agents to a dilemma: cooperate with their partner for mutual reward, or betray their partner ("def ...
,
Buridan's ass Buridan's ass is an illustration of a paradox in philosophy in the conception of free will. It refers to a hypothetical situation wherein an ass (donkey) that is equally hungry and thirsty is placed precisely midway between a stack of hay and a ...
, and the
St. Petersburg paradox The St. Petersburg paradox or St. Petersburg lottery is a paradox involving the game of flipping a coin where the expected payoff of the theoretical lottery game approaches infinity but nevertheless seems to be worth only a very small amount to t ...
.


History


Max Weber

The German scholar Max Weber proposed an interpretation of
social action In sociology, social action, also known as Weberian social action, is an act which takes into account the actions and reactions of individuals (or ' agents'). According to Max Weber, "Action is 'social' insofar as its subjective meaning takes ...
that distinguished between four different idealized types of rationality. The first, which he called ''Zweckrational'' or purposive/
instrumental rationality "Instrumental" and "value rationality" are terms scholars use to identify two ways individuals act in order to optimize their behavior . Instrumental rationality recognizes means that "work" efficiently to achieve ends. Value rationality recogni ...
, is related to the expectations about the behavior of other human beings or objects in the environment. These expectations serve as means for a particular actor to attain ends, ends which Weber noted were "rationally pursued and calculated." The second type, Weber called ''Wertrational'' or value/belief-oriented. Here the action is undertaken for what one might call reasons intrinsic to the actor: some ethical, aesthetic, religious or other motives, independent of whether it will lead to success. The third type was affectual, determined by an actor's specific affect, feeling, or emotion—to which Weber himself said that this was a kind of rationality that was on the borderline of what he considered "meaningfully oriented." The fourth was traditional or conventional, determined by ingrained habituation. Weber emphasized that it was very unusual to find only one of these orientations: combinations were the norm. His usage also makes clear that he considered the first two as more significant than the others, and it is arguable that the third and fourth are subtypes of the first two. The advantage in Weber's interpretation of rationality is that it avoids a value-laden assessment, say, that certain kinds of beliefs are irrational. Instead, Weber suggests that ground or motive can be given—for religious or affect reasons, for example—that may meet the criterion of explanation or justification even if it is not an explanation that fits the ''Zweckrational'' orientation of means and ends. The opposite is therefore also true: some means-ends explanations will not satisfy those whose grounds for action are ''Wertrational''. Weber's constructions of rationality have been critiqued both from a Habermasian (1984) perspective (as devoid of social context and under-theorised in terms of social power) and also from a feminist perspective (Eagleton, 2003) whereby Weber's rationality constructs are viewed as imbued with masculine values and oriented toward the maintenance of male power. An alternative position on rationality (which includes both bounded rationality, as well as the affective and value-based arguments of Weber) can be found in the critique of Etzioni (1988), who reframes thought on decision-making to argue for a reversal of the position put forward by Weber. Etzioni illustrates how purposive/instrumental reasoning is subordinated by normative considerations (ideas on how people 'ought' to behave) and affective considerations (as a support system for the development of human relationships).


Richard Brandt

Richard Brandt proposed a "reforming definition" of rationality, arguing someone is rational if their notions survive a form of cognitive-psychotherapy.


Robert Audi

Robert Audi Robert N. Audi (born November 1941) is an American philosopher whose major work has focused on epistemology, ethics (especially on ethical intuitionism), rationality and the theory of action. He is O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the Universi ...
developed a comprehensive account of rationality that covers both the theoretical and the practical side of rationality. This account centers on the notion of a ''ground'': a
mental state A mental state, or a mental property, is a state of mind of a person. Mental states comprise a diverse class, including perception, pain experience, belief, desire, intention, emotion, and memory. There is controversy concerning the exact definiti ...
is rational if it is "well-grounded" in a source of justification. Irrational mental states, on the other hand, lack a sufficient ground. For example, the perceptual experience of a tree when looking outside the window can ground the rationality of the belief that there is a tree outside. Audi is committed to a form of foundationalism: the idea that justified beliefs, or in his case, rational states in general, can be divided into two groups: the ''foundation'' and the ''superstructure''. The mental states in the superstructure receive their justification from other rational mental states while the foundational mental states receive their justification from a more basic source. For example, the above-mentioned belief that there is a tree outside is foundational since it is based on a basic source: perception. Knowing that trees grow in soil, we may deduce that there is soil outside. This belief is equally rational, being supported by an adequate ground, but it belongs to the superstructure since its rationality is grounded in the rationality of another belief. Desires, like beliefs, form a hierarchy: intrinsic desires are at the foundation while instrumental desires belong to the superstructure. In order to link the instrumental desire to the intrinsic desire an extra element is needed: a belief that the fulfillment of the instrumental desire is a means to the fulfillment of the intrinsic desire. Audi asserts that all the basic sources providing justification for the foundational mental states come from
experience Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these conscious processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involv ...
. As for ''beliefs'', there are four types of experience that act as sources: perception, memory, introspection, and rational intuition. The main basic source of the rationality of ''desires'', on the other hand, comes in the form of hedonic experience: the experience of pleasure and pain. So, for example, a desire to eat ice-cream is rational if it is based on experiences in which the agent enjoyed the taste of ice-cream, and irrational if it lacks such a support. Because of its dependence on experience, rationality can be defined as a kind of responsiveness to experience. ''Actions'', in contrast to beliefs and desires, do not have a source of justification of their own. Their rationality is grounded in the rationality of other states instead: in the rationality of beliefs and desires. Desires motivate actions. Beliefs are needed here, as in the case of instrumental desires, to bridge a gap and link two elements. Audi distinguishes the ''focal'' rationality of individual mental states from the ''global'' rationality of ''persons''. Global rationality has a derivative status: it depends on the focal rationality. Or more precisely: "Global rationality is reached when a person has a sufficiently integrated system of sufficiently well-grounded propositional attitudes, emotions, and actions". Rationality is ''relative'' in the sense that it depends on the experience of the person in question. Since different people undergo different experiences, what is rational to believe for one person may be irrational to believe for another person. That a belief is rational does not entail that it is ''true''.


In various fields


Ethics and morality

The problem of rationality is relevant to various issues in
ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...
and
morality Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of co ...
. Many debates center around the question of whether rationality implies morality or is possible without it. Some examples based on common sense suggest that the two can come apart. For example, some immoral
psychopath Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits. Different conceptions of psychopathy have been ...
s are highly intelligent in the pursuit of their schemes and may, therefore, be seen as rational. However, there are also considerations suggesting that the two are closely related to each other. For example, according to the principle of universality, "one's reasons for acting are acceptable only if it is acceptable that everyone acts on such reasons". A similar formulation is given in
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
's
categorical imperative The categorical imperative (german: kategorischer Imperativ) is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Introduced in Kant's 1785 '' Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals'', it is a way of eva ...
: "act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law". The principle of universality has been suggested as a basic principle both for morality and for rationality. This is closely related to the question of whether agents have a duty to be rational. Another issue concerns the value of rationality. In this regard, it is often held that human lives are more important than animal lives because humans are rational.


Psychology

Many psychological theories have been proposed to describe how reasoning happens and what underlying psychological processes are responsible. One of their goals is to explain how the different types of irrationality happen and why some types are more prevalent than others. They include ''mental logic theories'', ''mental model theories'', and '' dual process theories''. An important psychological area of study focuses on
cognitive biases A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, m ...
. Cognitive biases are systematic tendencies to engage in erroneous or irrational forms of
thinking In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, an ...
, judging, and acting. Examples include the confirmation bias, the
self-serving bias A self-serving bias is any cognitive or perceptual process that is distorted by the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem, or the tendency to perceive oneself in an overly favorable manner. It is the belief that individuals tend to ascribe succe ...
, the
hindsight bias Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along phenomenon or creeping determinism, is the common tendency for people to perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were. People often believe that after an event ha ...
, and the
Dunning–Kruger effect The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include in th ...
. Some empirical findings suggest that metacognition is an important aspect of rationality. The idea behind this claim is that reasoning is carried out more efficiently and reliably if the responsible thought processes are properly controlled and monitored. The
Wason selection task The Wason selection task (or ''four-card problem'') is a logic puzzle devised by Peter Cathcart Wason in 1966. It is one of the most famous tasks in the study of deductive reasoning. An example of the puzzle is: A response that identifies a ca ...
is an influential test for studying rationality and reasoning abilities. In it, four cards are placed before the participants. Each has a number on one side and a letter on the opposite side. In one case, the visible sides of the four cards are A, D, 4, and 7. The participant is then asked which cards need to be turned around in order to verify the conditional claim "if there is a vowel on one side of the card, then there is an even number on the other side of the card". The correct answer is A and 7. But this answer is only given by about 10%. Many choose card 4 instead even though there is no requirement on what letters may appear on its opposite side. An important insight from using these and similar tests is that the rational ability of the participants is usually significantly better for concrete and realistic cases than for abstract or implausible cases. Various contemporary studies in this field use
Bayesian probability theory Bayesian probability is an interpretation of the concept of probability, in which, instead of frequency or propensity of some phenomenon, probability is interpreted as reasonable expectation representing a state of knowledge or as quantification ...
to study subjective degrees of belief, for example, how the believer's certainty in the premises is carried over to the conclusion through reasoning. In the
psychology of reasoning The psychology of reasoning (also known as the cognitive science of reasoning) is the study of how people reason, often broadly defined as the process of drawing conclusions to inform how people solve problems and make decisions. It overlaps w ...
, psychologists and
cognitive scientists Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
have defended different positions on human rationality. One prominent view, due to
Philip Johnson-Laird Philip Nicholas Johnson-Laird, FRS, FBA (born 12 October 1936) is a philosopher of language and reasoning and a developer of the mental model theory of reasoning. He was a professor at Princeton University's Department of Psychology, as well a ...
and Ruth M. J. Byrne among others is that humans are rational in principle but they err in practice, that is, humans have the competence to be rational but their performance is limited by various factors. However, it has been argued that many standard tests of reasoning, such as those on the
conjunction fallacy The conjunction fallacy (also known as the Linda problem) is an inference from an array of particulars, in violation of the laws of probability, that a conjoint set of two or more conclusions is likelier than any single member of that same set. It ...
, on the
Wason selection task The Wason selection task (or ''four-card problem'') is a logic puzzle devised by Peter Cathcart Wason in 1966. It is one of the most famous tasks in the study of deductive reasoning. An example of the puzzle is: A response that identifies a ca ...
, or the
base rate fallacy The base rate fallacy, also called base rate neglect or base rate bias, is a type of fallacy in which people tend to ignore the base rate (i.e., general prevalence) in favor of the individuating information (i.e., information pertaining only to a ...
suffer from methodological and conceptual problems. This has led to disputes in psychology over whether researchers should (only) use standard rules of logic, probability theory and statistics, or rational choice theory as norms of good reasoning. Opponents of this view, such as
Gerd Gigerenzer Gerd Gigerenzer (born 3 September 1947) is a German psychologist who has studied the use of bounded rationality and heuristics in decision making. Gigerenzer is director emeritus of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) at the Max ...
, favor a conception of bounded rationality, especially for tasks under high uncertainty. The concept of rationality continues to be debated by psychologists, economists and cognitive scientists. The psychologist
Jean Piaget Jean William Fritz Piaget (, , ; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemolo ...
gave an influential account of how the stages in human development from childhood to adulthood can be understood in terms of the increase of rational and logical abilities. He identifies four stages associated with rough age groups: the sensorimotor stage below the age of two, the preoperational state until the age of seven, the concrete operational stage until the age of eleven, and the formal operational stage afterward. Rational or logical reasoning only takes place in the last stage and is related to abstract
thinking In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, an ...
, concept formation, reasoning, planning, and
problem-solving Problem solving is the process of achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles, a frequent part of most activities. Problems in need of solutions range from simple personal tasks (e.g. how to turn on an appliance) to complex issues in business an ...
.


Emotions

According to A. C. Grayling, rationality "must be independent of emotions, personal feelings or any kind of instincts". Certain findings in cognitive science and
neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developme ...
show that no human has ever satisfied this criterion, except perhaps a person with no affective feelings, for example, an individual with a massively damaged
amygdala The amygdala (; plural: amygdalae or amygdalas; also '; Latin from Greek, , ', 'almond', 'tonsil') is one of two almond-shaped clusters of nuclei located deep and medially within the temporal lobes of the brain's cerebrum in complex verte ...
or severe psychopathy. Thus, such an idealized form of rationality is best exemplified by computers, and not people. However, scholars may productively appeal to the idealization as a point of reference. In his book, ''The Edge of Reason: A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World,'' British philosopher
Julian Baggini Julian Baggini (; born 1968) is a philosopher, journalist and the author of over 20 books about philosophy written for a general audience. He is co-founder of ''The Philosophers' Magazine'' and has written for numerous international newspapers ...
sets out to debunk myths about reason (e.g., that it is "purely objective and requires no subjective judgment").


Cognitive and behavioral sciences

Cognitive and behavioral sciences try to describe, explain, and predict how people think and act. Their models are often based on the assumption that people are rational. For example, classical economics is based on the assumption that people are rational agents that maximize expected utility. However, people often depart from the ideal standards of rationality in various ways. For example, they may only look for confirming evidence and ignore disconfirming evidence. Another factor studied in this regard are the limitations of human intellectual capacities. Many discrepancies from rationality are caused by limited time, memory, or attention. Often
heuristics A heuristic (; ), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, ...
and rules of thumb are used to mitigate these limitations, but they may lead to new forms of irrationality.


Logic

Theoretical rationality is closely related to
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...
, but not identical to it. Logic is often defined as the study of correct arguments. This concerns the relation between the
proposition In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...
s used in the argument: whether its
premise A premise or premiss is a true or false statement that helps form the body of an argument, which logically leads to a true or false conclusion. A premise makes a declarative statement about its subject matter which enables a reader to either agre ...
s offer support to its conclusion. Theoretical rationality, on the other hand, is about what to believe or how to change one's beliefs. The laws of logic are relevant to rationality since the agent should change their beliefs if they violate these laws. But logic is not directly about what to believe. Additionally, there are also other factors and norms besides logic that determine whether it is rational to hold or change a belief. The study of rationality in logic is more concerned with epistemic rationality, that is, attaining beliefs in a rational manner, than instrumental rationality.


Decision theory

An influential account of practical rationality is given by
decision theory Decision theory (or the theory of choice; not to be confused with choice theory) is a branch of applied probability theory concerned with the theory of making decisions based on assigning probabilities to various factors and assigning numerical ...
. Decisions are situations where a number of possible courses of action are available to the agent, who has to choose one of them. Decision theory investigates the rules governing which action should be chosen. It assumes that each action may lead to a variety of outcomes. Each outcome is associated with a
conditional probability In probability theory, conditional probability is a measure of the probability of an event occurring, given that another event (by assumption, presumption, assertion or evidence) has already occurred. This particular method relies on event B occu ...
and a
utility As a topic of economics, utility is used to model worth or value. Its usage has evolved significantly over time. The term was introduced initially as a measure of pleasure or happiness as part of the theory of utilitarianism by moral philosoph ...
. The ''expected gain'' of an outcome can be calculated by multiplying its conditional probability with its utility. the ''expected utility'' of an act is equivalent to the sum of all expected gains of the outcomes associated with it. From these basic ingredients, it is possible to define the rationality of decisions: a decision is rational if it selects the act with the highest
expected utility The expected utility hypothesis is a popular concept in economics that serves as a reference guide for decisions when the payoff is uncertain. The theory recommends which option rational individuals should choose in a complex situation, based on the ...
. While decision theory gives a very precise formal treatment of this issue, it leaves open the empirical problem of how to assign utilities and probabilities. So decision theory can still lead to bad empirical decisions if it is based on poor assignments. According to decision theorists, rationality is primarily a matter of internal consistency. This means that a person's
mental state A mental state, or a mental property, is a state of mind of a person. Mental states comprise a diverse class, including perception, pain experience, belief, desire, intention, emotion, and memory. There is controversy concerning the exact definiti ...
s like beliefs and preferences are consistent with each other or do not go against each other. One consequence of this position is that people with obviously false beliefs or perverse preferences may still count as rational if these mental states are consistent with their other mental states. Utility is often understood in terms of
self-interest Self-interest generally refers to a focus on the needs or desires (''interests'') of one's self. Most times, actions that display self-interest are often performed without conscious knowing. A number of philosophical, psychological, and econom ...
or personal preferences. However, this is not a necessary aspect of decisions theory and it can also be interpreted in terms of goodness or value in general.


Game theory

Game theory is closely related to decision theory and the problem of rational choice. Rational choice is based on the idea that rational agents perform a cost-benefit analysis of all available options and choose the option that is most beneficial from their point of view. In the case of game theory, several agents are involved. This further complicates the situation since whether a given option is the best choice for one agent may depend on choices made by other agents. Game theory can be used to analyze various situations, like playing chess, firms competing for business, or animals fighting over prey. Rationality is a core assumption of game theory: it is assumed that each player chooses rationally based on what is most beneficial from their point of view. This way, the agent may be able to anticipate how others choose and what their best choice is relative to the behavior of the others. This often results in a Nash equilibrium, which constitutes a set of strategies, one for each player, where no player can improve their outcome by unilaterally changing their strategy.


Bayesianism

A popular contemporary approach to rationality is based on
Bayesian epistemology Bayesian epistemology is a formal approach to various topics in epistemology that has its roots in Thomas Bayes' work in the field of probability theory. One advantage of its formal method in contrast to traditional epistemology is that its concep ...
. Bayesian epistemology sees belief as a continuous phenomenon that comes in degrees. For example, Daniel is relatively sure that the Boston Celtics will win their next match and absolutely certain that two plus two equals four. In this case, the degree of the first belief is weaker than the degree of the second belief. These degrees are usually referred to as ''credences'' and represented by numbers between 0 and 1. 0 corresponds to full disbelief, 1 corresponds to full belief and 0.5 corresponds to suspension of belief. Bayesians understand this in terms of
probability Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1, where, roughly speakin ...
: the higher the credence, the higher the subjective probability that the believed
proposition In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...
is true. As probabilities, they are subject to the laws of
probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set ...
. These laws act as norms of rationality: beliefs are rational if they comply with them and irrational if they violate them. For example, it would be irrational to have a credence of 0.9 that it will rain tomorrow together with another credence of 0.9 that it will not rain tomorrow. This account of rationality can also be extended to the practical domain by requiring that agents maximize their subjective expected utility. This way, Bayesianism can provide a unified account of both theoretical and practical rationality.


Economics

Rationality plays a key role in economics and there are several strands to this. Firstly, there is the concept of instrumentality—basically the idea that people and organisations are instrumentally rational—that is, adopt the best actions to achieve their goals. Secondly, there is an axiomatic concept that rationality is a matter of being logically consistent within your preferences and beliefs. Thirdly, people have focused on the accuracy of beliefs and full use of information—in this view, a person who is not rational has beliefs that do not fully use the information they have. Debates within economic sociology also arise as to whether or not people or organizations are "really" rational, as well as whether it makes sense to model them as such in formal models. Some have argued that a kind of bounded rationality makes more sense for such models. Others think that any kind of rationality along the lines of rational choice theory is a useless concept for understanding human behavior; the term ''
homo economicus The term ''Homo economicus'', or economic man, is the portrayal of humans as agents who are consistently rational and narrowly self-interested, and who pursue their subjectively defined ends optimally. It is a word play on ''Homo sapiens'', u ...
'' (economic man: the imaginary man being assumed in economic models who is logically consistent but amoral) was coined largely in honor of this view. Behavioral economics aims to account for economic actors as they actually are, allowing for psychological biases, rather than assuming idealized instrumental rationality.


Artificial intelligence

The field of
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
is concerned, among other things, with how problems of rationality can be implemented and solved by computers. Within
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
, a ''
rational agent A rational agent or rational being is a person or entity that always aims to perform optimal actions based on given premises and information. A rational agent can be anything that makes decisions, typically a person, firm, machine, or software. Th ...
'' is typically one that maximizes its
expected utility The expected utility hypothesis is a popular concept in economics that serves as a reference guide for decisions when the payoff is uncertain. The theory recommends which option rational individuals should choose in a complex situation, based on the ...
, given its current knowledge.
Utility As a topic of economics, utility is used to model worth or value. Its usage has evolved significantly over time. The term was introduced initially as a measure of pleasure or happiness as part of the theory of utilitarianism by moral philosoph ...
is the usefulness of the consequences of its actions. The utility function is arbitrarily defined by the designer, but should be a function of "performance", which is the directly measurable consequences, such as winning or losing money. In order to make a safe agent that plays defensively, a nonlinear function of performance is often desired, so that the reward for winning is lower than the punishment for losing. An agent might be rational within its own problem area, but finding the rational decision for arbitrarily complex problems is not practically possible. The rationality of human thought is a key problem in the
psychology of reasoning The psychology of reasoning (also known as the cognitive science of reasoning) is the study of how people reason, often broadly defined as the process of drawing conclusions to inform how people solve problems and make decisions. It overlaps w ...
.


International relations

There is an ongoing debate over the merits of using “rationality” in the study of
international relations International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such a ...
(IR). Some scholars hold it indispensable. Others are more critical. Still, the pervasive and persistent usage of "rationality" in political science and IR is beyond dispute. "Rationality" remains ubiquitous in this field. Abulof finds that Some 40% of all scholarly references to "foreign policy" allude to "rationality"—and this ratio goes up to more than half of pertinent academic publications in the 2000s. He further argues that when it comes to concrete security and foreign policies, IR employment of rationality borders on "malpractice": rationality-based descriptions are largely either false or unfalsifiable; many observers fail to explicate the meaning of "rationality" they employ; and the concept is frequently used politically to distinguish between "us and them."


See also

*
Bayesian epistemology Bayesian epistemology is a formal approach to various topics in epistemology that has its roots in Thomas Bayes' work in the field of probability theory. One advantage of its formal method in contrast to traditional epistemology is that its concep ...
* Cognitive bias *
Coherence (linguistics) Coherence in linguistics is what makes a text semantically meaningful. It is especially dealt with in text linguistics. Coherence is achieved through syntactical features such as the use of deictic, anaphoric and cataphoric elements or a logic ...
*
Counterintuitive A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...
* Dysrationalia *
Flipism Flipism, sometimes spelled "flippism", is a pseudophilosophy under which decisions are made by flipping a coin. It originally appeared in the ''Donald Duck'' Disney comic "Flip Decision" by Carl Barks, published in 1953. Barks called a practitio ...
*
Homo economicus The term ''Homo economicus'', or economic man, is the portrayal of humans as agents who are consistently rational and narrowly self-interested, and who pursue their subjectively defined ends optimally. It is a word play on ''Homo sapiens'', u ...
* *
Imputation (game theory) In fully cooperative games players will opt to form coalitions when the value of the payoff is equal to or greater than if they were to work alone. The focus of the game is to find acceptable distributions of the payoff of the grand coalition. Di ...
(individual rationality) * Instinct *
Intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...
*
Irrationality Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking, or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate use of reason, or through emotional distress or cognitive deficiency. ...
*
Law of thought The laws of thought are fundamental axiomatic rules upon which rational discourse itself is often considered to be based. The formulation and clarification of such rules have a long tradition in the history of philosophy and logic. Generally they ...
*
LessWrong ''LessWrong'' (also written ''Less Wrong'') is a community blog and forum focused on discussion of cognitive biases, philosophy, psychology, economics, rationality, and artificial intelligence, among other topics. Purpose ''LessWrong'' prom ...
* List of cognitive biases * Nonrational * Principle of rationality *
Rational emotive behavior therapy Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), previously called rational therapy and rational emotive therapy, is an active-directive, philosophically and empirically based psychotherapy, the aim of which is to resolve emotional and behavioral prob ...
*
Rational pricing Rational pricing is the assumption in financial economics that asset prices - and hence asset pricing models - will reflect the arbitrage-free price of the asset as any deviation from this price will be "arbitraged away". This assumption is use ...
*
Rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy ...
* Rationalization (making excuses) *
Satisficing Satisficing is a decision-making strategy or cognitive heuristic that entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met. The term ''satisficing'', a portmanteau of ''satisfy'' and ''suffice'', was introduc ...
*
Superrationality In economics and game theory, a participant is considered to have superrationality (or renormalized rationality) if they have perfect rationality (and thus maximize their utility) but assume that all other players are superrational too and that a s ...
*
Von Neumann–Morgenstern utility theorem In decision theory, the von Neumann–Morgenstern (VNM) utility theorem shows that, under certain axioms of rational behavior, a decision-maker faced with risky (probabilistic) outcomes of different choices will behave as if he or she is maximizin ...


References


Further reading


Reason and Rationality
by Richard Samuels, Stephen Stich, Luc Faucher on the broad field of reason and rationality from descriptive, normative, and evaluative points of view
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Historicist Theories of Rationality


by Peter Suber * *
Lucy Suchman Lucy Suchman is a Professor of Anthropology of Science and Technology in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University, in the United Kingdom. Her current research extends her longstanding critical engagement with the field of human-comp ...
(2007). Human-machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Action. Cambridge University Press. * Cristina Bicchieri (1993). Rationality and Coordination, New York: Cambridge University Press * Cristina Bicchieri (2007). “Rationality and Indeterminacy”, in D. Ross and H. Kinkaid (eds.) The Handbook of Philosophy of Economics, The Oxford Reference Library of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, vol. 6, n.2. * Anand, P (1993). ''Foundations of Rational Choice Under Risk'', Oxford, Oxford University Press. * Habermas, J. (1984) ''The Theory of Communicative Action Volume 1; Reason and the Rationalization of Society'', Cambridge: Polity Press. * Mosterín, Jesús (2008). ''Lo mejor posible: Racionalidad y acción humana''. Madrid:
Alianza Editorial ''Alianza Editorial'' is a Spanish publishing house founded in 1966 by José Ortega Spottorno, "with the idea of serving the intellectual aspirations of Spanish society of the time and represents a reference for various generations of readers wh ...
. 318 pp. . * Nozick, Robert (1993). '' The Nature of Rationality.'' Princeton: Princeton University Press. * Eagleton, M. (ed) (2003) ''A Concise Companion to Feminist Theory'', Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. * Simons, H. and Hawkins, D. (1949), “Some Conditions in Macro-Economic Stability”, Econometrica, 1949. * Johnson-Laird, P.N. & Byrne, R.M.J. (1991). Deduction. Hillsdale: Erlbaum. {{Authority control Autonomy Concepts in epistemology Concepts in ethics Concepts in logic Concepts in metaphilosophy Concepts in metaphysics Concepts in the philosophy of mind Concepts in the philosophy of science Critical thinking Epistemology Hermeneutics Metaphilosophy Metaphysics of mind Ontology Perception Philosophical logic Philosophical methodology Philosophical theories Philosophy of language Philosophy of law Philosophy of life Philosophy of logic Philosophy of psychology Philosophy of social science Principles Rational choice theory Rationalism Reality Theories of truth Truth