What does it mean to behave irrationally?

Great Debates
1

I think that I behave rationally, and I’m fairly sure that most people think that they behave rationally, at least most of the time.

And yet, I’m quite sure that some people behave irrationally, even though I’m not quite sure what that means.

rational:
Merriam-Webster having reason or understanding
Compact Oxford based on or in accordance with reason or logic
American Heritage Consistent with or based on reason; logical

But can anyone do anything without a reason?

There are at least three ways that a person’s behavior could be irrational:

  1. Basing it on a false premise: “I can fly. Therefore, I can safely jump off this 10-storey building.”
  2. Not taking into account relevant information: “I can safely jump off this 10-storey building because I have a parachute.”
  3. Based on a logical fallacy: “Birds can fly and they have two legs. I have two legs. Therefore, I can fly.”

(Actually, perhaps #1 and #2 are also based on logical fallacies.)

But what’s irrational about jumping off a 10-storey building?

It’s fairly easy to come up with “rational” reasons for doing it: It’s part of a carefully staged stunt, or there is a deep pool at the base of the building.

But what if the jump will result in certain death? Is it rational to jump?

Again, there are (even more contrived) reasons why someone might jump to certain death, eg. there’s an even worse fate if he doesn’t jump.

So, is a behavior irrational when it is inconsistent with generally accepted principles, or “laws”, or even axioms?
When and how does it become irrational to jump off a building?
More generally, what types of behavior are irrational?

“If A then B” might be irrational, but “If A and C, then B” could be rational, as could “Not A then B”. Sometimes, it’s something like: If A and C and not D, but not C and D and not A. How many premises can be used to rationalize a behavior?

Is irrational behavior just a matter of ignorance, or is it something else? Is “irrational” the same as “silly”, or “dumb”, or “insane”?

And, more practically, is it irrational to participate in religious activity, or the occult, or unscientific medical treatment, or “high-risk” behavior? And if yes, then why?

2

Short answer: There is a big box of chocolate on the table. I am overweight. It is not in my best interests to eat that candy. I do it anyway. I am irrational.

3

I am going to venture that behaving irrationally is choosing a path of action that to the best of your knowledge and your logical thinking abilities leads to a result different than what you believe is your most desirable possible outcome.

Jumping off a building:

If I believe I can fly (whatever the reasons for me to think I can, true or false) jumping off a building is a perfectly rational thing to do (provided you want to fly/land somewhere more than you want to stay, of course)

If I know it will result in certain death and I desire to die (I determined death will be better than my current life), it is perfectly rational.

If I know it will result in certain/likely death and I desire to live but staying here would result in a worse/more likely death, then it is rational.

If I know I can’t fly and desire to reach the top floor, then it is irrational. Would someone do that and not be considered insane? …

I guess you would need a strong emotion pulling against reason for someone to do something irrational. At least for an example as radical as jumping off a building.
Less clear-cut results would be more open to discussion. I am going to say that it would turn into an issue of subjective probability of different possible results coming to happen.

Take sky diving. You want to live and you want to have fun. There is a chance of dying but it is smaller than the chance of having fun. Life and fun have different weights, though, and these are subjective to the person. It would appear irrational for some people and rational for other as the different weights they apply to what we could assume are equal probabilities shift the balance of the “expected desirability” one way or another.

4

The fish are by the headboard of the yellow knife’s deck.

5

The human brain was not built to be rational, it was built to survive long enough to mate and produce little human brains. As a result, our thinking is profoundly irrational to a degree that is hard to comprehend unless you delve into the psychological literature. Here is something I was just reading today about how we judge people based very strongly on first impressions.

It would be daunting to list the full range of things the human mind does which is irrational. Wikipedia seems to have a decent compendium though.

6

So when someone says that another is acting irrationally, are they just saying that I weight my values differently than you?

BTW, nice to see you joined.

Whoosh! 'Splain please.

7

I think we’re confusing ‘irrational’ and ‘not in one’s best interest’. An action can be the former and not the latter. An irrational act may give a person pleasure or comfort, and therefore would be in that person’s best interest. I remember hearing that we are only capable of making the best possible choice at any given time. I’m not sure if it’s true, but it makes sense. I can think of many, many irrational things that people do all the time, but which probably aren’t against their interest, because they may bring comfort, and the consequences aren’t severe:

Pushing the button that controls the crosswalk signal over and over again to try to make the light change faster.

Pushing the elevator button over and over again to make the elevator come faster.

Taking new-age vitamins/ copper bracelets/ homeopathic medicines when one is fully aware of the utter lack of scientific evidence that they work, yet still believing that they make one feel better.

Believing that one must throw salt over one’s shoulder after spilling it to ward off bad luck.

Or in relationships:

Believing the “bad rebel” type we are attracted to will treat us well, despite a track record of treating others badly.

Parents of criminals believing “He’s a good boy who would never do that” despite overwhelming evidence that he is not.

8

One philosophical definition of what gets called “practical rationality” is “taking the most efficient means to one’s ends.”

That’s the only one I can remember off the top of my head, but I know its not uncontroversial. For example, that definition might invite us to ask in objection, “Can’t ends be irrational?”

David Hume didn’t think so: He famously said it would be perfectly rational to “prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of (one’s) finger.” But of course that sentiment does not sit well with a lot of people.

But what principled way can there be for claiming “these” ends are rational and “those” ends are not? I dunno.

-FrL-

9

Interesting point.

So on what basis are you determing that it is an irrational act?

Why, specifically, is this irrational? Is *expectation * (and possibly intent) part of the definition of irrational?

So is superstitious behavior the same as irrational behavior?

Perhaps you can provide evidence that people who take “new-age vitamins/ copper bracelets/ homeopathic medicines” are “fully aware of the utter lack of scientific evidence that they work”.

More superstitious behavior.

So, is this ‘irrational’ or is it ‘not in one’s best interest’?

10

Interesting point. Perhaps humans impose the concept of rationality on the world.

Also, does nature expect human brains “to survive long enough to mate and produce little human brains”? Is it nature’s intention or purpose? Or does it just happen to be the result most of the time?

Anyway, it’s becoming clearer to me that, although the laws of logic may exist objectively, the notion of “rational behavior” is subjective.

11

To the notion of rationality I presented, yes. I am seeing the need to redefine it, though. *lowbrass’ ** example of the elevator button is a perfect example of irrational behaviour with no real consequences. We know it won’t change the behaviour of the elevator but we do it anyways.

I guess I need to expand my definition to include illogical expectations like kicking a malfunctioning machine or yelling at the horses racing on the TV.

  • I always said I wanted to own an elevator company and insert a 5-second delay to the elevators when someone pushed the button. It gives me great pleasure that my son likes to see the slideshow on my screensaver and he is starting to figure out that moving the mouse delays it instead of making it happen.
12

Yelling at them at the track probably isn’t useful, either.

13

Simply put, an irrational act is any act that was done for any reason except through reasoning. If the best reason you can give for why you did something was “because I wanted to”, then it was an irrational act. A large number of our activities are irrational acts in that sense, since they are founded on emotions and not on logical thought. When you follow your gut or your heart instead of your head, that’s irrational.

It’s not always a bad thing, either, so we rarely use the term “irrational” when the act was positive or trivial consequences. Sometimes you can’t reason through a situation, due to lack of time, information, or simply because the situation defies rationality, and simply have to act.

Not always. Sometimes people know that the superstitution they hold is hogwash, but they do it anyway. That’s irrational. Sometimes they actually believe it works. They may swear that this penny actually gives them good luck and have anecdotal evidence in support of that. That’s perfectly rational. It’s only a superstition because the evidence isn’t at all scientifically rigorous.

14

It’s irrational in the sense of not being logical - not based on reason.

Because any intelligent person knows that the elevator button completes an electrical circuit that calls the elevator. The elevator moves at a fixed speed. Once the button is pressed, a light is illuminated indicating that the elevator has been called. It is either called or it is not called; it cannot be more or less called. In order for the act of repeatedly pushing the button to affect the speed of the elevator, there would have to be some sort of electronic device that senses the rate of button pushing and adjusts the speed of the elevator accordingly. Only an idiot would believe that such devices are installed in elevators. Yet many people, fully aware that their action has no real effect, continue to repeatedly press the button. That is irrational.

Same with thermostats. A thermostat is a simple on/off switch, activated by temperature. It is either on or it is off. There are no states in between the two. Setting the thermostat at 90 will not heat a 50 degree room to 70 degrees any faster than setting it at 70, yet people do it.

Yes, believing that a particular act will have a particular consequence, knowing full well that such consequence is physically impossible, is irrational.

It is a specific case of it.

I don’t think everyone is aware of what is or isn’t scientifically proven. However, I have had conversations with people where I have pointed out that a particular health remedy has no scientific basis, and had them say, “I know, but I believe in it anyway.” I’m not really interested in spending a lot of time digging up evidence, so I guess you’ll have to take my word on it. Or discard this example and use my other examples.

Ah, good question. It might be in ones best short-term interest, but not in ones best long-term interest. A person might chose to be with someone who they know is not a good person out of fear of loneliness. So at the moment the choice is made, the choice is between being alone or being with a bad person, and the latter might seem the lesser of 2 evils. But in the long run, it might not be, because it could prevent one from meeting a new person who is good. One might not be willing to admit to oneself that one chose based on fear of loneliness, and rationalize the decision by telling oneself that the other person will change, or will treat me differently than others.

15

In many cases, like MLS’s example, an action might induce pleasure while not being useful in any other way. Plenty of people engage in sex with people and in places that make no sense at all. Some of us buy books when we have more than we can read if we live to be 100. It just feels good, but it sure isn’t rational.

16

Quite often, yes.

Several years ago, I was working as a lab tech. The factory manager called me to her office and told me that we were going to be changing the whole computer system. This meant selecting several people to represent the factory during the implementation; the obvious option to represent the lab was the lab manager but he “hates traveling and paperwork” (his words) so he’d proposed me.

When he heard I’d accepted, he told me “you’re crazy!” I told him “no, I just happen to like traveling. And paperwork.”

17

I think if one broadens your analysis and continues down this line of reasoning the majority of day to day human existance could be watered down as purely irrational and pleasure seeking, depending on how you frame the argument.

Unless, I suppose, one says that pleasure is a rational goal in itself as long as it doesn’t interfere in other areas or your life. YMMV.

Nature doesn’t have intentions or purposes, strictly speaking, but it’s useful to speak as if it does. In this literary sense, yes, our genes want us to make baby human brains, arms, legs, and, most importantly, sex cells. That’s the entire point and how is we all got here. The genes that result in humans not continuing will be selected against since, well, they’ll die out, unless they continue in your nearest relatives. Then things can get a wee bit complicated…

18

I is tired. :smack:

19

It seems that you’re saying:

  1. “Rational” depends on what a person *says * is the reason.
  2. Emotional acts are inherently irrational.
    (And 3: The gut and heart are somehow involved in behavior …)

Is that what you’re saying?

It seems to me that the act *always * involves *some * thought and reason. It’s not clear, though, *how much * thought and reason is required for the act to be “rational”.

I agree, to the extent that it’s not necessary for all of the premises and conclusions that lead to the “rational act” to be true. (Yeah, of course, there’s the whole discussion of what is true …)

20

Hey! you don’t know that. :slight_smile: