# What does it mean to behave irrationally?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-behave-irrationally/386741>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [January 4, 2007, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-behave-irrationally/386741 "2007-01-04T22:15:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![strope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@strope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/strope)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2007, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-behave-irrationally/386741/21 "2007-01-05T13:23:54Z")

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[QUOTE=Heffalump and Roo]  
So when someone says that another is acting irrationally, are they just saying that I weight my values differently than you?

[/QUOTE]  
Yes, and my perception and understanding of the probability and desirability of an outcome that results from my behavior.

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**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2007, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-behave-irrationally/386741/22 "2007-01-05T17:33:04Z")

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From Ben Franklin’s Autobiography:

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage  
from Boston, being becalm’d off Block Island, our people set  
about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had  
stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this  
occasion consider’d, with my master Tryon, the taking every  
fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had,  
or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter.  
All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great  
lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it  
smelt admirably well. I balanc’d some time between principle  
and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened,  
I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I,  
“If you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you.” So I  
din’d upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people,  
returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet.  
**So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it  
enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind  
to do.**

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