rationality

1 the state of having good sense and sound judgment; "his rationality may have been impaired"; "he had to rely less on reason than on rousing their emotions" [syn: reason, reasonableness]

2 the quality of being consistent with or based on logic [syn: rationalness]

English

Noun

1. Sanity, good sense.

   His sudden loss of rationality was brought on by excess drink.

2. Objectivity, thoughtfulness.

   Such a discussion deserves rationality, not emotion a gut reaction.

Derived terms

• instrumental rationality

Rationality as a term is related to the idea of reason, a word which following Webster's may be derived as much from older terms referring to thinking itself as from giving an account or an explanation. This lends the term a dual aspect. One aspect associates it with comprehension, intelligence, or inference, particularly when an inference is drawn in ordered ways (thus a syllogism is a rational argument in this sense). The other part associates rationality with explanation, understanding or justification, particularly if it provides a ground or a motive. 'Irrational', therefore, is defined as that which is not endowed with reason or understanding.

A logical argument is often described as "rational" if it is logically valid. However, rationality is a much broader term than logic, as it includes "uncertain but sensible" arguments based on probability, expectation, personal experience and the like, whereas logic deals principally with provable facts and demonstrably valid relations between them. For example, ad hominem arguments are logically unsound, but in many cases they may be rational. A simple philosophical definition of rationality refers to one's use of a "practical syllogism". For example,

I am cold

I don't want to be cold

If I close the window I will not be cold...

Therefore, I will close the window

All that is required for an action to be rational is that if one believes action X (which can be done) implies Y, and that Y is desirable, he or she does X. The action would likewise be avoided were Y undesirable. Such arguments are logically valid but not necessarily logically sound. For example, the premise "If I close the window I will not be cold..." may in fact be incorrect. As making formally sound argument is generally considered difficult, the "soundness" or "strength" of such premises will often rest on induction, statistics, and simplified heuristical models.

In philosophy, rationality and reason are the key methods used to analyse the data gathered through systematically gathered observations. In economics, sociology, and political science, a decision or situation is often called rational if it is in some sense optimal, and individuals or organizations are often called rational if they tend to act somehow optimally in pursuit of their goals. Thus one speaks, for example, of a rational allocation of resources, or of a rational corporate strategy. In this concept of "rationality", the individual's goals or motives are taken for granted and not made subject to criticism, ethical or otherwise. Thus rationality simply refers to the success of goal attainment, whatever those goals may be. Sometimes, in this context, rationality is equated with behavior that is self-interested to the point of being selfish. Sometimes rationality implies having complete knowledge about all the details of a given situation.

Debates arise in these three fields about whether or not people or organizations are "really" rational, as well as whether it make 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 (economic man: the imaginary logically consistent but amoral being assumed in economic models) was coined largely in honor of this view.

Rationality is a central principle in artificial intelligence, where a rational agent is specifically defined as an agent which always chooses the action which maximises its expected performance, given all of the knowledge it currently possesses.

Quality of Rationality

It is believed by most philosophers (A.C Grayling) and experts, that a good rationale must be independent of emotions, personal feelings or any kind of instincts. Any process of evaluation or analysis, that may be called rational, is expected to be highly objective, logical and "mechanical". If these minimum requirements are not satisfied i.e. if a person has been, even slightly, influenced by personal emotions, feelings, instincts or culturally specific, moral codes and norms, then the analysis may be termed irrational.

However, it is difficult for most common people to satisfy these requirement, as it requires a great degree of intrapersonal intelligence to maintain high standards of immunity from emotions and a detailed understanding of procedure of reasoning. Moreover, a number of issues may be analysed by people who have a very culturally specific understanding of ethics, which may further make it likely for their opinions to be irrational.

Theories of rationality

The German sociologist Max Weber proposed an interpretation of social action that distinguished between four different types of rationality. The first, which he called Zweckrational or purposive/instrumental rationality, 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 motive, 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, 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. These kinds of rationality were ideal types. The advantage in this interpretation is that it avoids a value-laden assessment, say, that certain kinds of beliefs are irrational. Instead, Weber suggests that a 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.

Based on the premise that 'feelings of worthlessness' are a maladaptive byproduct of the evolution of rationality, Phil Roberts, Jr. has proposed a theory in which the rationality of an end is presumed to correlate with the comprehensiveness of its underlying considerations, and in which no concrete objective is presumed to be rational in any but a relative sense of the term. In addition to its ability to explain what morality is (a shared subconscious theory of rationality), Roberts has also demonstrated how his theory can be employed to address a number of rationality paradoxes, including the paradox of rational irrationality, cognitive versus practical rationality conflict, the "rationality debate" (Cohen vs. Kahneman and Tversky) and the paradox of the Prisoner's Dilemma.http://www.rationology.net

Use of the term rational

In a number of kinds of speech, "rational" may also denote a hodge-podge of generally positive attributes, including:

• reasonable: "having sound judgment and practical implementation" (Webster's)
• reasonable: "not extreme or excessive" (Webster's)
• justifiable on the basis of reason. (logical)
• economical, not wasteful ("rational management," "to rationalize" something)
• not foolish
• coherent

See also

• Bounded rationality
• Individual rationality
• Irrationality
• Intelligence
• Perfect rationality
• Principle of rationality
• Laws of thought
• Rational choice theory
• Rational number
• Rationality and power
• Satisficing
• Rational pricing
• Rational emotive behavior therapy
• Superrationality

External links and references

• What is rationality?
• 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
• Legal Reasoning After Post-Modern Critiques of Reason, by Peter Suber
• Spohn, W. (2002). The Many Facets of the Theory of Rationality. Croatian Journal of Philosophy 2: 247-262.
• Anand, P (1993). Foundations of Rational Choice Under Risk, Oxford, Oxford University Press
• Nozick, Robert (1993). The Nature of Rationality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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