Re: Piorot on Madrick - Winslow's blast

["Dr. Bruce McFarling" <ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"John M. Legge" <jlegge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote,

on Sat, 14 Sep 2002 12:57:59 +1000


> There is a simple polemical issue in asserting that people

> act "irrationally".  This can only mean that they carefully

> work out what they really want to do and then do something

> else.

"People behave rationally" and "People do whatever they want
to do" are equivalent only:

(1) The term "rational" is defined so broadly as to be vacuous.
For example, even the simply restrictions contained in the
axioms of choice, such as transitivity of preferences, cannot
be maintained if "rational" is "doing whatever you want to do",

or (2) if we simply decide that any actions that people are simply
making "mistakes" when they do what they want to do and end up
violating whatever criteria we have for rational behaviour,
"because it would be irrational to act this way".

Of course, if the term is rendered meaningless to permit it
to apply universally, then the war has been sacrificed to
win a battle.

If people only ever act irrationally "by mistake", then
there is likely to be no substantial difference between
"fail to act rationally" and "act irrationally" except
for the irrational adherence to the rule of not saying
that people act irrationally.