What is your definition of rationality?

Question

Mine is that a person has goals and an action is rational if it logically results in acheiving those goals, without leading to a contradiction.

Answer 1

your definition makes a mass murderer a rational person. it's neutral and used in sociology. but if you want to make rationality as positive wisdom, i would prefer to say it's some one who listen well to others and then choose the best path.

Answer 2

I think there is a problem with talking about acting rationally "in general". There is no such thing. You can only act rationally toward certain goals. Those goals themselves cannot be rational (if they are the ultimate goal in question) because reason is morally nuetral. Would you say that a person acting rationally toward "absurd" goals was acting rationally in general? probably not. Yet he might be acting rationally relative to his goals.

Answer 3

(m)

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. What is irrational, therefore, is defined as that which is not endowed with reason or understanding.

Answer 4

it's a nonsense cause it's all upto one to define it and either accept or reject it.

Answer 5

All this is God, all this is God. All things are but God expressing his vision of himself.