As I mentioned upthread, I can consider someone’s behaviour irrational and at the same time understand why that someone is doing this and see the levers to change him.
If “irrational” doesn’t feel like an explanation in itself, and you’re going to dig further and try to figure out why they’re being irrational, then why stop to declare it irrational in the first place? I don’t mean it in a rhetorical sense and I’m not saying “you shouldn’t”—I really don’t understand what could motivate you to do it, and don’t feel any reason to myself. What does the diagnosis “irrational” do for you? It kinda feels to me like saying “fire works because phlogistons!” and then getting to work on how phlogistons work. What’s the middle man doing for you here?
With regard to “suboptimal” vs “irrational”, I read it completely differently. If someone is beating their head against the door to open it instead of using the handle, I woudln’t call it any more “rational” if the door does eventually give way. Similarly, I like to use “suboptimal” to mean strictly “less than optimal” (including but not limited to the cases where the effectiveness is zero or negative) rather than using it to mean “less than optimal but better than nothing”
why stop to declare it irrational in the first place?
Because for me there are basically three ways to evaluate some course of action. You can say that it’s perfectly fine and that’s that (let’s call it “rational”). You can say that it’s crazy and you don’t have a clue why someone is doing this (let’s call it “inexplicable”). And finally, you can say that it’s a mistaken course of action: you see the goal, but the road chosen doesn’t lead there. I would call this “irrational”.
Within this framework, calling something “irrational” is the only way to “dig further and try to figure out why”.
With regard to “suboptimal” vs “irrational”, I read it completely differently.
So we have a difference in terminology. That’s not unheard of :-)
Interesting. I dig into plenty of things before concluding that I know what their goal is and that they will fail, and I don’t see what is supposed to be stopping me from doing this. I’m not sure why “I don’t [yet] have a clue why” gets rounded to “inexplicable”.
If “irrational” doesn’t feel like an explanation in itself, and you’re going to dig further and try to figure out why they’re being irrational, then why stop to declare it irrational in the first place? I don’t mean it in a rhetorical sense and I’m not saying “you shouldn’t”—I really don’t understand what could motivate you to do it, and don’t feel any reason to myself. What does the diagnosis “irrational” do for you? It kinda feels to me like saying “fire works because phlogistons!” and then getting to work on how phlogistons work. What’s the middle man doing for you here?
With regard to “suboptimal” vs “irrational”, I read it completely differently. If someone is beating their head against the door to open it instead of using the handle, I woudln’t call it any more “rational” if the door does eventually give way. Similarly, I like to use “suboptimal” to mean strictly “less than optimal” (including but not limited to the cases where the effectiveness is zero or negative) rather than using it to mean “less than optimal but better than nothing”
Because for me there are basically three ways to evaluate some course of action. You can say that it’s perfectly fine and that’s that (let’s call it “rational”). You can say that it’s crazy and you don’t have a clue why someone is doing this (let’s call it “inexplicable”). And finally, you can say that it’s a mistaken course of action: you see the goal, but the road chosen doesn’t lead there. I would call this “irrational”.
Within this framework, calling something “irrational” is the only way to “dig further and try to figure out why”.
So we have a difference in terminology. That’s not unheard of :-)
Interesting. I dig into plenty of things before concluding that I know what their goal is and that they will fail, and I don’t see what is supposed to be stopping me from doing this. I’m not sure why “I don’t [yet] have a clue why” gets rounded to “inexplicable”.