Q&A: Rationality
Rationality
Question
Good evening!
What does it mean to be rational? After all, anything a person chooses—even if it contradicts what he will want in the future—is, at the moment, what he wants, so is he therefore rational? Why is choosing otherwise more rational? Who determines what is more rational? (Unless he made a mistake in calculation or in the information available to him according to his own standards, but then that is just a mistake.)
Answer
This is a semantic matter—what we choose to call rationality. In principle, one can assess an argument, not claims. A logically valid argument is rational. The assumptions underlying the argument are a matter of judgment. Is adopting unreasonable assumptions irrational? It depends whom you ask. But as I said, there is really no importance to the question of what is called rational. It is more important to ask what is true and what is not.
You wrote: “But as I said, there is really no importance to the question of what is called rational. It is more important to ask what is true and what is not.”
Maybe based on that, it would have been better to engage in the debate with Franco about whether belief in God is true or not, rather than whether it is rational??