Irrational beliefs stop us from experiencing life to the fullest. We can feel strongly that we are not worthy of love or are ugly. However, feeling those beliefs doesn’t make us irrational. When someone intends to make an irrational act, at the moment they are plotting that act, they are rational. It is rational to intend to perform an action when you know that it would be irrational for you to carry out that action because the intention behind it is rational, the committed behavior that fails the test of rationality can still evolve, and it is rational to adapt means to ends during that specific choice point.
Kavka’s Toxin Puzzle introduces the concept of intent in the way of being rational. Kavka believes that any rational participant of this “billionaire’s deal” would figure out that he doesn’t have to drink the poison to receive the million dollars. He can’t intend to drink the toxin if he will also intend to change his mind later? Like Kavka, I think that intention is both rational and irrational because someone can’t intend what he won’t do. “It is rational in that adopting it is rational, and irrational in that it sometimes causes one to act in irrational ways” (Superson). Therefore, the Toxin Puzzle shows that it is rational to adopt an intention to perform an irrational action.
For instance, my brother has a lot to gain and lose on social media. He is instafamous, has close to a million followers, and relies on social engagement to keep his viewership up. However, he has a small percentage of followers that are always trying to break him down. Those followers are known as 6100Memes. They talk negatively about him and resort to bullying to get their point across. This bullying and singling out has culminated to a climax in my brother’s heart and mind. He has had enough. One day he awoke to feelings of hatred and anger for one particular person he knew was causing the ongoing anguish and hateful bias against him. He wanted more than anything to retaliate against him. In the criminal mind, he had “intent” to cause harm to this person. However, thinking rationally at this moment he decides to plot his scheme to get even. Therefore, and according to rational choice theory, he ‘ought’ to have the attitude he has. Since the act of retaliation is what he intends, then he ought to intend to retaliate; it would be irrational if he didn’t retaliate.
The example of the Toxin Puzzle is similar to this situation. According to Kavka’s reasoning, even though my brother had “reason to act” and retaliate against his enemy, it would then harm him in the long run. Therefore, my brother will hopefully not do something that he thinks he has a good reason to do. Specifically, Kavka said, “Our intentions are constrained by our reasons for action” (Kavka 36).
Contrasting the above with the same example about my brother, leads to what actually happened that day when he was bullied beyond belief. He chose to instead intend to perform an action to defend himself and call out the perpetrator to gain support from his followers. In doing this it enhanced his credibility, and therefore the action of writing the post was not irrational.
The problem with the question propounded to us is that acting rationally leads to an outcome that is worse than we would have had. Once again using my brother’s example, the group or individual that is against him feels they are working in their best interests and my brother feels that his self-interests are most important. So although each party will ultimately suffer because the general public is retaliating against 6100Memes for their mean tactics, and followers of mean spirited tweets are feeling the heat, and therefore, by their rational actions, everybody does worse than if they had not acted rationally.
There are other ways to prove that there are situations where a rational person can intend to perform an action knowing that it would be irrational to carry it out. If we all look to our own self-interests like Hardin believes in the “Tragedy of the Commons,” each person acts by “choosing to free-ride.” This calls for strategic dominance and thus everyone loses, rather than if they had joined forces, thereby making the final result positive. Elinor Ostrom has come up with innovative solutions that move beyond “individualistic rational behavior” that utilize cooperation and “self-regulating cooperative action” to help solve issues with public rationality. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action focuses on common property resources, and governance of those natural resources. By implementing somewhat voluntary agreements to manage the resources one avoids “the tendency to assume that decisions reached individually will, in fact, be the best decisions for an entire society” (Baden 6). In Managing the Commons, Baden admits, “These models are thus extremely useful for explaining how perfectly rational individuals can produce, under some circumstances, outcomes that are not ‘rational’ when viewed from the perspective of all those involved” (100). The Prisoner’s Dilemma game is another paradox that puts doubt in rationality. Baden further states, “The paradox that individually rational strategies lead to collectively irrational outcomes, seems to challenge a fundamental faith that rational human beings can achieve rational results” (98). By taking the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons plus collective action, Ostrom’s case was made that “egoistical individualists” should be regulated, but also that we don’t have to settle for rational choice theory when we are “better than rational.”
In contrast to Kavka, Dr. Gauthier has a “Rational Self-Interest Argument that seems to fail the rational irrationality test. Dr. Gauthier believe that drinking the toxin is rational and therefore, it is in the person’s rational self-interest to firmly believe that he will drink the vial. Since the person is believed to be a rational individual and he obtained his beliefs through rational reflection then it is in his rational self-interest to drink the toxin. But this is incorrect. To me it seems more rational that if the person changed his mind and doesn’t want to drink it tomorrow because he already has the money then he won’t drink the toxin. However, Gauthier would say this doesn’t constitute following through on the plan, which is needed. Nevertheless, Gauthier fails to realize drinking the toxin is irrational because he feels commitments are rational.
Ultimately, if the intention behind an action is rational at the time a rational person intends to act irrational, it would be rational. Kavka helps confirm this point because he says someone intends to act when he has reason to act so if we have no reason to act then we can’t intend to do so. Contrary to Dr. Guathier, Skyrms goes a long way in discussing rational self-interest while rejecting a theology of commitment. Further, according to the Gianni Schicchi test, “A plan involving a sequence of choices exhibits modular rationality if it specifies a rational choice at each point and this conflicts with commitment” (Commitment). In sum, it may be rational to be irrational.