Words can become less useful when they attach to too much as well as too little. A perfectly drawn map that indicates only the position and exact shape of North America will often be less useful than a less-accurate map that gives the approximate location of its major roads and cities. Similarly, a very clearly drawn map that does not correspond to the territory it describes is useless. So defining terms clearly is only one part of the battle in crafting good arguments; you also need terms that map well onto the actual territory and that do so at a useful level of generality.
The problem with the term “rationality” isn’t that no one knows what it means; there seems to be wide agreement on a number of tokens of rational behavior and a number of tokens if irrational behavior. Rather, the problem is that the term is so unspecific and so emotionally loaded that it obstructs rather than furthers discussion.
Words can become less useful when they attach to too much as well as too little. A perfectly drawn map that indicates only the position and exact shape of North America will often be less useful than a less-accurate map that gives the approximate location of its major roads and cities. Similarly, a very clearly drawn map that does not correspond to the territory it describes is useless. So defining terms clearly is only one part of the battle in crafting good arguments; you also need terms that map well onto the actual territory and that do so at a useful level of generality.
The problem with the term “rationality” isn’t that no one knows what it means; there seems to be wide agreement on a number of tokens of rational behavior and a number of tokens if irrational behavior. Rather, the problem is that the term is so unspecific and so emotionally loaded that it obstructs rather than furthers discussion.