The problem with this is that multiple motivation systems contribute to action, and only one of them looks anything like “do the thing I expect will achieve my goals given what I believe about the world.” For example, I wouldn’t call a blind reflex a “choice” or “decision.”
Still, I think it’s useful to ask if the whole person, with all the their motivation systems, is rational. Asking if a person’s subsystems are rational seems relevant when you are figuring out to focus your training efforts on those systems most holding the person back.
A blind reflex may not itself be rational or irrational, but I can train my reflexes, and make rational choices about what I want to train my reflexes to do. Of course, I can only train reflexes to follow simple heuristics far short of computing a rational decision, and that is an “unfair” limit on my rationality, but that doesn’t mean that a system that makes better choices isn’t more rational than me.
The cogsci notion of rationality is indeed a personal rather than a subpersonal one. I’m not trying to describe subprocesses as rational or irrational, though. I’m describing the whole person as rational or irrational, but rationality is an ideal standard for choices, not actions, and reflexes are not “choices.” In any case, I can’t find a sentence in your latest comment that I disagree with.
I think it’s appropriate to separate work ethic and akrasia mastery from rationality. Saying that work ethic is a choice is, imho, a relatively simplistic view. People often get fired for something trivial (smoking when a drug test is coming up, repeated absence, etc) that they know full well is a suboptimal decision and the short term benefits of getting high (or whatever) override their concern for the long term possible consequences. I think it makes sense to make some distinction that rationality is the ability to select the right path to walk and self discipline is the wherewithal to walk it.
I wonder how well defined “my goals” are here or how much to trust expectations. I think a rough approximation could involve these various systems generating some impulse map and then OPFC and some other structures get involved in selecting an action. I don’t think a closed form expression of a goal is required in order to say that the goal exists.
The problem with this is that multiple motivation systems contribute to action, and only one of them looks anything like “do the thing I expect will achieve my goals given what I believe about the world.” For example, I wouldn’t call a blind reflex a “choice” or “decision.”
Still, I think it’s useful to ask if the whole person, with all the their motivation systems, is rational. Asking if a person’s subsystems are rational seems relevant when you are figuring out to focus your training efforts on those systems most holding the person back.
A blind reflex may not itself be rational or irrational, but I can train my reflexes, and make rational choices about what I want to train my reflexes to do. Of course, I can only train reflexes to follow simple heuristics far short of computing a rational decision, and that is an “unfair” limit on my rationality, but that doesn’t mean that a system that makes better choices isn’t more rational than me.
The cogsci notion of rationality is indeed a personal rather than a subpersonal one. I’m not trying to describe subprocesses as rational or irrational, though. I’m describing the whole person as rational or irrational, but rationality is an ideal standard for choices, not actions, and reflexes are not “choices.” In any case, I can’t find a sentence in your latest comment that I disagree with.
I think it’s appropriate to separate work ethic and akrasia mastery from rationality. Saying that work ethic is a choice is, imho, a relatively simplistic view. People often get fired for something trivial (smoking when a drug test is coming up, repeated absence, etc) that they know full well is a suboptimal decision and the short term benefits of getting high (or whatever) override their concern for the long term possible consequences. I think it makes sense to make some distinction that rationality is the ability to select the right path to walk and self discipline is the wherewithal to walk it.
I wonder how well defined “my goals” are here or how much to trust expectations. I think a rough approximation could involve these various systems generating some impulse map and then OPFC and some other structures get involved in selecting an action. I don’t think a closed form expression of a goal is required in order to say that the goal exists.