Isn’t this a completely ludicrous example of “rationality”? What does “rationality” signify in this case? Unconsious co-ordination and control of the senses and muscles? That is not what I, or any sane person, understands by the word “rationality”! Is “rationality” just a universal signifier for “doing stuff right”? The word has been stretched beyond all meaning! You may rationally believe that particular way of buttering the toast is the correct way, but this is an example of epistemic rationality. There is no need to invoke the non-concept of instrumental rationality.
If one attempts to butter their toast by first rubbing the clean knife on the toast and then buttering the knife afterwards, I would not hesitate to describe this as an instrumentally irrational procedure for buttering toast.
It is likely that many people, faced with real-life tasks more complicated than buttering toast, do in fact apply methods abstractly resembling this alternate approach to toast-buttering.
If one attempts to butter their toast by first rubbing the clean knife on the toast and then buttering the knife afterwards, I would not hesitate to describe this as an instrumentally irrational procedure for buttering toast.
It is likely that many people, faced with real-life tasks more complicated than buttering toast, do in fact apply methods abstractly resembling this alternate approach to toast-buttering.