Why Rationality?

Excerpted from “Rationality: Why It Seems Scarce and Why It Matters” by Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology.

Rationality ought to be the lodest...

We usually think about rationality as being sensible or reasonable. For economists, rationality means when you make a choice, you will choose the thing you like best. Economic rationality accepts that people will act in a relatively predictable way.

Economists use thi...

Sometimes we can hold people to a higher standard. They can be taught to spot a deep problem across its superficial guises. They can be goaded into applying their best habits of thinking outside their comfort zones. And they can be inspired to set their sights higher than self-defeating or collec...