Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

The concept of rational comes from from the word “ratio,” which means when in someone's opinion something has a more positive than negative outcome, it's a rational choice; irrational would be the opposite of that. Since rationality is subjective, what is rational for one person's self-interest is probably irrational for someone else; that's why socialism, the ideal of doing the most good for the most people, is suspect as a method of making group decisions unless the group is highly homogeneous in its morals, values & beliefs.

Most things that are rational are also logical because subjective goals can also be objectively true; for example, decisions based on knowledge, like when to mow the lawn, or how much money to save. It’s through a lack of facts or a biased interpretation that leads to rational but illogical conclusions: it may make rational sense to some people to sacrifice a goat to get their god's attention but it's illogical. Politics is certainly dominated by rational illogic. On the flip side, something can be irrational but logical: it's logical to spread wealth within a society, and it's rational to the people receiving the wealth, but it's irrational to the people losing their wealth. Also, everyone occasionally makes choices first then justify them afterwards, which is illogical and irrational.