Tag Archives: reason

The Conjunction Fallacy and the Burden of Proof

11 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by in atheism, Athesism Christianity, christianity, logic, philosophy, rationality, religion, Uncategorized

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As you know I think the philosophical burden of proof is a notion harmful to clear thinking.  My first post about it was here.  And here is a blog from someone who thinks very much the same way.  Here I will try to score some further points by undercutting common arguments used to support the view that having a burden of proof is helpful.

But first some background, what is the conjunction fallacy? Consider this example from Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman copied from Wikipedia:
“Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Which is more probable?

1) Linda is a bank teller.
2) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.”

If you thought 2 was more probable, then you committed this fallacy.  It is a formal fallacy.  And it basically says that the probability of A+B will always lower or equal than the probability of A. As we add conditions the probability can only go down never up.

Why is this tricky to some people? (apparently most people chose option 2) Given the description of Linda many people might think she sounds like a feminist. Moreover, she does not sound like a bank teller. So the first option seems to only have what people think is unlikely.  Even though second option has what seems unlikely it also has what seem likely too. So the second option may seem preferable. But mathematically the second option will never be more likely than the first, because every time the second option holds true the first does as well.

When we add details to a claim the probability tends to drop. The probability that I am in front of my computer now, is greater than the probability that I am now in front of my computer wearing a shirt, which is greater then the probability that I am now in front of my computer wearing a brown shirt. This is just how logic works.  I think many of us know this and build this into our understanding of the world. So what does this have to do with the burden of proof?

If you go to youtube and type in burden of proof the first video to come up will be this one:

Listen to the first 20 seconds.
What is happening?  Well if you notice the person is not just asking whether “something” exists “in space” that we don’t have evidence of and whether we should believe that. Which I tend to think is true – that is I do think there is something in space that we do not currently have evidence of.  So how would that help his case for “the burden of proof”? Of course it wouldn’t.

So he doesn’t just ask whether a general thing exists.   Instead he gets absurdly detailed with his description.  It is not something we don’t know about somewhere in space but under the surface of Pluto! And it is not just “something” its not even just some form of life, but a walrus. And of course even that is not enough. It is a “tiny” “were” walrus. But not only that it is a “psychic” tiny “wer”walrus. But no tonly that!  It is a tiny psychic werewalrus that “sends them psychic messages.” But not only that, the messages come “every midnight.” And not only that but it does this while juggling skulls…..

Ok. So by now if you understand the conjunction fallacy  then you will know that amount of detail alone will drastically drive down the probability. There is no need to appeal any “burden of proof” to not believe in this creature. The probability is naturally driven down just by understanding the conjunction fallacy.

It’s amazing that this video received 13,000 likes when it is really just an obvious play on this formal fallacy. Now if you are like me you will see this quite often from atheists. The other day when I said there is no philosophical burden of proof I was asked whether I believe “that there is an imperceptible penguin named “Percival” standing right across the room from me, wearing his imperceptible tuxedo and his imperceptible monocle and his imperceptible derby hat, holding his imperceptible pocket-watch.”

Now I want to point out that the proponents of a burden of proof who use these examples are not themselves committing the conjunction fallacy. But rather they just seem oblivious to its logic. It is the logic that makes the conjunction fallacy a formal fallacy that makes the probability of their examples quite low. So when you see these examples the response is not that they are committing a fallacy. Rather the response is more like yes the conjunction fallacy is indeed a fallacy so the probability of your extremely detailed scenario is low.

If you express doubts about “the philosophical burden of proof” you can expect this sort of thing. They won’t ask whether you can believe there is something somewhere we do not have evidence for. No, they will not even ask whether there is some species of life we have no evidence of yet. Rather they will ask about a particular horse that we have no evidence of. But not just a horse, but a horned horse, but not just a horned horse, but a horned horse with exactly one straight long horn coming out of its head. And often even that won’t be enough the horned horse will have to be pink.

And you might respond explaining this fallacy and ask them whether they believe there is something somewhere he/she does not yet have evidence of. I certainly believe there are things that exist that I have no evidence of. For example there very well may be a particular cricket in the southwest United States that I have no evidence of.

Which brings me to another point here. There is more than just the conjunction fallacy at work here. There are also background beliefs. There are probably crickets in the southwest United States. But when and how did a walrus get to Pluto? (forget the whole juggling psychic were bit)

Perhaps the classic example of this sort of argument is Russel’s Teapot. Russel said:
“ … nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.”

So again, its not just something in space we don’t have evidence of.  It is something between the Earth and Mars and revolving in an elliptical orbit. It is not just something but a piece of China. And it is not just China but a China teapot. So we can see the logic of  conjunction fallacy at work reducing the probability.

But we also have background beliefs and evidence at work as well. Plantinga wrote:
“Clearly we have a great deal of evidence against teapotism. For example, as far as we know, the only way a teapot could have gotten into orbit around the sun would be if some country with sufficiently developed space-shot capabilities had shot this pot into orbit. No country with such capabilities is sufficiently frivolous to waste its resources by trying to send a teapot into orbit. Furthermore, if some country had done so, it would have been all over the news; we would certainly have heard about it. But we haven’t. And so on. There is plenty of evidence against teapotism.”

Another example might be if I say if we randomly pick a house in a New York suburb will there be three black horses in the Garage? You might say no. One reason would be conjunction fallacy. But also you would have back ground beliefs about what suburban houses likely have in their garage. If I asked does that house have light fixtures in it, well then you might say yes.

So Plantinga brings up evidence. And I think that may be a good way to describe what he is doing. But sometimes there are things that just don’t accord with our background beliefs. Now maybe these background beliefs are rational maybe they are not. Sometimes it may be difficult to completely understand or articulate why a certain claim seems true or untrue. Is there something beyond the known universe? In any case we have far more beliefs than we may even consciously realize.

For example, I never realized I believe plaid cats do not exist until last month. But I suppose I always believed it. (that is I was inclined to act in a way that accorded with the statement “there are no plaid cats”) This may be a sad fact of this kluge we call our brains. But it does not justify erecting some imagined burden of proof.  That is just piling error on top of error. When we consider 1) our background beliefs, 2) evidence and 3) the logic of the conjunction fallacy there is no reason to appeal to the burden of proof.

If you are so inclined I would love it if people would post a link to this blog in the comments of the above youtube video. Perhaps we can get a discussion going and deepen everyone’s understanding of this issue.

How Abstract Concepts can be Real

15 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by in atheism, Catholic, christianity, logic, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, rationality, Uncategorized

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I have noticed when I talk about abstract concepts such as morality and ask for evidence of them, I am being unclear to some. I don’t mean that morality is a physical thing somewhere that we can find like a moon orbiting Saturn. But I do mean it is real.

If I say I am taller than my daughter I am invoking an abstract concept – tallness. If I say prove tallness “exists in reality” (or provide evidence that tallness exists in reality) as opposed to our minds that might mean different things to different people. Some people would think I mean we must find an actual platonic-like form of tallness that is perfectly tall. That is not what I mean at all.

I think I “really” am taller than my daughter. That is in reality I am taller. The notion of tallness is something like, when I am standing, the highest part of my body is higher than hers (when she is standing) means I am taller than her. This tie in with reality makes the notion that I am taller than my daughter objectively true. It’s not just that I believe it is true. My belief does not make the statement true or false. Reality makes that statement true or false. That is because tallness has a tie in with reality.

Does morality have tie in with reality? If I believe something is wrong does my belief make it wrong? Or does reality determine whether my belief is true or false. The latter is what I mean when I say morality is objectively real. It is not the case that I necessarily think there is some perfectly moral good form (or perfectly evil form) somewhere that we need to find. What I am asking is 1) whether these concepts have a tie in with reality. And 2) if so, how we would know in what ways morality ties in with reality.

I think I answered the first question with respect to tallness. Yes tallness ties in with reality so we can say it is really and objectively true that I am taller than my daughter. What about the second question with respect to tallness? I think we have empirical evidence that I am really taller than my daughter. We can see me standing next to her. Even a blind person would be able to feel if we are standing, and then feel the top of my head relative to the top of her head. So we have empirical evidence of how “tallness” ties in with reality.

But what about “wrongness”? Here it seems we do not have empirical evidence.

Sure we can substitute concepts for “right and wrong” and “good and evil” and then assert that this new word is promoted by such and such conduct. But whenever I see this one of 2 things is always happening. Either they are leaving the new term so vague that it is pretty much vacuous, and thus the “definition” is vacuous. (that which makes us “thrive” or that which brings “happiness” etc.) Or they do in fact put some constraints on the definition and then I have to wonder if that is really good. I gave a hypothetical that approaches one of the latter views here: https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/12/19/a-moral-hypothetical/

In any case, I do think we can have empirical evidence of abstract ideas.  But in the case of morality the the evidence of morality is the evidence for God.  I talk more about that connection here:

https://trueandreasonable.co/2016/05/10/evidence-of-objective-moral-realism/

 

Evidence of Objective Moral Realism

10 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by in atheism, Athesism Christianity, Catholic, christianity, logic, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, rationality, Uncategorized

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A fellow blogger and sometime commentator here, Howie, asks some questions for theists.

https://truthiselusive.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/meaningful-sadness/

He wonders what effect would it have on our morals if we suddenly found out God did not exist.  It’s a great question and I found I could spend allot of time answering this.

 

In my response I indicate that “I would highly doubt any objective morality exists in reality, and if it did exist I would not believe we had any reliable way of knowing what it was.”

 

I have blogged extensively about the second part of that statement:

https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/02/24/a-problem-with-the-reliability-of-moral-beliefs/

Here I want to address the first part.  I want to explain why “I would I highly doubt any objective morality exists in reality” if I found out God did not exist.

 

But first, I want to reiterate that I do not think there is any logical inconsistency with atheism and belief in objective morality.   That said I am unaware of any actual evidence that an atheist would have for believing in objective morality.    That is, if we were to know there is no God then all the evidence we have for objective morality goes out the window.   It’s one thing to say objective morality is logically possible, it’s another to say we have some evidence that it is true.

 

To understand my position let’s start with a reverse question for atheists.   Let’s say you suddenly find out that the Christian God exists.  What would that mean for your views on morality?

 

I would think most people would agree that if the Christian God exists, then it’s very likely that objective moral realism is true.    God orchestrated our existence and reality so that we might be ultimately judged and this judgment will be just.  Reality would have been built with this moral feature.

 

From that, it follows that evidence that the Christian creator God exists is also evidence that objective morality is a feature of reality.   The evidence that the Christian God exists would be things like the miracles recorded in scripture.  Again people can debate whether this is strong evidence or weak evidence, and what if any burden of proof there is, but it is “some evidence.”  This also happens to be the only evidence that our objective reality contains moral characteristics. (I don’t mean to exclude other religions that teach of a Creator God who had a hand in creating a moral reality.  So yes evidence for Islam, or Judaism would also be evidence for objective moral realism but here for simplicity sake I am just taking Christianity versus atheism.)   So the logic is exhibit A suggest exhibit B.  Exhibit B Suggests exhibit C.  A = miracles B=Christian God exists and C = Objective moral realism is true.

 

Do we have other evidence that objective morals are actually a feature of reality?  I really don’t think so.  Again because “wrongness” cannot be detected by our 5 senses it seems impossible to have evidence of it outside of testimonial evidence from someone who is not bound by our 5 senses.

 

The fact that we feel strong guttural emotional responses when we see certain “good” or “bad” actions is not, to my mind, evidence that there is actually a real objective truth to moral claims.  However, if something with a supernatural understanding designed us then of course we might think our emotions are properly cued to these real moral truths.

 

So the Christian God existing would be strong evidence that real objective morals would exist.  If we were to eliminate that evidence of objective moral reality existing (Say because we “find out” no God exists) then we are hard pressed to find *any* evidence of objective moral reality.   That’s not to say its logically impossible for objective moral reality to exist without God.  Nonetheless, it would be a huge blow to objective moral realism’s case to lose – exhibit B – the existence of God.

Emotion Reason and Truth

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Morality

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I had read an article a while back about the fact that political partisans mainly use emotional centers of the brain when analyzing statements and claims of various politicians. “We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning,” said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. “What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts.” The title of the article states “Democrats and Republicans Both Adept at Ignoring Facts, Study Finds”

Ok this article clearly condemns these partisans when it comes to their political thinking.  The underlying assumption we all hold is that if you are using the emotional part of your brain to draw conclusions instead of the reasoning parts then your conclusions will be unreliable.     Is this just for politics?  What about science, math, religion, or morals?

Well I don’t have all the answers or really the full answer on any of them.  But I think it is quite clear when it comes to morals we say the opposite of politics.  That is when people don’t primarily use emotional centers of the brain when drawing moral conclusions their conclusions are unreliable.

Where is the evidence?  It is coming in droves thanks to the use of MRI scans of the brain.   In particular when we compare the psychopaths brain with that of normal people. There have been numerous studies of psychopaths.  Psychopaths are people who distinguish themselves in society by at times behaving horrendously immorally.   It’s not only the murders, but also the extensive lying, and lack of guilt for their actions, that help separate them out.    MRI studies have found that they lack certain emotions that normal people experience.  It is not necessarily a complete lack of emotion but it is shown to be substantially diminished in test after test. (although it does appear they can turn on these emotions when they want)

However generally as a group psychopaths do not lack any ability to reason.  In fact, they seem to use the reasoning portion of their brain more than normal people.  So for example when psychaths were compared with normal people and asked to determine the emotional state of a protagonist they both were equally able to determine that person’s emotional state.  But psychopath used reason where as normal people used more of their emotional brains.

The study stated in its abstract: “The results emphasize that although psychopathic patients show no deficits in reasoning about other people’s emotion if an explicit evaluation is demanded, they use divergent neural processing strategies that are related to more rational, outcome-oriented processes.” This article discusses this study and others.

There are other philosophers who have drawn similar conclusions: http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~snichols/Papers/PsychopathsFinal.pdf http://www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/mrvargas/Papers/VNFinal.pdf

One of the best known psychologists to draw this conclusion is Dr.  Haidt.  He published an article called “The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail”, 14 years ago.  His thesis seems to be continually bolstered by later mri testing.

In the end I still maintain that reason and logic can play a part in moral decision making.   But the empirical evidence is quite overwhelming that, for most of us, we are primarily basing our moral views on emotional mechanisms.

Why is this relevant to Christianity?  Well mainly I think it is just interesting in it’s own right.  But also if you have read my other blogs you will see there is a view held by some that our moral judgments are the result of reasoning processes just like the reasoning that brings us scientific advances.   They argue that since our reasoning is a reliable mechanic to truth finding, we can rely on our “moral reasoning” for moral truth. Well as it turns out this idea of “moral reasoning” is for the most part a myth that science is debunking every day.

I would maintain that if naturalism is correct we shouldn’t think emotional responses will bring about truth beliefs in morality any more than it will bring about truth in politics.    If however, you think God wrote the moral law on our hearts, then you have a good reason to trust your moral emotions.  The fact that our moral views are driven by emotions fits quite well with Christian thought.

Pascal’s wager without God and without Hell

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

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This blog is a response to some questions posed by David W in my earlier blog. I drafted this response and decided I should put it up as a separate blog, because it covers an important point of how I am coming at these questions.

I think you will understand where I am coming from if we first drop the idea of God all together.   My strongest reasons for believing in God come out of my understanding of morality.  So you can’t really gloss over my views on morality and start asking about my reason to believe in God.  So let’s just think about morality and specifically whether the moral realist’s position is true.  For example is it a moral fact that what Hitler did to millions of Jews was evil regardless of what anyone thinks?

It seems the holocaust either was really wrong or it wasn’t.  Now in general I think the actual “evidence” of moral realism is pretty weak.   For example I think there is *no* empirical evidence that the moral realist view is correct.  Sure we all might see the photos of corpses or even have seen the corpses or the families of those Hitler killed directly.   Looking at this might cause us to be repulsed.  That emotional response might somehow yield a strong belief that what Hitler did was morally wrong.     I do not think strongly believing something (especially when it’s due to an emotional response) is itself evidence for what we believe.    There is no empirical indicia of wrongness that the moral realist can see, and point out to a Nihilist.

A nihilist will look at the same pictures and there is no reason to think he does not experience the same emotional response of repugnance.    His emotional response would lead to him to try to prevent that sort of thing from happening.  In fact a moral nihilist might take more actions to prevent it from happening.   But if the nihilist is consistent, he would not claim he is trying to prevent the holocaust because it is morally wrong.   Why he would try to prevent it is an interesting question that might have a variety of answers.  Richard Joyce is as philosophical nihilist (although he doesn’t like the term “nihilist”) who I agree with on many issues and have allot of respect for.  He has given glimpses into his views on this but never really fully explored this.

But I would say though that if I were to accept the view that no one should ever believe anything unless they have empirical evidence to support it, then there is no way I could be a moral realist.  But I think rational people consider more than empirical evidence and indeed more than the probability of a belief being true when deciding whether or not to accept it.  They also consider the consequences.

Let’s think this through with respect to moral realism.  I have no empirical evidence that moral realism is true.  But I also understand that it might still be true because it is really not the type of thing I would expect to have empirical evidence for.  So what to do?  Well I think there are people who would tend to say I must reject moral realism until I have evidence of it being true.  Others would say they don’t know what to make of it.  But some people would say they are going to believe it anyway.   For me I will consider the consequences of believing or not believing.

Now moral realist’s view either corresponds with reality or it does not.   I.e., it is either a true view or a false view.  And let’s just say we either accept moral realism or we reject it.  I.e., we either believe it or we do not believe it.

So ok that leaves 4 possibilities:

Possibility 1) We believe in moral realism but in fact it is not true.  Well then I hold a false belief.  But holding that false belief is not really morally wrong.  Why?  Because if this situation holds true then there is no real moral right or wrong.    Now it might be wrong in some peoples morality that they create in their head – ie. a relativist view.  But you know what?   I don’t really care.  That consequence has no weight for me.  Not any more than whether my actions correspond with any other sort of make believe.  So the consequences of my holding the false view that morality is objectively real is basically zero.

Possibility 2) What if I hold the view that moral realism is false when it really is true?   Things get a bit more sticky here.  Now my holding that false belief might have some real moral implications.  Moreover I might be inclined to not be very concerned with what might or might not be really moral.  (After all, I don’t believe in it)  This might lead me to not carefully consider the different views of what is morally right and wrong or carefully consider what basis people have for giving me their moral views.  In the end I might lead a life doing things I truly should not have done and not doing things I really should have done.   I would have lived my life wrong in a real sense.  This is basically what I am trying to avoid.  And so to the extent I am trying to avoid that then rejecting a belief in moral realism seems to be a bad way to go.

Possibility 3) Now what if I correctly reject moral realism.  Well then yes I would have got that one right, but it doesn’t “really” matter.  Why doesn’t it really matter?  Because if moral realism is false then nothing really matters.   So again there is no good reason to reject moral realism despite the lack of evidence.

Possibility 4) So the final option is that I believe in moral realism and moral realism is true.    I think this is really the possibility that we need to focus on.    Let’s accept that moral realism is true.

So a pascal wager like analysis leads to the conclusion that we should believe in moral realism.  But now how do we know what is really moral or not?    That is our next step as a rational person right?  If what I said earlier is true then we should believe in/accept moral realism.  But what is really moral or not moral?

It is only at this point that God comes in.  After careful consideration it seems to me that it is impossible that we can with any reliability believe what is moral or not, if we evolved without any supernatural guidance.   I argue why this is here.

From that conclusion I do a similar analysis and conclude a rational person should believe in God here.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! God’s Existence Proven!!

11 Saturday Jan 2014

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How much would you pay for this?   19 thousand dollars?  30 thousand dollars?   For just 3 easy payments of 19.99 you too can own the video in which I prove the existence of God!

Well I have been posting on some atheists websites.  And a very common response to just about anything I comment on is “prove God exists!”  I almost feel like I should be able to say “Ok open up Skype and watch me prove it!”  I don’t fault them.   I’m sure we all would have liked more certainty at one point or other.  But proving things isn’t so easy.

When I was a freshman in college I took my first philosophy course, which happened to cover Plato, and I was completely enthralled with logic.  Logic came easy to me and I really loved it.   I can still remember making a sincere mental oath that I would follow logical principles no matter where they led!  In fact, I never abandoned that oath and I still love logic.

As an undergraduate one of my majors was philosophy.  So my oath to sincerely follow logic lead me down many different paths.  But one day I read a chapter out of a book by a philosopher named George I. Mavrodes.  He really burst my bubble.  You see I used to think to prove anything I just needed to come up with a sound argument.  A “sound” argument is one where all the premises are true and the truth of the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises.  (A “valid” argument is one where the premises are not necessarily true but *if* they are true the truth of the conclusion necessarily follows)  Unfortunately I had to concede Professor Mavrodes demonstrated that logical proofs were subjective.   Blasphemy!

How awful.  Logical proofs subjective?   Well yeah he gave a proof of God’s existence which I had to agree was likely sound but nevertheless would clearly not be a “proof” to anyone.   Perhaps you are as crestfallen as I was, so let me let you down nice and easy and explain the problem.

One of the beautiful things about a sound argument is the premises just have to be true.  It doesn’t matter if anyone believes them; they just have to be true.  Well that beauty is sort of the problem as well.  I can offer lots of sound arguments that prove God exists but if you don’t actually believe the premises (even though they are in fact true) it will not “prove” anything to you.

This works both ways I might add.  Let’s consider an atheist “proof” that the Christian God does not exist:

Premise1) “If the Christian God (one that was all knowing all powerful creator of everything and thoroughly good etc.) existed then there would be no evil in the world.”

Premise 2) “There Is evil in the world.”

Conclusion:  “Therefore, the Christian God does not exist.”

Now we should be able to agree on whether this argument is “valid.”  I think it is.  Some atheists would likely view this as a sound argument.  That is they think the premises are in fact true and the conclusion necessarily follows.   Now for some Christians this, or something similar, did act as a proof that the Christian God does not exist and they may have abandoned their faith.   This has no doubt caused many thoughtful Christians to think long and hard.   Others would say they don’t believe the first premise.  If, in fact, they do not believe that premise then this argument (even if it were sound) will not be a proof of anything.

Now when I hear atheist ask for a proof of God I picture someone waiting for me to serve the tennis ball so they could smack it back saying that they do not believe one or more premises.  It really doesn’t matter that the premises are true.      I can of course then try to “prove” those premises by presenting other premises which yield the first premises as a conclusion.   But of course they can say they don’t believe those either.    Well this could go on infinitely, and these busy days, who has time for that?    So what use is Logical argument?

I think it’s of great value.  But it’s really of value mainly when people are open minded and intellectually honest about what they think.   They need to be open to discuss the matter so acceptable premises can be found.   The idea that someone will come up with a logical proof that will convince everyone God exists is extremely unlikely.  But I think using logic can convince some people that believing in God is the rational way to go.  Putting ideas in logical format with premises and a conclusion is also a great way to help identify where disagreements are.  Is there a disagreement about one or more premises or is the disagreement about the validity of the argument ?(that is the logical connections between the premises and conclusion).

Well anyway I said I would give a proof of God so here is one:

P1) If anything is sacred then God exists.

P2) Human life is sacred.

Conclusion:  therefore God exists.

Now I think this is a sound argument.   Will it prove anything to anyone?  That depends on whether persons thinks human life is sacred to begin with.

That said I will post more in depth logical arguments that it is rational to believe in God.   I will also often break up arguments into premises and conclusion format when I think it is helpful.    Sorry if this is not what you were hoping for.  I do offer a 30 day money back guarantee.

True and Rational

05 Sunday Jan 2014

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Rational:
What is rational is subject to a bit more controversy than how truth is understood. Accordingly I am just going to gloss over some ideas that I tend to believe about what it means to be rational.

First I think I would distinguish the irrationality of people who are insane. It seems to me that this sort of irrationality is beyond the person’s control. We are trying to be rational. To the extent we are trying to become rational we to some extent believe we have some control over this. Indeed I would say that an important part of being rational is recognizing what is beyond our control and acting accordingly.
I also tend to think of being rational in terms of game theory. That is make rational or irrational choices. This I think can extend to what beliefs we hold – to the extent we can choose them.
So just a quick outline of what it means to be rational would be:
1) Not be illogical
2) Not be overly concerned with things beyond your control
3) Make choices based on analysis of the risks and benefits of your alternatives
4) Rational people tend not to go on emotion.

Some people will notice that I do not include Clifford’s claim “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” Frankly this claim has always seemed self-defeating and therefore in violation of the first principle I outlined – don’t be illogical.

That is, I do not have sufficient evidence to believe “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence” and so believing that principle would violate it.

This is just an off the cuff outline. Perhaps we could add some other concepts to this outline. For example I think rational people consider evidence for and against their position. But I think to the extent there is a difference between being “rational” and being “reasonable” I would say that belongs more along the lines of being reasonable, but think it could fit here as well. And the terms reasonable and being rational are very close anyway.