The rational, the irrational, and the rest

I'm think of myself as a rationalist, I might say. To the best of my ability, I use reason to deduce what the world is like, and I do my utmost to avoid basing any beliefs on the irrational.

But, you might say, and already I am taking a deep breath, But surely you aren't always rational! So many thoughts and feelings and emotions and opinions…there's no rational justification for why you think a flower is pretty or a kitten is cute¹; even you, o staunch self-declared Champion of Reason!—Are not even you irrational in your beliefs about subjective things?

At this point I might take a step back and slowly count to ten, but that's my problem; some things just annoy me very easily. Now that we're all calm, let's have another look at the above argument—probably not so very different from something you have heard, or perhaps even said?—and tear it to shreds.

It's really very easy and won't take a lot of time or space. There is no such thing as a subjective belief, or an irrational opinion, or for that matter an objective opinion or subjective fact. Beliefs and opinions are positions, but they are positions on different issues: A belief is a position on an objective issue, where there is a right and wrong answer, and where facts and evidence can be used and stringed together by rational arguments. An opinion, meanwhile, is a position on a subjective issue, which is by definition an issue on which there is not a right and wrong position. (Read this if you disagree.) Anyone but a small child realises that if I say It's a fact that kittens are cute it's a nonsensical statement (though see below); it is my opinion that kittens are cute. If I opine that (say) kittens are cuter than puppies, while you think that puppies are cuter than kittens, there's no such thing as right or wrong. We may reasonably agree to disagree, or unreasonably refuse to, but there's no such thing as proving the other wrong.

Of course, it remains true that opinions may be based on facts (more precisely, beliefs about what the facts are). If your opinion that puppies are not cute is based on having only ever seen the puppies of the Hairless Chinese Crested dog, then some new facts may cause you to re-evaluate your position on subjective matters. Or it may not. Perhaps you just don't find puppies cute. The point is, beliefs and opinions are intertwined, but there is a fundamental difference, and it is good to be aware of it.

The answer to the hypothetical (but, alas, not very hypothetical) argument at the beginning of this little essay, then, is this: I strive to be rational rather than irrational in matters of fact and belief; in matters of the purely subjective, rationality and irrationality have no meaning; these are un-rational things, orthogonal to logic, and insofar as your question makes any sense at all, the answer is no: I am not irrational when I take up arbitrary positions on subjective issues, because there is no rationality to defy.

Now you may protest that I'm only arguing semantics, so I'll dissect two pet peeves for the price of one and point out that semantics refer to the meaning of the elements of language (words, sentences, etc.), and to the study thereof, and if you really mean to protest that You're only arguing about the meaning of what I said!—then, well, yes, and I don't really know how to tackle your argument without considering its meaning through the semantics of its presentation.

¹ Actually, I gather there's a sound evolutionary reason for why we find puppies and kittens cute: They share those infantile traits which we have evolved to find adorable in order to trigger our nurturing instincts: Proportionally large heads, small snouts or noses, large eyes, and so on. These features are common to many (most? all? placental?) mammals and so probably go back a long way in our evolutionary history. I'm sure you still get my point, though.