re: My first "I hate roads" Thread of 2017 (Trigger Warning: Meme Inside)

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I must not because I certainly missed the development where people became rational

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In making this point, Mises in Human Action (p. 19) writes "Human action is necessarily always rational. The term 'rational action' is therefore pleonastic and must be rejected as such. When applied to the ultimate ends of action, the terms rational and irrational are inappropriate and meaningless. The ultimate end of action is always the satisfaction of some desires of the acting man."

Seemingly irrational action is rational, that is, has an aim. To appraise it as irrational, the appraiser merely imposes some other external source of value. Mises writes (p. 104): "However one twists things, one will never succeed in formulating the notion of 'irrational' action whose 'irrationality' is not founded upon an arbitrary judgment of value."

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