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This is Philosophy Bites with me Nigel Warburton and me David Edmonds

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Most people are more scared in a plane than a car.

That seems irrational since cars are more dangerous in planes.

This is just one illustration of how irrationality permeates our lives.

philosophers extol the value of rationality. So how does Lisa Botillotti of Birmingham University apply her rational faculties to the puzzles of irrationality.

Lisa Bautilotti, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Hi, thank you.

The topic we're going to focus on is irrationality.

Now, that's a really important topic for philosophers because they tend to be obsessed with giving reasons, rational behavior, rational explanations.

So can we just start by getting clear what irrationality is and how does it enter our lives?

Yeah, certainly there are different forms of irrationality, but I think what is in common among all of them is that there is something going wrong,

there is something that we do not accept.

So irrationality is like a value concept almost.

It's almost like sciences, a term that we use honorificly.

When we want to praise something, we say that it's rational.

When we want to condemn something, we say that it is irrational.

There are different forms of irrationality of course and I guess

one form that particularly interests philosophers and interests me a lot is epistemic irrationality. That would be something that applies both to agents and beliefs that agents have.

For instance, a belief would be irrational in that sense if it's not well supported by evidence or if it's not

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