Rationality Only for the Rich? The Incompatibility of Pursuing Rationality and Escaping Poverty

This chapter argues that many people living in poverty face a dilemma: they have to choose be-tween pursuing rationality, or an escape from poverty. These two goals are in tension because certain beliefs that are crucial for one’s chances of success qualify as irrational. After showing how the dilemma arises on both a reasons-responsiveness and a coherence-conception of ra-tionality, the chapter argues for its perniciousness. Since rationality has significant theoretical, practical, and social value, we should not exclude people experiencing poverty from it – the di-lemma cannot be easily brushed aside. The final part of the chapter discusses various ways of resolving it and cautions against sone such way, namely, against revising our conception of ra-tionality. Instead, the dilemma should be seen as exposing a type of hypocrisy, which can moti-vate systemic change: if as a society, we want people to be rational, and to be able to escape poverty, then we need to make it possible to do so.