timtyler comments on Rationality quotes: September 2010 - Less Wrong
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Is it permissible to assert that rationality is about winning? Hume might argue that "winning" is about ends, whereas "rationality" is about means.
-- D. Hume
However, it is sometimes argued that the word "rational" can be applied to ends, as well as means.
--M. Phipps in "Must Rational Preferences Be Transitive?"
It appears that Mr. Khan's expressed preferences are very likely transitive, but it is difficult to see how this could be argued regarding Mr. Bagehot's preferences. Unlike Mr Khan, Mr Bagehot makes his own desires dependent upon the expressed opinions of those around him.
That's a Yudkowsky theme:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/7i/rationality_is_systematized_winning/
http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Rationalists_should_win