The belief that rationality alone is sufficient for navigating all of human life—that emotions, values, relationships, and experiences can all be reduced to logical terms and evaluated by rational standards. Hyperrationalism mistakes the map for the territory, the tool for the task. It's the fallacy of those who try to logic their way through love, to reason their way through grief, to argue their way through values. Hyperrationalism produces technically correct answers to the wrong questions, logically valid arguments about things that can't be argued. It's reason as a hammer, and everything looking like a nail—until you try to hammer love and find it's not a nail.
Example: "He tried to logic her into staying: 'If you loved me, you'd want me to be happy. If you want me to be happy, you'd stay. Therefore, if you loved me, you'd stay.' She left anyway. The Fallacy of Hyperrationalism had failed: love doesn't follow logic, and logic doesn't capture love. He had the right form and the wrong substance—a perfect argument about nothing that mattered."
by Abzugal February 21, 2026
Get the Fallacy of Hyperrationalism mug.