As humans, we all make irrational decisions throughout the course of our lives, which have the potential for long-term consequences. We might drink too much or smoke. Perhaps, if we are millennials, we go for brunch instead of saving for a house. However, most of us do not have adequate power for the consequences of our irrationality to have wide-reaching impacts. Perhaps one of the hardest choices that the leader of a nuclear state can make is that of starting a nuclear war.

Donald Trump wrote in his book The Art of the Deal that “a little hyperbole never hurt”, a mantra he has employed adeptly throughout his short and explosive political career. From suggesting that Obama and Hillary founded Isis, to insisting that he has big hands, Trump repeatedly makes irrational and unsubstantiated statements on his mission to Make America Great Again. However, few would accuse him of irrationality when he admitted last week that receiving the nuclear codes was “very, very, very scary”. Few might disagree. With his access to the nuclear button and the US arsenal of 975 nuclear warheads, small hands could one day cause big problems.

Trump’s feelings of unease are shared by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, who announced on 26 January that the Doomsday Clock had been moved 30 seconds closer to midnight as a result of Trump’s election. They accused the President of making ‘disturbing comments about the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons’, which he’s even done via Twitter. According to these nuclear experts, who include 15 Nobel laureates, this is the closest that we have come to oblivion in 64 years.

But it is not just experts who fear Trump’s control of America’s nuclear strike capacity. In recognition of the great risk and responsibility of individual control of international nuclear defence policy, two Democratic congressmen have performed an intervention by proposing a new bill that would make it harder for Trump to use nuclear weapons. The purpose of this legislation – known as the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act, 2017, is to prohibit the conduct of a first-use nuclear strike, without a declaration of war by Congress. It is notably the first time in history that Congress has attempted to prevent their own president from having the final word on American nuclear defence issues. Whilst the bill is unlikely to pass, due to his large Republican majority, its existence casts doubt on the President’s ability to handle this onerous responsibility. His skills in international diplomacy and his understanding of nuclear defence policy have recently been subject to close scrutiny. Here, we are consider the alternative truth of the matter, as prescribed by his presidential media guidelines.

Should it be successful, will this seminal piece of legislation relieve the burden of individual decision making, or create chaos? Should any President have complete control of first strike nuclear action? We need to contemplate the rationality of this level of individual power, and whether any of us are really capable of making sensible decisions at all.

The psychological determinants of presidential decision-making have previously been nuanced and complex, rooted in the individual’s experience and an understanding of society, nuclear policy, geopolitics and history. President Donald Trump seems brash and irrational in comparison. Let’s explore how different factions of the social sciences define rationality, to discover if Trump or the new act is rational.

Trump, warming up his special button-pressing finger, just in case. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

On a Quest for Trump’s Rationality

So, is Donald Trump irrational enough to detonate the nukes in the blink of an eye? What do we mean by questioning his ‘rationality’ anyway? Well, it depends upon your disciplinary allegiance. There are lots of exciting and irrational arguments within economics, sociology and psychology on this topic, which can often lead to exhilarating interdepartmental punch-ups (this is an alternative fact). So, what do we think about maintaining sole presidential command of the USA’s nuclear deterrent?

If we consider economic rationality though rational choice theory, then the potential for nuclear annihilation due to one individual’s awful judgement becomes a surprisingly reasonable option. Within economics, the meaning of the term “rational” is somewhat different to our more usual sociological and day-to-day experience of the word. It is goal-oriented, evaluative, narrower and meaner. It’s founded in individualism and logic. There is no room for random, impulsive, conditioned or learned behaviours within economic rationality. Actually, if the legislation is not passed and Trump nukes us all to achieve world domination and create a blank slate for his newest Trump Tower - then this would be an excellent example of instrumental rationality. This is where an individual seeks a goal, and adapts their actions to achieve it without necessarily reflecting upon the worthiness of that objective. It is measured by the rather formidable-sounding ‘axioms of choice’.

If we question Trump’s rationality from a criminological perspective then we get a different outcome. Again, criminologists might consider the President to be a rational actor, however his conforming or deviant behaviour would be chosen through a cost benefit analysis of pleasure versus pain. This hedonistic calculus is directed toward the maximisation of individual pleasure, and is controlled by the perception of the swiftness, severity and certainty of potential pain that will follow an act that is judged to be in violation of the social contract. Perhaps, from a criminological perspective allowing Donny his nuclear football and biscuit isn’t such a dreadful idea, as long as he was aware of the legal consequences.

For psychologists and cognitive scientists, humans are often considered rational in principle, yet fail to be in practice. There is an acceptance within this academic community that we do not always update our beliefs in a logical manner, or make decisions that align with our goals. This irrationality affects what we believe and do, it leaves us hampered by shortcomings like anger, fear and confirmation bias, but is also what makes us human. Essentially, our capacity to behave in a logical and rational manner is extremely limited, and we are all to some degree irrational agents. Perhaps this is a good reason why no one individual, presidential or otherwise, should have exclusive control over anything that has the power to affect millions of people.

Consider how many accepted behaviours actually seem ludicrous when you think about it for just a moment. Photograph: schulzhattingen/Getty Images

We are all irrational

So, whilst traditional economists may consider Trump’s recent behaviour to be entirely ‘rational’, different experts in criminology and sociology might take a more hard-line view of his risk to nuclear defence policy. Perhaps this tells us more about the schisms within the different disciplines of social and human sciences, than about Donald Trump’s presidency?

But who needs experts, anyway? From Michael Gove declaring that we’ve ‘had enough of experts’ during the Brexit campaign, to Trump’s love of the ‘poorly educated’, and his team’s attempts to normalise the Orwellian notion of ‘alternative facts’; populist politics has dismissed the importance of expertise. “I like to think that I have…instinct” wrote Trump in ‘The Art of the Deal’, ‘That’s why I don’t hire a lot of number-crunchers, and I don’t trust fancy marketing surveys. I do my own surveys and draw my own conclusions.” Whether the President will let expertise trump intuition on nuclear issues, remains to be seen. We can only wait with bated breath to discover how he decides to use his powers of irrational agency.

Dr Becky Alexis-Martin is based at the University of Southampton, Dr Thom Davies is based at the University of Warwick.