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the burden of proof rests on the person who wants to say that the rational model of the individual is inappropriate
In general, I think it's valuable to figure out who bears the burden of proof. Oftentimes, it's wrongly assigned.
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To me, using the word "rational" to describe habitual behavior that makes a person hate themselves and their life for most of their waking hours is a curious practice that belies other uses of the word.
You can do it - we are doing it - but it lacks parsimony in the ways I think matter. Or rather: it's extremely parsimonious in a nonsensical way that breaks badly in complex settings. But beyond what I've already said, I have no crisp alternative.
The better formulation is probably in the realm of philosophy, as @Undisciplined mentioned previously.
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We shouldn't overstate the issue though. One of my colleagues wrote a book called "Escaping Paternalism" which criticizes behavioral economics for over emphasizing the importance of its results, and in any case being internally inconsistent because if you claim that people can't make rational decisions, then on what basis do you pronounce one choice better than another? By what basis do you decide in which direction to "nudge" them?
Assuming unity of preferences within the individual, while clearly not true in all circumstances, is still probably the best approximation to human decision making and the best approximation to some concept of "welfare" that we can loosely define
At least, I would argue that the burden of proof rests on the person who wants to say that the rational model of the individual is inappropriate, and they also need to present some viable alternative.
That being said, to those who implicitly or explicitly have internalized the rational model, they should also recognize the limitations thereof