Rationalizing: How do we know for sure that we aren't?

How honest are you with yourself? Do you deceive yourself much? How do you know?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(psychology)

I have caught myself giving persuasive reasons to justify my actions that appeared to be valid, but that I found, after reflection or sudden insight, not to be the real motivating reasons behind my actions. Rationalization is a kind of defense mechanism posited by Freud and accepted by many, if not most, if not all psychologists.

I don’t doubt that I rationalize. But sometimes I’m not sure if I am rationalizing or not. I can be very convincing to myself. Is there any way to know for certain that I am being genuine or not?

This dilemma seems to parallel other famous skeptical dilemmas:

I know that I dream.
How do I tell the different between being awake and being in a dream?
How do I know that I am not dreaming right now?

I know that I rationalize.
How do I tell the difference between an honest justification and a rationalized one?
How do I know that when I justify ‘x’ I am not rationalizing?

I think it is easy to say to the former of the two skeptics… “For all I know, I may all be dreaming this very moment. But it serves no purpose and answers no questions to think much about the possibility. Therefore it is unproductive and silly to carry on this line of questioning and let the idea bother us.”

But I don’t think it is as easy to dismiss the latter of the two skeptics… “For all I know, I may be rationalizing this very moment. But it serves no purpose and answers no questions to think much about the possibility. Therefore it is unproductive and silly to carry on this line of questioning and let the idea bother us.”

…because it is actually very useful and enlightening to know the real reasons behind our actions, and it is therefore important to question and reflect on whether or not our justifications are rationalizations and why.

But if we are to look into our own motivation and reasoning…how do we know what is genuine and what is self-deception?

I would suggest that we have a tendency to give the best advice to everyone besides ourselves. What I mean is, there are often occasions where you would suggest that someone should not have acted in a certain manner, or should not act in a certain manner, and you may think of some empirical reasoning or think of some inferential reasons why they should not have, or should not, take x action.

Anyway, when it comes to giving advice to many people I often realize that there may have been occasions where I took an action that I advised them against, or that I did not take an action I advised the person in question to take.

The question then becomes, “Why did I commit this action when I advised person x against same?” Specifically speaking, there are many different factors that would make one person committing action x sensible (or understandable) while it may not be sensible or understandable for another person. For instance, if you have $200 of discretionary income, you may choose to go to a casino and go gambling whereas another person might not have any discretionary income and go to the casino and gamble with the same $200 dollars, only it’s their rent money. There’s a difference there.

However, imagine if both yourself and the person that you are advising not to go to the casino were gambling with $200 that is supposed to go to the rent. In that situation, any justifications that you come up with that allow your gambling are rationalizations.

Also, if you suggest that some person not gamble for religious/moral reasons (regardless of financial situation) and then you yourself gamble and somehow internally justify your decision, you’re looking at a rationalization.

For that reason, in my opinion, the best way to determine if you have rationalized a previous decision is to attempt to determine whether or not you would advise (or, specifically, if you would have advised) another person to take/not take an action based upon the exact situation. One way to limit rationalization (I don’t think it is 100% preventable) is to imagine yourself outside of the situation completely and advising someone in the exact same circumstances as to what action you honestly believe they should take. If you can be completely honest with yourself when undertaking this exercise, then you will limit your rationalizations.

All human thought and action is repression, re-direction of energy away from itself, that is, self-deception. The unconscious self-negates, deceives itself of necessity, and this gives rise to what we call “consciousness”, to “us” as the self. So naturally, because all conscious activity and thought is self-negative in nature, we must rationalize this from ourselves so that we dont realise it, otherwise consciousness-in-itself, the objects of consciousness (beliefs, ideas, etc) would dissolve and disintegrate.

All basic non-introspected, “automatic” conscious human thinking and action is repression, and all introspection upon this repression (conscious thinking/action) is, necessarily, rationalization and denial. What you call “truth” or “self” or “self-honesty” is merely conscious activity of which you have not yet seen through the rationalization/denial thereof, and so assume it to be “real” as it presents itself to you, which of course, in fact, it is not.

Thanks for a great read in 2010 (even though it died off so quickly).

All of reason is rationalization. Science is rationalization that builds its own particularizations of reality by pursuing the path that can be rationalized per its standards of truthvalue. Like the mere human fool, it discards whatever can not be rationalized.

I would imagine that the entire point is to discard (as an ideology but retain for practical purposes) what cannot be rationalized as that which cannot be rationalized is self-deception.

I have always thought and said that to deceive one’s-self is very foolish…

Then we are all very foolish as I have not yet met a person (including myself) that doesn’t have a fetish for self deception.

Does rationalizing always have to do with self-deception? Can it not sometimes be a working out of problems?

Yes, it can solve one problem but in creates another two or more problems in doing so.

Sometimes, and sometimes it is just the other way around. :slight_smile:

I have never witnessed it being the other way around… yet.

Rationalizing may be an attempt to make sense of what appears to be a senseless situation., e.g, why did she die in the accident?

Have you never been told (for example by your father) in the absolutely right way, that this or that what you are (or another one is) doing does make no sense at all (so that you had to agree)?

Rationalizing (as opposed to being rational) is merely making excuses in an effort to subvert accusation and judgement.

See JSS’ explanation in the previous post.

The enlightenment, for example, reduces fear, angst, superstition, … and so on. But now it seems that there is merely a small rest of enlightenment.

psychologytoday.com/blog/hid … nalization
I agree with what you are inferring as an idea but I just don’t agree that we can call it rationalization (maybe truthization).

But does the word “rationalization” not also have a positive meaning? I know, the psychologization has changed the meaning of the word “rationalization”, but the word had a different meaning before that psychologization. I prefer the non-psychologized meaning of the word “rationalization”. Or is this not any longer possible in English? Am I now not “welcomed” to the psycholgism club? :wink: