The Rationalization Trap

Finding ways to justify our preferences.

Intellectual dishonesty manifests in two ways: rationalization and attachment to our own ideas.

Rationalization is an excuse a person constructs to provide a logical or justificatory explanation for a behavior or an idea, or making a painful or uncomfortable situation more acceptable. We resort to rationalization to justify actions that conflict with our guiding principles, values and aims.

Basically, we are saying that in order to do something we think we shouldn’t do, we have to come up with a rationalization, meaning a “story” or justification that allows us to do it regardless.

Becoming attached to our own ideas means clinging to our beliefs, adapting reality to our ideas rather than adapting our ideas to reality (the Bed of Procrustes).

As we will see later in this chapter, the Bed of Procrustes is a tale from Greek mythology that can be used as a metaphor for getting a new piece of information and then, instead of adjusting our view of the world to the new piece of information, we “adjust Reality” to our pre-existing view of the world.

Rationalization

An example of rationalization is described in Aesop’s fable, “The Fox and the Grapes.” Unable to reach the grapes despite all his efforts, the fox tells himself the story that they were unripe and therefore not worth the effort.

When the fox decides to give up, no new information has appeared. The information he has when he gives up is the same information he had when he attempted to get the grapes. If he gave up simply because he realized it was impossible to get the grapes, that would be intellectually honest. But instead he tells himself that the reason he gave up trying to get the grapes is that the grapes were not ripe – which is a lie, because if he really believed the grapes were not ripe, he would not have attempted to get them in the first place. He made up a “story” that the grapes are not ripe to rationalize/justify his failure.

In other words, the fox knows the grapes are juicy, or he would not have wanted them in the first place. However, he rationalizes reality, claiming that, after all, the grapes were unripe and not worth attempting to obtain only because he failed to obtain them.

In another example, if we firmly believe that we should not steal and then have the chance to get a good deal by buying a stolen product, we might tell ourselves the “story” or excuse that, after all, it had already been stolen and we simply bought it from the thief. In any case, we tell ourselves that had we not bought it, someone else surely would.

Consider the example of insider trading (in the case where it’s legal, such as certain situations where politicians are allowed to do this). If you are the one on the inside, you might believe that you are taking advantage of a great opportunity in a good way – that you were smart to develop the right network and get the right information that enabled you to become an insider and make this deal.

But if you are an outsider, you may believe something completely different. You see insiders trading and making money but you trade and always lose money. You will say that insider trading is terrible, and that the insiders are taking advantage of you.

This is often the case with success: the one who succeeds feels good about his success while those who do not succeed say it’s unfair.

One further example: a married man firmly believes that no one should betray their partner. Unfortunately, he falls in love with a gorgeous woman and decides to cheat on his wife. To justify the inconsistency, he tells himself the story that a woman so beautiful is a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and that if she had been even slightly less beautiful, he would definitely have stuck to his principles.

This is “mental gymnastics” so the man can go against his beliefs and not feel bad about doing so. He has a belief, he wants to go against it, but he doesn’t want to feel bad about it. By rationalizing, he can still do it and avoid feeling bad about it.

Not becoming attached to our beliefs

It is important not to become attached to our beliefs, because this makes it much harder to question them, leading us to defend our opinions at all costs, even in the face of new evidence.

For example, the belief in Mary and the “miraculous” conception of Jesus has been challenged by newer and more accurate translations of the Scriptures. In Hebrew, the term almah meant “young woman.” The term was translated into Greek as parthenos, which instead means “virgin,” and this term was later used in the Gospels. Despite this new discovery, which casts serious doubt on the belief in Mary’s virginity, believers have largely remained attached to the version of the miraculous conception, unwilling to abandon the old interpretation even in the face of objective evidence.

If the original Hebrew Bible had said that Mary was a virgin, then it would be perfectly reasonable for a person of faith to believe that Mary was a virgin. It is no more difficult to believe in the “miracle” of the virgin birth than any other miracle in the Bible such as the parting of the Red Sea, or Jesus feeding the multitudes with five loaves and two fishes. If you have faith, you believe what the Bible says as long as it is the original Bible.

However, the original Bible only says that Mary is a “young woman,” not a virgin – there was, apparently, a mistaken translation. When people who believe in the Bible realize that the original text was wrongly translated, most of them are now so attached to their current belief that they are not willing to change it, even in the face of an objective translation error – in other words, it’s not even the original Bible they believe in. They believe in a translation error. They maintain faith in a mistaken translation. They are unwilling to adjust their worldview or belief based on new, objective information.

The Bed of Procrustes

The myth of the Bed of Procrustes tells of a Greek bandit who forced travelers to lie on a bed: if they were too long, he amputated some of their limbs; if they were too short, he stretched them. Instead of adjusting the bed he adjusted the person.

To be intellectually honest, we must always be willing to adapt our ideas and judgments to reality, rather than trying to adapt reality to our ideas or judgments. In this way, we avoid falling into the situation described in the myth of the Bed of Procrustes. When something does not fit within our categories or models, rather than modifying those categories or models, we try to fit reality into our preexisting categories or models. If, following certain Sacred Texts, we believe that human beings appeared on Earth only 6,000 years ago, but we find fossils that date their appearance much earlier, we might twist the facts by claiming that God placed those remains there to test our faith in Him. In other words, rather than admitting that the Bible is wrong, we prefer to disregard scientific findings. By doing so, we risk forcing the “object”—what truly matters—to fit the “box,” which matters less, instead of reshaping the “box” to fit the “object.” Instead of adapting the Bible to science, we make the mistake of adapting science to the Bible.

Finally, we must also consider that the more publicly we commit to a cause or particular argument, the less willing our psyche is to accept change. This is because accepting an error becomes extremely “costly” for the individual, both psychologically and intellectually. If a scientist has long championed a theory that later turns out to be completely wrong, it can be difficult for them to change their mind and adopt the opposing theory, even when intellectual honesty would require it.

For example, an investor friend of one of the authors says that when he buys a stock, he is careful never to tell anyone of his purchase. Why? Because revealing his purchase is a kind of commitment, which makes it more difficult to reconsider and sell on a gut feeling or a whim – he would need a strong case/justification. If he keeps quiet when he buys, it will be easier to reconsider and just sell.

The opposite of making excuses and becoming attached to our ideas is, therefore, intellectual honesty. Intellectual honesty requires a willingness to refrain from rationalizing and instead to continually question our ideas and opinions. Being intellectually honest means the willingness, at any time, to revise our beliefs in light of reality and the new evidence available to us.

Idealism is how you would like things to be, whereas pragmatism is understanding how things are.