Much is made of human beings being rational animals. Most men believe it is true of them but not of women. They are right on the second count but are wrong on the first one. For it is obvious that the evidence on offer does not come anywhere near justifying the rational animal thesis. It is true that some individuals are extremely rational. But they are the exceptions that prove the rule– the rule being that an overwhelming majority of humankind does not answer to the description of rational animals.
Rationalizing animals, on the other hand, is an apt description of man. For starters, contrary to popular belief, human beings do not generally operate in a manner where evidence or argument leads them to their conclusions or their stance on any given issue. Instead, as a rule decisions are made first, even if subconsciously. Reasons come later, plenty of which can always be found with minimal effort. In most cases then, practice points to the exact reverse of the evidence-warranting-conclusions sequence.
Why certain positions are taken in the first place is a complex matter though. All our beliefs come with implications of their own. Some stances are hard to let go of on account of their familiarity stemming from a long commitment to them. To accept that one’s parents and early mentors were wrong is a particularly hard idol to smash. Some positions, on the other hand, are difficult to adopt because they are thought to be held by one’s enemies. Beliefs that would necessitate a change in one’s decades-old habits are generally rejected out of hand. Vested interests of various types are usually associated with siding with one side or the other on any given issue. The test associated with deciding what is right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, moral or immoral is multidimensional, multilayered and extremely stern. No wonder most of us end up rationalizing our preferred stances instead of arriving at rational ones based on the evidence at hand.
Rationalizing is extremely convenient of course, since it helps avoid conflict. But avoiding, as opposed to resolving, conflict always comes with a price. This is readily recognisable by others, even if the man who is rationalizing manages to or pretends to keep himself blissfully unaware of it. It is easy to spot rationalizing at play from two unmistakable giveaways.
Man is not much of a rational animal. Being rational would demand an ability to tell non-sequiturs and slogans apart from genuine arguments. Being rational would also necessitate that the implications of arguments are consistent, not arbitrary or case-by-case. There is no doubt that some men fulfil both these conditions. But they are merely a few drops in the ocean of those who like to justify their prior preferences and positions using whatever material they can lay their hands on.
The first is inconsistency. The implications of the argument are invariably inconsistent when arguments are pressed into service to support prior beliefs, for example, rejecting something due to emotional reasons or material considerations. This is so because if the same reasoning is applied across the board, many of the cherished beliefs will have to be abandoned similarly, which is hardly acceptable to the rationalizer.
The second dead giveaway is the abysmal nature of the arguments. The cart being before the horse, the arguments often are such that cannot possibly lead to the conclusions. The rationalizer rarely has the luxury to consider the quality of the arguments he employs. Because his preferences are arbitrary, the material available to him is often poor. In his desperation, he is happy with whatever straw comes to hand by way of justification of his beliefs– anything that even looks like an argument (no matter how irrelevant or pathetic) will do as far as he is concerned.
With the rationalizing scheme in mind (or in the subconscious), the choice of tools at this person’s arsenal are virtually unlimited: from ad-hominem to special pleading to begging the question to the exception fallacy to selective citing of evidence, and what have you. Those who rationalize in a premeditated, cold-hearted way are there of course, and there are some notable examples of them. But most people do it subconsciously. Of course, they are not completely unaware of their own machinations, but such unpleasant thoughts are soon swept under the carpet and thereafter they do everything in their power to hide them from their own selves, often with a high degree of success.
Man is not much of a rational animal. Being rational would demand an ability to tell non-sequiturs and slogans apart from genuine arguments. Being rational would also necessitate that the implications of arguments are consistent, not arbitrary or case-by-case. There is no doubt that some men fulfil both these conditions. But they are merely a few drops in the ocean of those who like to justify their prior preferences and positions using whatever material they can lay their hands on.
