Rationalization and Erroneous Reasoning: A Structural Comparison

In the previous blog, by taking a comparative approach, we discussed how reasoning differs from rationalizing. When examining the structural components of reasoning, we, of course, considered cogent reasoning that would likely yield conclusions different from those yielded by rationalizing. Cogent reasoning is reasoning that is based on good reasons; it is based on objective measures such as facts, data, statistics, and evidence. Cogent reasoning is not based on arbitrary, capricious, or whimsical notions such as wishful thinking or rash appeals to emotion.

During our immediately preceding comparative study, a natural question that suggested itself was whether rationalizing is the same thing as erroneous, as opposed to cogent, reasoning or, better yet, whether all erroneous reasoning is necessarily rationalizing. As we will explore in this blog, rationalizing and erroneous reasoning are also two altogether different modes of thought, albeit with a distinction much finer than the one between rationalizing and cogent reasoning. While both rationalizing and erroneous reasoning may yield erroneous conclusions (and perhaps even the very same erroneous conclusions), the quality that makes them different is the underpinning thought process employed in the production, selection, and utilization of premises leading to the erroneous conclusion. Specifically, rationalizing involves an unconscious (or, perhaps, even a conscious) motivation to misuse logic to a self-serving end. Erroneous reasoning, on the other hand, involves a good-faith mistake or misunderstanding regarding the premises or the conclusion itself.

The two modes of thought can be syllogistically represented in the following oversimplified forms:

Rationalization

    Inappropriate, invalid, or irrelevant premise employed due to intellectual dishonesty

+ Inappropriate, invalid, or irrelevant premise employed due to intellectual dishonesty

= Erroneous conclusion

Erroneous Reasoning

    Inappropriate, invalid, or irrelevant premise employed due to mistake or misunderstanding

+ Inappropriate, invalid, or irrelevant premise employed due to mistake or misunderstanding

= Erroneous conclusion

As can be seen, the qualitative difference between the two modalities starts becoming apparent after a look under the proverbial hood. In other words, the difference between the two modalities starts becoming apparent once their respective structural components are laid bare and compared. The difference between the two modalities may not necessarily lie in the erroneous conclusions they yield (which may or may not be different) but rather in the thinking with respect to the premises or the conclusion (which is necessarily different). There is an inherent intellectual dishonesty at the core of rationalizations that does not exist at the core of erroneous reasoning. Rationalizing may involve utilizing erroneous premises due to an unconscious (or even a conscious) objective or emotional motivation to misuse logic. Erroneous reasoning, though not any better in terms of producing a meaningful conclusion, is free of such objective or motivation to misuse logic—it lacks the emotional motivation to distort one’s thought process. Unlike rationalizing, it involves mistakenly selecting and utilizing erroneous premises due to lapses in judgment that would not necessarily have to do with, for example, a strong emotional desire to avoid unpleasant facts.

To answer the questions presented, first, despite their resemblance, rationalizing and erroneous reasoning are not coextensive modalities. Second, not all erroneous reasoning is rationalizing. However, contrarily, all rationalizations could accurately be termed erroneous reasoning because rationalizations appear to be a subset of erroneous reasoning with the inverse being false. The implication being that some, but impossibly all, erroneous reasoning may be rationalizations. Erroneous reasoning attempts to utilize premises and produce conclusions based on how things are but fails to do so whereas rationalizing attempts to utilize premises and yield conclusions based on how one wishes things to be and succeeds in doing so.