I was just thinking about these things on my way home today while reflecting on a YouTube video I saw recently. It was a police interrogation, and the person who posted the video would pause it every now and then to give his own commentary. Although I don't remember anything else about the video, one part of it jumped out at me. The person being interrogated explained why he did whatever it is he did. The YouTuber paused the video and commented by saying something like, "He tried to justify his actions by saying. . ." Wait a minute I thought. All he did was explain his reason for acting. He didn't offer that reason as a justification.
As I was thinking about that on my way home, I began to recall times in my life where I've tried to explain why I did something only to have somebody respond by claiming I was making an excuse when that wasn't my intention at all. So I was thinking about the differences and similarities between reasons, justifications, excuses, and rationalizations, and thought, "Hey, I could blog about that!" So that's what I'm doing.
A reason for why you did something is nothing more than an explanation. You can explain your behavior in terms of your desires, your motivations, or whatever. If my reasons for committing a murder is so I can collect insurance money, and I'm open and honest about that, it doesn't mean I'm trying to justify it. I'm just telling you the reason I did it. Everything we do on purpose, we do for some reason, whether we had a good reason for it or not. So you can't automatically assume that if a person is explaining their reason for doing something that they are trying to justify it.
A justification is a kind of reason, though. Hadley Arkes talked about this a lot in his book, First Things. He thought the whole enterprise of morality was rooted in giving reasons for our behavior that are meant to serve as justifications for our behavior. A justification is a reason that's meant to explain why what you did was either good or at least not bad.
Rationalizations are like justifications. They are also reasons that are intended to serve as explanations for why what you did was right or at least not wrong. I think what makes something a rationalization instead of a mere justification, though, is in whether it's being offered honestly. When a person explains that they did something with some supposed good purpose in mind, but the person knows good and well that the purpose they had doesn't really justify their behavior, then it's a rationalization. It's a pretend justification. Sometimes the rationalization is just as much to convince ourselves as it is to convince others. Knowing that we are in the wrong about something makes us feel uneasy, especially if it involves a behavior we really like. It makes us feel even more uncomfortable if somebody else knows about it. So we attempt to rationalize in order to save face in front of others and in order to supress our own feelings of shame and guilt.
An excuse can be a justification or a rationalization. It all depends on how we use it. After all, there are good excuses and bad excuses. The word is mostly used with a negative connotation, though. For example, when somebody says, "That's just an excuse," they mean, "That's just a rationalization." After all, you'd never say, "That's just a justification." If it's legitimate justification, then we take the word, "just," out, and say, "That's a justification."
It's not always easy to tell when somebody is rationalizing and when they are offering a good justification. I sometimes even have to check myself on that. As I said, we all rationalize because none of us are perfect, and we all have a conscience. Most of us don't like to own our bad behavior. We want to find some kind of justification for it that lets us off the hook. But how do we know if we're being honest with ourselves about it? I guess that's just a matter doing some soul-searching and reflection. I think it is possible to fool yourself--to be persuaded of the legitimacy of your own rationalization as if it really justified your behavior.
I have more to say about that, but I think I'll save it for another post another time.
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