Cushman argues that the function of rationalization is to attribute mental representations to ourselves, thereby making these representations available for future planning. I argue that such attribution is often not necessary and sometimes maladaptive. I suggest a different explanation of rationalization: making representations available to other agents, to facilitate cooperation, transmission, and the ratchet effect that underlies cumulative cultural evolution.

According to the ‘standard story’ in the philosophy of action, actions are those movements of a creature’s body that are caused and rationalized by the creature’s mental states. The attractions of the causal condition have been widely discussed. The rationalization condition is nearly ubiquitous, but it is notoriously obscure, and its motivation has rarely been made explicit. This paper presents a new argument for including the rationalization condition in the causal theory of action, and sketches a broadly Davidsonian (...) theory of what rationalization is. (shrink)

In this commentary, I highlight the relevance of Cushman's target article for the popular dual-process framework of thinking. I point to the problematic characterization of rationalization in traditional dual-process models and suggest that in line with recent advances, Cushman's rational rationalization account offers a way out of the rationalization paradox.

The commentaries suggest many important improvements to the target article. They clearly distinguish two varieties of rationalization – the traditional “motivated reasoning” model, and the proposed representational exchange model – and show that they have distinct functions and consequences. They describe how representational exchange occurs not only by post hoc rationalization but also by ex ante rationalization and other more dynamic processes. They argue that the social benefits of representational exchange are at least as important as its (...) direct personal benefits. Finally, they construe our search for meaning, purpose, and narrative – both individually and collectively – as a variety of representational exchange. The result is a theory of rationalization as representational exchange both wider in scope and better defined in mechanism. (shrink)

Is moral evolution a mere illusion, as postmodern thinkers state or a more or less permanent feature of history though it can be thwarted by unfavorable conjunctures, as Weber or Durkheim thought? The question is tentatively answered by a reanalysis of data drawn from the World Values Survey conducted under the lead of the University of Michigan. The data on seven Western countries show, when comparing the answers of younger to older respondents and of more to less educated respondents, that (...) definite trends characterize the frequencies. On the questions regarding issues related notably to work, authority, morals, religion, politics and attitudes towards other people, the younger and the more educated appear as giving answers less inspired by tradition. On the whole, the data illustrate Weber’s notion of ratio­nalization. The same trends can be observed in countries outside the Western world as India, Russia and Turkey. Such trends may plausibly be reinforced by globalization. (shrink)

An analysis of the manner in which believers' "relations to the supernatural" influence and even rationalize their action is central to Weber's sociology as a whole as well as his analysis of the development of modern capitalism and to his sociology of religion. Yet Weber never systematically presents the highly differentiated analytic course followed by the "rationalization of action" in the life-sphere of religion to the "methodical rational way of life." This study reconstructs this meandering route. In doing so, (...) it emphasizes the ways in which action, according to Weber, is altered as believers alter their mode of interacting with the supernatural. A sharp distinction between the merely cognitive and ideational influence upon action of "world views" and the influence of "salvation paths" is held to throughout. Because they place "psychological premiums" upon action, the latter are seen to be of far greater importance for the rationalization of action. Most salvation paths, however, and despite the explanations they offer for injustice, fail to introduce the enduring "religious mood" and to rationalize action radically. Those few salvation paths that do so articulate an acute tension between the world view and human suffering, yet "virtuoso religious qualifications" must also be present if the methodical rational way of life is to arise. Throughout, the analyses by Tenbruck, Schluchter, and Habermas are critiqued as incomplete and misleading. (shrink)

In making the case that “rationalization is rational,” Cushman downplays its signature liability: Rationalization exposes a person to the hazard of delusion and self-sabotage. In paradigm cases, rationalization undermines instrumental rationality by introducing inaccuracies into the representational map required for planning and effective agency.

The expansion of the higher education system and the rationalization of universities in South Korea, while broadly following the global patterns, reflect the characteristics of the national political system. We show the rapid growth of universities and document core organizational changes among universities: the elaboration of faculty performance evaluation rules, the expansion and differentiation of central administrations, and the emergence of engagement in vision statements. These changes, constructing universities as organizational actors, parallel the changes in higher education systems elsewhere. (...) However, the uniqueness of the Korean experience lies with the role of the state as a catalyst guiding the overall direction and the structure and strategy of universities. We discuss the implications of our research for the rationalization of universities in a highly centralized system. (shrink)

While we agree in broad strokes with the characterisation of rationalization as a “useful fiction,” we think that Fiery Cushman's claim remains ambiguous in two crucial respects: the reality of beliefs and desires, that is, the fictional status of folk-psychological entities and the degree to which they should be understood as useful. Our aim is to clarify both points and explicate the rationale of rationalization.

Current tendencies in religious studies and theology show a growing interest for the interchange between religions and the cultures of rationalization surrounding them. The studies published in this volume, based on the international conferences of both the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, aim to contribute to this field of interest by dealing with concepts and influences of rationalization in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and religion in general. In addition to taking a closer (...) look at the immediate links in the history of tradition between those rationalizing movements and evolutions in religion, emphasis is put on intellectual-historical convergences: Therefore, the articles are led by central comparative questions, such as what factors foster/hinder rationalization?; where are criteria for rationalization drawn from?; in which institutions is rationalization taking place?; who propagates, supports and utilizes rationalization? (shrink)

Commodification and Secondary Rationalization.

Cushman's theory has implications for the philosophical debate about the nature of folk psychological states, for it entails realism about propositional attitudes. I point out a tension within his view and suggest a different view upon which rationalization emerges as a consequence of the adaptiveness of mentalizing. This alternative avoids the strong metaphysical implications of Cushman's theory.

Often times we find ourselves wrestling with the urge to commit a non-rational action. When this happens, we are quite good at adopting quasi-beliefs that, if true, would make the action rational. In other words, rationalization often occurs antecedent to a behavioral choice. A complete account of the evolutionary history of rationalization must include antecedent rationalization.

Research suggests that the explicit reasoning we offer to ourselves and to others is often rationalization, that we act instead on instincts, inclinations, stereotypes, emotions, neurobiology, habits, reactions, evolutionary pressures, unexamined principles, or justifications other than the ones we think we’re acting on, then we tell a post hoc story to justify our actions. I consider two benefits of rationalization, once we realize that rationalization is sincere. It allows us to work out, under practical pressure of rational (...) consistency, which are good reasons to act on. Rationalization also prompts us to establish meaningful patterns out of merely permissible options. (shrink)

Suppose that you have to take a test tomorrow but you do not want to study. Unfortunately you should study, since you care about passing and you expect to pass only if you study. Is there anything you can do to make it the case that you should not study? Is there any way for you to ‘rationalize’ slacking off? I suggest that such rationalization is impossible. Then I show that if evidential decision theory is true, rationalization is (...) not only possible but sometimes advisable. (shrink)

Contemporary biological psychiatry is in a seemingly inchoate state. I assert that this state of biological psychiatry is due to its violation of an epistemological criterion of rationality, i.e., the relevance criterion; that is, contemporary biological psychiatry is irrational as it adopts a conception irrelevant to the psychobiological domain. This conception is mechanistic. The irrationality of biological psychiatry is manifest as the dominance of neurochemical explanations of psychopharmacological correlations, resulting in predictive sterility and, correspondingly, in the dominance of serendipity. I (...) suggest a rationalization of biological psychiatry through a conception relevant to the psychobiological domain. This conception is hierarchical. Keywords: criterion of relevance, epistemology, hierarchical conception, mechanistic conception, rationality CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The backdrop for this thesis is provided by Troeltsch's far more detailed and extensive studies of the social doctrines of various Christian churches and groups. According to Troeltsch's interpretation, the reception of the Stoic concept of natural law is as crucial to Christian ethics as the reception of the concept of logos is to Christian dogmatics. Just as the concept of logos mediates between the truth of revelation and the truth of reason, so the concept of natural law mediates between (...) the moral demands of the gospel and the principles of a worldly ethos. Since there is a distinction between an absolute natural law, which is identical with the radical ideal of the Sermon on the Mount, and a relative natural law, substantially corresponding to the Ten Commandments and to political and social reality, such a mediation--which must be oriented on the relative natural law--must qualify the original radical Christian claim. Whereas the old church allowed both forms of the natural law to stand alongside each other without mediation and was therefore unable to overcome their estrangement within the surrounding social reality, the Christian Middle Ages succeeded in uniting both forms by replacing the distinction between the gospel and the world with a distinction between the natural and the supernatural, interpreting each as a level of a metaphysical whole. When this idea of a metaphysical hierarchy of reality, attached to the concept of natural law, became linked to the notion of society as a structured organism, as taught by Aristotle and Paul, the concept of natural law assumed a virtually fundamental status: it grounded both moral and social philosophy and enabled the rise of the "unified culture" characteristic of the Christian Middle Ages, from which the Reformation later departed in order to regain the radicalism of the gospel. By linking the concept of natural law to the organic interpretation of-the social, the Christian Middle Ages could also assign a central role to the church: just as the divine law is the bracket that binds together the levels of moral laws, so the church is the bracket that holds together the members of the social organism. Its interpretation as the "boundless, comprehensive, and guiding institution of salvation," together with the strong attachment of natural law to eternal and immutable principles, must, in the last consequence, lead to a "conservative, organically patriarchal natural law." Consequently, those elements that were already contained in the medieval form of the natural law but not in the Platonic interpretation of the social order, and which in its later secular form gave it its progressive, even revolutionary, power, remain repressed: the idea of the dignity of the person, the associated freedom and autonomy of individual reason, the-resulting responsibility of personal conscience, and the significance of one's vocation, which stems from the place of the individual within the whole. (shrink)

Au début du xixe siècle, la formation des officiers de l’armée des États-Unis s’effectue à l’Académie militaire de West Point. Défaillante en de nombreux points, y compris sur le terrain de l’enseignement mathématique, elle est transformée par Sylvanus Thayer en 1817, alors qu’il revient d’un séjour en Europe lors duquel les établissements militaires français ont fait l’objet de scrupuleuses observations. La supériorité des méthodes françaises – l’articulation mathématico-ingéniérique qui structure les curricula, le rôle de la géométrie descriptive et l’analyse dans (...) l’appréhension de l’art de la guerre, l’usage des manuels – semble chose donnée pour acquise du côté américain, si bien que, dans le sillage de West Point, d’autres académies militaires « à la française » ouvrent avant-guerre. Soutenant l’idée d’une « infusion française » plus ou moins passive, l’historiographie alimente bien souvent un récit qui mythifie et cristallise le rôle de la France dans la formation mathématique des militaires américains de la première moitié du xixe siècle, un récit qui minore, de fait, par son caractère univoque, l’importance des espaces intermédiaires – scientifiques, pédagogiques, institutionnels et éditoriaux – où entrent en contact les territoires émetteurs et récepteurs. Cet article montre comment les acteurs qui œuvrent à la formation mathématique dans les écoles militaires aux États-Unis – superintendants, professeurs et auteurs de manuels – procèdent par décomposition et réassemblage des savoirs et méthodes français, dont le « transfert » depuis l’autre côté de l’Atlantique et au sein du territoire américain emprunte des circuits moins prétendument polarisés et hiérarchisés, et très fortement soumis à une forme de rationalisation locale. (shrink)

Perhaps the most engaging theories in historical sociology have been those pertaining to the rationalization of Western society. In particular, both Max Weber and Michelle Foucault point to the unique nature of societal rationalization in the early modern period, a thorough-going upheaval both in forms of social organization and in individual subjectivity. These correlative changes led to the nature of the modern state and its citizens. One example used by both is the rationalization of warfare. Close attention (...) to the question of rationalization and the history of infantry warfare, however, suggests that far from representing a watershed change from non-rationalized to rationalized war, the early-modern period was more like other rapid expansions of armies based on recruitment of commoners, and had little to do with the distinctive characteristics of the emerging nation-states. (shrink)

Along with the social acceptance and geographical spread of revealed religions, their relationship with social values, institutions and scientific approaches has began to be discussed. Throughout the history of Islamic thought, this process is known as the period of rationalization. The epistemic relations between reason and revelation, philosophy and religion have continued with acceptance and rejection since the emergence of Islam. Our study deals with the factors that enable rationalization such as the scientific curiosity of the ulama and (...) the umara, the conquest campaign that expanded in a short time, translations, as well as socio-cultural barriers such as jahiliyya idea, tribalism and illiteracy in the rationalization process of religious belief in the earlier periods of Islam. The aim of our article is try to reveal the needs, possibilities and difficulties in the rationalization process. And to point out that some current religious and philosophical problems aren’t be able to be solved without taking into account the conditions of the early rationalization period. We have applied both to the historical data of the early and middle ages and to analytical methods that would make this process understandable by studying this paper. (shrink)

I raise two worries about the Debunker's and Defeater Dilemmas, respectively, and I argue that moral cognition is inextricable from social cognition, which tends to rationalize deep social inequality. I thus opine that our moral-social capacities fare badly in profoundly unjust social contexts such as our own.

This article explores the psychological literature on rationalization and connects it with contemporary questions about the role of in-house lawyers in ethical dilemmas. Using the case study of AWB Ltd, the exclusive marketer of Australian wheat exports overseas, it suggests that rationalizations were influential in the perpetuation by in-house lawyers of AWB's payment of kickbacks to the Iraqi regime. The article explores how lawyers' professional rationalizations can work together with commercial imperatives to prevent in-house lawyers from seeing ethical issues (...) as those outside the organisation would see them. In particular, where lawyers over-identify with their client's commercial point of view and convince themselves that their role is primarily about providing 'technical' advice on commercial matters, wilful or unintended 'ethical blindness' can result. Lawyers can end up involved in or perpetuating serious misconduct by their client organizations. (shrink)