Humans are rationalizing animals

What is it about?

Humans have historically been regarded as rational animals. As early as Aristotle, the ability to be rational has been regarded as what sets us apart from other creatures. However, other animals can certainly be rational in their own ways too, such as when they appraise a situation and act in a manner that satisfies their adaptive interests. At the same time, humans are also more than capable of behaving irrationally or non-rationally. Thus, we suggest not only that it is more accurate to think of humans as rationalizing animals, but also that viewing ourselves as such helps to make sense of many of our psychological biases and understand the adaptive pressures that our evolutionary ancestors faced, leading to our various quirks as well as the rationalization instinct. Our ability to uncover truths may only be a by-product of the drive to achieve psychological coherence through rationalization, which explains why truth often plays second fiddle to what one wants to believe. Many large-scale human collective phenomena, ranging from cults to the modern-day widespread propagation of misinformation, can also be better understood through viewing humans as avid rationalizers.

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Why is it important?

We are often exasperated over why there are so many fragmented camps over the things that matter in life, such as health policy, socioeconomic regulations, and climate change. This exasperation is typically driven by an incorrect or unrealistic assumption that humans should know better in the search for understanding and truth, an assumption that is driven by the traditional view of humans as rational animals as well as the belief that the search for truth should lead to consensus. By getting a handle on the coherence motive that underlies rationalization, it becomes clearer that the beliefs that constitute truth are often divided due to the rationalization processes that lead to them, which then paints a clearer picture on what needs to be done in order to prevent ourselves from being skewed by our rationalizing tendencies.