Does "rationalize" have a more dramatic connotation? Improve this question. Edwin Ashworth Tommy Stanton Tommy Stanton 1 1 gold badge 2 2 silver badges 4 4 bronze badges.
If, per chance, you wanted to explain "how you went wrong" "I lost control of the car because I was texting while driving. I know it is wrong and it is no excuse, but I made the terrible choice because I was expecting contact from the hospital about my mothers condition. I know I should have pulled over and the mistake I made was tragic" Neither justifies or rationalizes the behavior while describing the worry as an excuse in some peoples ears but they'd make no claim that what they did was right or necessary.
You comment: 'I find myself needing a verb like these two, then finding it overly difficult to determine which one is best. I don't think this is an answer, but one other distinction could be that we tend to use 'justify' for actions and 'rationalize' more often for feelings, impulses, and desires, albeit not exclusively.
This is perhaps also related to the fact that someone who rationalizes believes what he is saying, while someone who justifies not necessarily so.
Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Indeed, if you are standing before a judge in a court of law, you want to justify your action, not rationalize it! It's not such a necessary distinction, for example you can rationalise your actions to others and justify your actions to yourself. I think this is a good definition of how the words are understood, and yes, for whatever reason, people react quite negatively to people who try to explain why they did something they should not have done.
The assumption seems to be "finding a justification" Sometimes suggestions that would reduce error are lashed out as "blaming the victim" too..
You can still use "justify" when the attempt is futile. You may find the following quotations to be helpful: " Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it. Case in point: " I have never been able to conceive of how any rational being could promote happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.
Tonepoet 4, 1 1 gold badge 20 20 silver badges 31 31 bronze badges. Lawrence - Except that it's an etymological fallacy. To justify is to offer presumably valid evidence. To rationalize is to offer counterfeit evidence. HotLicks In the OP's definitions, rationalise is contradictory. If an action in context is immoral, there is no acceptable explanation for it - otherwise the action is moral.
With rationalise , the thinking goes along the lines of because xyz, therefore [action is ok]. The evidence may be real or counterfeit, but we only use rationalise when a conclusion is reached after going through some often erroneous system of thought, hence the link to reason. HotLicks Note that linking rationalise with reason isn't saying that a rationalised action is reasonable in the ordinary sense of the word.
And MW provides the definition "to apply the principles of scientific management to as an industry or its operations for a desired result as increased efficiency ", though of course that concept is often used to rationalize layoffs, so that the CEO can get a bigger bonus.
Show 11 more comments. Hot Licks Hot Licks When you are asked to justify your expenses, the asker is very " suspicious " about your expenses. Ohterwise, there is no reason to ask you to justify it. He might be suspecting that you misused the company money and you might have to come up with excuses or lies to cover your behavior. For example, you took the first class instead of business because there was no seat available. Then, it might be an excuse or the truth.
It depends. Rathony - Quite untrue. In a standard business setup the bookkeeper would do a more thorough accounting for, say, one expense account in ten, at random. I have never been asked to justify my expenses in my career as there was nothing to justify at all. I just submitted proper receits for big items such as hotel, flight, or whatever and that's it.
They don't usually ask you to justify small expenses such as taxi fare or phone bills. HotLicks I agree with your answer. In terms of rationalize, I think we are saying the same thing but just from different points of view. I feel that justify for the receipts is acceptable. Perhaps, justify also has a sense of defending against authority, the authority being a legal court. I can see that in days of yore.
In the accounting example, even with the asker's suspicion, if the spender does indeed justify the expenses, all is well on that score. If the spender is said to resort to rationalising the expense, there is an implication that justification of the expenses wasn't possible, and problems might be brewing.
Show 3 more comments. I don't want to commit the etymological fallacy, but it may help to see the words' origins. Of circumstances, "to afford justification," rationalise Latin rationalis "of or belonging to reason, reasonable," etymonline. Confer the following: "I rationalised the purchase of my new car by recognising my own hard work. Bunch of sentences to illustrate: "The commander justified withholding a counterattack by appeal to excessive civilian deaths. But notice, the rule isn't black and white, as shown by the following sentences: "The commander justified his actions to himself.
Zebrafish Zebrafish One part consists of an attempt to distinguish between justify and warrant : Justify, warrant are here compared as meaning to afford as evidence, a circumstance, a situation, a state of affairs, or the like, good grounds for doing, saying, using, or believing something. A second part considers the meaning of justify in contradistinction to maintain , assert , defend , and vindicate : Maintain, assert, defend, vindicate, justify come into comparison when they mean to uphold as true, right, just, valid, or worthy of notice or acceptance in the face of opposition or indifference.
And a third part which most closely concerns the poster's question addresses justify as a synonym of explain , account for , and rationalize : Explain, account for, justify, rationalize are synonyms when they mean to give or tell the cause, reason, nature, or significance of something obscure or questionable.
Hayakawa, Choose the Right Word in a discussion of the noun form rationalization in comparison with lie , falsehood , fib , prevarication , and untruth : These words refer to statements or formulations that are misleading or contrary to fact. Conclusion It appears that use of justify in the sense of "attempt to excuse from blame or to render respectable" has been around for a long time.
Sven Yargs Sven Yargs k 30 30 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. This should be no more complicated. Leopoldini Leopoldini 1 2 2 bronze badges. Welcome to ELU, please add sources supporting your answers. Source: me, 32 years of experience as an English speaking human being. The significance of the study is actually all about what was found during the research work. As nouns the difference between rationale and significance is that rationale is an explanation of the basis or fundamental reasons for something while significance is the extent to which something matters; importance.
It shows the originality and relevance of your research problem. Specifically, your research is different from other statisticians. It justifies your proposed methodology. The definition of justify is to provide an explanation or rationale for something to make it seem OK or to prove it is correct or OK.
An example of justify is when you provide data to back up a recommendation you make. An example of justify is when you make an excuse to make bad behavior seem oK. Justification : Addition Property of Equality The quantity x was added to each side of the equation. Justification : Subtraction Property of Equality Two was subtracted from each side of the equation.
Justification : Division Property of Equality Each side of the equation was divided by four. The Reflexive Property.
The Symmetric Property. The Transitive Property. The Substitution Property. The Addition and Subtraction Properties. The Multiplication Properties. The Division Properties. According to the distributive property , multiplying the sum of two or more addends by a number will give the same result as multiplying each addend individually by the number and then adding the products together. Main page Questions categories Philosophy and history Common philosophy Philosophy in education Philosophy and sociology Philosophy edu Students info Common articles Best philosophy topics.
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