First, let me start by saying this comment is ultimately a nitpick. I agree with the thrust of your position and think in most cases your point stands. However, there’s no fun and nothing to say if I leave it at that, so grab your tweezers and let’s get that nit.
Even if Hypothesis H is true, it doesn’t have any decision-relevant implications,
So to me there seems to be a special case of this that is not rationalization, and that’s in cases where one fact dominates another.
By “dominates” I here mean that for the purpose for which the fact is being considered, i.e. the decision about which the truth value of H may have relevant implications, there may be another fact about another hypothesis, H’, such that if H’ is true or H’ is false then whether or not H is true or false will have no impact on the outcome because H’ is relatively so much more important than H.
To make this concrete, consider the case of the single-issue voter. They will vote for a candidate primarily based on whether or not that candidate supports their favored position on the single issue they care about. So let’s say Candidate Brain Slug is running for President of the World on a platform whose main plank is implanting brain slugs on all people. You argue with your single-issue voter friend they should not vote for Brain Slug because it will put a brain slug on them, but they say even if that’s true, it’s not relevant to their decision, because Brain Slug also supports a ban on trolley switches, which is your friend’s single issue.
Now maybe you think your friend is being stupid, but in this case they’re arguably not rationalizing. Instead they’re making a decision based on their values that place such a premium on the issue of trolley switch bans that they reasonably don’t care about anything else, even if it means voting for President Brain Slug and its brain slug implanting agenda.
First, let me start by saying this comment is ultimately a nitpick. I agree with the thrust of your position and think in most cases your point stands. However, there’s no fun and nothing to say if I leave it at that, so grab your tweezers and let’s get that nit.
So to me there seems to be a special case of this that is not rationalization, and that’s in cases where one fact dominates another.
By “dominates” I here mean that for the purpose for which the fact is being considered, i.e. the decision about which the truth value of H may have relevant implications, there may be another fact about another hypothesis, H’, such that if H’ is true or H’ is false then whether or not H is true or false will have no impact on the outcome because H’ is relatively so much more important than H.
To make this concrete, consider the case of the single-issue voter. They will vote for a candidate primarily based on whether or not that candidate supports their favored position on the single issue they care about. So let’s say Candidate Brain Slug is running for President of the World on a platform whose main plank is implanting brain slugs on all people. You argue with your single-issue voter friend they should not vote for Brain Slug because it will put a brain slug on them, but they say even if that’s true, it’s not relevant to their decision, because Brain Slug also supports a ban on trolley switches, which is your friend’s single issue.
Now maybe you think your friend is being stupid, but in this case they’re arguably not rationalizing. Instead they’re making a decision based on their values that place such a premium on the issue of trolley switch bans that they reasonably don’t care about anything else, even if it means voting for President Brain Slug and its brain slug implanting agenda.