Our actions generally satisfy us: we recognize that they are in the main coherent, and that they make appropriate, well-timed contributions to our projects as we understand them. So we safely assume them to be the product of processes that are reliably sensitive to ends and means. That is, they are rational, in one sense of that word. But that does not mean they are rational in a narrower sense: the product of serial reasoning.
Incidentally, it seems to me that this invokes the anthropic principle. To wit, if our actions generally seemed irrational and unsatisfactory to ourselves, we would probably go insane.
Our actions generally satisfy us: we recognize that they are in the main coherent, and that they make appropriate, well-timed contributions to our projects as we understand them. So we safely assume them to be the product of processes that are reliably sensitive to ends and means. That is, they are rational, in one sense of that word. But that does not mean they are rational in a narrower sense: the product of serial reasoning.
-- Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained
Incidentally, it seems to me that this invokes the anthropic principle. To wit, if our actions generally seemed irrational and unsatisfactory to ourselves, we would probably go insane.
That seems to stretch the anthropic principle rather further than I would be included to do.