The judging, powered by System 1, happens almost instantaneously. It’s then justified in rational and plausible language supplied by System 2.†† This subterfuge often fools not only other minds, but also even the one that came up with it. In fact, we are often “telling more than we can know,” as the psychologists Richard Nesbitt and Timothy DeCamp Wilson put it. The behaviors we label rationalization and self-justification, then, are not always exercises in excuse making. They’re also something much more fundamental: they’re System 1 at work.
