ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on rational analysis, as one would as a lawyer, ought to be tremendously helpful in making decisions. Deciding and then doing is something quite different. But deciding and doing is like leaping out of the airplane. Being rational also helps us rationalize that choice after the fact. The essence of judgment in each case is a mental activity, undertaken by a subject whose own process of judgment must necessarily be affected by subjective factors. When a legal decision-maker faces the possibility of applying different rules to a fact situation, the argumentation may call down merit in the form of policy or logic or equity. The arbitration may give reasons for the decision. But it is really just a softer authoritarianism. The literature of self-deception in philosophy, psychology, and behavioral sciences is rich in part because there is no universal consensus about what self-deception is or if it is even possible.
