Our Gemara on Amud Beis discusses circumstances where a person who is doing a noble deed such as tending to an orphan’s assets may be even more trustworthy. This is due to feeling high from the sense of worthiness, and not wanting to stoop low and discredit the personal sense of achievement.
Tosafos here (“Detarcha”) points out that Gemara (Gittin 35a) makes the opposite conclusion. A caretaker may rationalize small cheating, thinking she is entitled to compensation.
This shows the fickle nature of human rationalization. We craft narratives in our head; we are the main character in the story. We can be the noble person, taking care of orphans and therefore must behave with great integrity, or feel resentful and entitled to extra compensation which we illegally misappropriate.
What exactly is the psychological definition and process of Rationalization? According to researcher Jay Van Bavel (“The Social Function Of Rationalization: An Identity Perspective”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences · April 2020):
- Rationalization occurs when a person has performed an action and then concocts the beliefs and desires that would have made it rational.
- Then, people often adjust their own beliefs and desires to match the concocted ones. In effect, a post-hoc explanation to justify what was done, often with a more airbrushed version of motives and intentions.
- Therefore, rationalization often turns the process of reasoning upside down. Instead of letting our values and beliefs dictate our behavior, our behaviors may dictate our beliefs and values!
Van Bavel also makes a powerful observation. Like many mental and psychological processes, they serve a vital function and instinct. They can be misdirected and misused, but the actual impulse to explain our behavior is adaptive. He explains:
Our behavior is influenced by many psychological processes that are (1) unconscious, (2) non-rational, and yet (3) biological adaptive. For instance, our behavior is influenced by instincts, habits, and conformity to social norms. Rationalization, then, may be a mechanism for extracting valuable information from these adaptive choices and then allowing it to influence the network of beliefs and desires that support reasoning. According to this view, rationalization is not merely designed to infer the underlying causes of our behavior for the sake of explanation (Bem 1967). It is not, for instance, designed merely to discover our unconscious reasons: hidden beliefs and desires. Rather, it constructs new beliefs and desires where none had existed, to extract information from the non-rational processes that influence our behavior.
So rationalizing is the function of submitting our instinctive, impulsive or socially influenced behavior to (partially) conscious review. We then determine if it is good, and extract or develop a belief that fits and encourages it. When we were younger, we ate our vegetables because Mom made us do so. Now, as an adult, with the habit and even the urge to eat vegetables out of a vestigial need to please Mom, we can look back and construct beliefs, such as, “vegetables are healthful.” The danger is that our need to justify also allows us to fool ourselves and make false reasons and beliefs.
The caretaker in our Gemara and Mishna Gittin reflects both aspects of this human process. The person who finds herself “selflessly” caring for these orphans, perhaps initially due to social pressure, has an internal dilemma to explain this behavior. She could decide that she is a kind person with integrity, adopt that belief, and it can promote honesty and morality. But if a more victim-like mentality is articulated internally, it will promote a belief of entitlement and rationalize cheating.
Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation 
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