Reason, pretext, justification
| Summary | |
|---|---|
| Issue | The differences between “reason”, “pretext”, and “justification” are subtle. English often permits the use of these terms interchangeably. |
| Exploit | Switch the terms to prove your point. |
| Exploit example | Justifying Russian aggression in Ukraine through historical events in Kievan Rus. |
| Defence | Expose the manipulation by separating the terms. |
We live in a physical world where all actions are linked by a cause-and-effect relationship. All things have a reason to be exactly as they are.
This simple fact is a basis for endless manipulations that exploit the fact that there is a fine line between the definition of a reason, pretext, and justification.
Definitions #
In this text, I’ll use the following word “reason” for an event as a synonym to a logical cause (I know that this word can mean a lot more than that, this is why I want to make the definition clear upfront).
For example, “The reason for the plate to fall and break into pieces is gravity”.
Of course, for any event there can be many reasons, or logical causes, standing at various places in the cause-and-effect chain.
Pretext is an explanation of a reason given to explain certain event. Usually pretext does not explain the real reason.
For example, “The reason why we are laying off employees is to improve efficiency”, when the real intention is to increase short-term profits for the shareholders. In this case, the efficiency improvement is a pretext.
And finally, justification is an explanation that shows that something is right from the moral standpoint.
For example, “The reason why we locked down the village was to stop the infection from spreading and save the rest of the population from getting ill and dying”. If what is claimed is true, it’s a valid justification. In this text, I consider a justification “invalid” if it either fails to explain why an event is just, or it presents false information to do so.
Manipulation #
Now that we’re clear on the definitions, the manipulation scenarios become evident. The most interesting and widely used is, in my opinion, a scenario where a reason is provided as a justification.
As we’ve established at the very beginning, everything has a reason because all events are connected through cause and effect. This means that there’s a reason for every husband beating their wife, every war waged, and every euro stolen. But not justification.
The reason why the war between Russia and Ukraine started is NATO expansion, which is against Russia’s interest.
Well, this may be true (although I’m not sure if it’s not only a pretext), but it is not a valid justification. There is nothing moral and nothing just neither in NATO expansion nor in actions preventing it from doing so. But it was definitely, beyond any doubt an act of crime and aggression to invade Ukraine.
The cause-and-effect chain can be traced back almost indefinitely, which opens avenues to use reasons to assign fault at will – enough to just trace the chain back to a certain moment – no sooner and no later. For example:
A: It’s your fault that you don’t have a good job – you had to study better!
B: No, it’s your fault, you never took time to sit together with me!
A: No, it’s your fault, you were always on your phone!
B: No, it’s your fault, because you… (and so on, each going one step back in the chain.)
Here are some other simple examples of reason / pretext / justification manipulations:
We have murdered all these people in the name of freedom! (a pretext presented as a justification.)
He has beaten his son for a bad mark at school because he had a difficult childhood and did not know any better. (a reason presented as a justification.)
USSR has invaded Czechoslovakia because of the letter of invitation signed by five Czechoslovakian politburo members. (a pretext presented as the reason.)
In reverse #
Sometimes, the reason is more important than justification (or the lack thereof). For example, it makes sense when thinking of a preventive action.
Once I witnessed an outrage in social media related to a psychology expert who testified in court that the reason why a group of people committed a crime was contributed to by their poor financial and social integration into that country’s society.
The public were outraged that the expert “took the side of the criminals”, “attempted to excuse a criminal act”, and other similar statements.
Of course, experts are not invited to court to express thoughts like “oh, how horrible it was of them to have committed this and that crime”. Experts are invited to answer very specific questions in a very specific way. For example, if the aim of the question was to understand the social reasons to feed the information back to the policymakers, it had nothing to do with the justification of that particular crime.
In conclusion #
Everything has a reason.
Not everything has a justification. ■