Yup, good point.
I have a line that I haven't used in a long time which I crafted for a different scenario but applies here. Which is that: Very intelligent people are very good at rationally defending positions that they've arrived at for unrational reasons.
Damn, that is a good line.
Thank you, I like it a lot too.
I was trying to understand why I stopped using it. I think it's because it's not really actionable. The best you can do with it is understand what might contribute to a certain situation/behavior. If you tell it to a person to whom it applies, they'll just keep creating new arguments to support their position. And it's not a good way of arguing anyway. It's not a real argument, it's closer to an ad hominem. It's not persuasive to the person to whom it applies, though it might be persuasive when told to a third person.
It goes hand in hand with the saying that "you can't reason yourself out of a position you didn't reason yourself into".
Most people don't reason themselves into maladaptiveness, and it takes substantial effort to not only identify the cycle but also to break it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=603826
That's rationalize, not reason.
You don't seem to be making a meaningful distinction. Moreover, both words have been used in this thread.