A friend of mine argued the other day (and for many days prior) that reasoning plays a miniscule role in our actions. We don't really act on judgments we come to by reasoning he claims but rather make up reasons to explain what we do. Reasoning, he suggests, is a function of after the fact stories we tell ourselves and others, the excuses, that is, which we offer for what we have done or intend to do. What really motivates us is more basic, he claims. It's how we feel about things which is, itself, a function he insists of our upbringing and genetic inheritance. We develop a point of view characterized by our learned and inherited inclinations and when it comes to deciding, we fall back on created narratives of explanation to justify what we have done or mean to do.

On this view, of course, there are no genuinely rational considerations or conclusions and rationality, the reliance on reasons and reasoning, is reduced to a facade we present to the world. . . .