Justification vs. Rationalization — What's the Difference?

The act of justifying.

The act, process, or practice of rationalizing.

The condition or fact of being justified.

An instance of rationalizing.

Something, such as a fact or circumstance, that justifies

The process, or result of rationalizing.

(countable) A reason, explanation, or excuse which someone believes provides convincing, morally acceptable support for behavior or for a belief or occurrence.

A statement of one's motives, or of the causes of some event.

The forgiveness of sin.

A reorganization of a company or organization in order to improve its efficiency.

The alignment of text to the left margin (left justification), the right margin (right justification), or both margins (full justification).

(psychiatry) The concealment of true motivation in some non-threatening way.

The act of justifying or the state of being justified; a showing or proving to be just or conformable to law, justice, right, or duty; defense; vindication; support; as, arguments in justification of the prisoner's conduct; his disobedience admits justification.

(mathematics) The simplification of an expression without changing its value.

The showing in court of a sufficient lawful reason why a party charged or accused did that for which he is called to answer.

The act or process of rationalizing.

The act of justifying, or the state of being justified, in respect to God's requirements.

The cognitive process of making something seem consistent with or based on reason

Adjustment of type (in printing), or of the final spacing of printed text, by spacing it so as to make it exactly fill a line, or line up at one edge of the allotted portion of the printed page; adjustment of a cut so as to hold it in the right place; also, the leads, quads, etc., used for making such adjustment; as, left justification is the most common format for simple letters, but left and right justification is typically used in books.

(psychiatry) a defense mechanism by which your true motivation is concealed by explaining your actions and feelings in a way that is not threatening

Something (such as a fact or circumstance) that shows an action to be reasonable or necessary;

(mathematics) the simplification of an expression or equation by eliminating radicals without changing the value of the expression or the roots of the equation

A statement in explanation of some action or belief

The organization of a business according to scientific principles of management in order to increase efficiency

The act of defending or explaining or making excuses for by reasoning;

Systematic organization; the act of organizing something according to a system or a rationale