Mississippi Court Jesters

So, back during our Cinco de Mayo festivities, I think I explained my philosophy of decision-making. Or, how it is that I think people arrive at their decisions. Briefly, I think that when faced with a choice, people unconsciously decide what to do immediately, and the conscious decision process is simply rationalizing it. Today, while reading Children of the Mind, one of the Ender books by Orson Scott Card, I figured out where I came up with that.

"Nobody's rational. We all act because we're sure of what we want, and we believe that the actions we perform will get us what we want, but we never know anything for sure, and so all our rationales are invented to justify what we were going to do anyway before we thought of any reasons."

I think that's more or less my jumping off point. Of course, you have to read in there that unconsciously we're sure of what we want. I'm sure all of us have had the "pleasure" of being consciously uncertain of what exactly that is-I know I have. And, believe it or not, this is actually a fairly foundational presupposition that I use to evaluate other people's actions and provide a framework for issues like free will vs. predestination, nature vs. nurture, etc. So, what do you think? Are the real decisions made unconsciously or is the conscious decision-making process more significant than simply rationalizing what we were going to do anyway?