The strongest defense can still be defending a choice made for a much simpler private reason.

Reasons often arrive after the decision does. You wanted the job, the house, the answer, for something plain and slightly embarrassing, and then your mind assembled an argument worthy of the wanting. How strong the argument is tells you nothing about where the choice came from. It is possible to be entirely right in public and entirely unexamined in private.

When you catch yourself defending something with unusual energy, pause and ask what the simple version was. Sometimes the private reason is perfectly good and only needs admitting. Sometimes seeing it plainly changes what you want to do next.