I understand in some contexts they cannot be interchanged, for example, one can say 'the price is reasonable', but 'the price is justified' sounds incorrect.
But I don't know what are the exact differences between them when expressing 'something is reasonable or proved to be reasonable". To me, they seems to be interchangeable in most situations.
In addition, I learned that 'warranted' in some context also means 'reasonable', for example, you experienced a degraded service and then requested a refund, you can say "I feel a refund would be warranted". Can I use 'reasonable' instead here? Is there any slight difference that makes 'warranted' better?
Best Answer
Reasonable means that whatever decision was made is appropriate given the particular circumstances, and most would regard it as so.
Justified means that whatever decision was made is done for a good reason, in the interest of fairness.
There are times the words could be used interchangeably, and contexts where the difference is subtle. It all depends on the nature of the request or issue at hand.
I might use "justified" if I was angry about something, and was acting in response:
I might use "reasonable" if I think everyone would agree that there was nothing else that could be done:
But there are contexts where either word will work just fine:
In that sentence, reasonable would work because most people would agree that a refund would be appropriate given the circumstances, and justified would work because the request is fair.