Name that Fallacy

Here is a review from today's Guardian. In it John Gray sympathises with but disagrees with the thesis presented by Amartya Sen in "Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny". Broadly, Gray says that Sen argues that too much thinking categorises people in terms a single identity - muslim, for example - rather than the multiplicity of interrelated roles which is a more proper way of viewing a person. This mistake then fuels conflict. Gray thinks that Sen's solution to this is unrealistic, but also that Sen has misunderstood human nature. I don't want to go too far into the relative merits of Sen's and Gray's understanding; my interest was piqued by one particular thing that Gray says:

"For Sen, as a good liberal rationalist, it is an article of faith that the violence of identity is a result of erroneous beliefs. He cannot accept that its causes are inherent in human beings themselves."

This is surely a false dichotomy, as there is no reason why the causes of those irrational beliefs cannot be inherent in human beings. Humans are not naturally rational; there wouldn't be enough time for all decisions to go through internal processes of deductive reasoning. Most thinking is done in shortcuts, and one type of shortcut is the stereotype. They are useful - actually, they are essential. They are often correct, but sometimes erroneous beliefs whose origins are inherent in human beings. More on this later.