In the philosophical literature, self-deception is mainly approached through the analysis of paradoxes. Yet, it is agreed that self-deception is motivated by protection from distress. In this paper, we argue, with the help of findings from cognitive neuroscience and psychology, that self-deception is a type of affective coping. First, we criticize the main solutions to the paradoxes of self-deception. We then present a new approach to self-deception. Self-deception, we argue, involves three appraisals of the distressing evidence: (a) appraisal of the (...) strength of evidence as uncertain, (b) low coping potential and (c) negative anticipation along the lines of Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis. At the same time, desire impacts the treatment of flattering evidence via dopamine. Our main proposal is that self-deception involves emotional mechanisms provoking a preference for immediate reward despite possible long-term negative repercussions. In the last part, we use this emotional model to revisit the philosophical paradoxes. (shrink)

Certain translational T-schemes of the form True « f, where f can be almost any translation you like of f, will be a conservative extension of Peano arithmetic. I have an inkling that this means something philosophically, but I don’t understand my own inkling.

A satisfactory analysis of human deception must rule out cases where it is a mistake or an accident that person B was misled by person A's behavior. Therefore, most scholars think that deceivers must intend to deceive. This article argues that there is a better solution: rather than appealing to the deceiver's intentions, we should appeal to the function of their behavior. After all, animals and plants engage in deception, and most of them are not capable of forming intentions. Accordingly, (...) certain human behavior is deceptive if and only if its function is to mislead. This solves our problem because if the function of A's behavior was to mislead, B's ending up misled was not an accident or a mere mistake even if A did not intend to deceive B. (shrink)

In this article I discuss and evaluate the selectivity problem as a problem put forward by Bermudez (1997, 2000) against anti-intentionalist accounts of self-deception. I argue that the selectivity problem can be raised even against intentionalist accounts, which reveals the too demanding constraint that the problem puts on the adequacy of a psychological explanation of action. Finally I try to accommodate the intuitions that support the cogency of the selectivity problem using the resources from the framework provided by an anti-intentionalist (...) account of self-deception. (shrink)

Affectively uncomfortable concern, anxiety, indecisionand disputation over ‘right’ action are among the expressions of moral tension associated with ethical dilemmas. Moral tension is generated and experienced by people. While ethical principles, rules and situations must be worked through in any dilemma, each occurs against a backdrop of people who enact them and stand much to gain or lose depending on how they are applied and resolved. This paper attempts to develop a taxonomy of moral tension based on its intrapersonal and (...) interpersonal sources and expressions. The proposed ‘ethics of incongruity’ outlines ways in which values, actions and needs can find themselves mismatched in morally relevant ways between patients and their clinicians, their own psychologies and their societies. Patient–clinician incongruities may manifest as discord, value misalignment and deception. Patient–patient incongruities may manifest as incapacity, akrasia and self-deception. Patient–society incongruities may manifest as disenfranchisement, disaffiliation and disregard. Brief explanations of the incongruities in this scheme are provided, as are suggestions on working within them. Using concepts from moral philosophy when applicable, these suggestions may either ease direct resolution of problems arising from the incongruities, or make sense of the moral tension that arises from the human context of the ethical dilemma at hand. This presentation of content and resolution methods for the EOI is no doubt incomplete. Hopefully, refinement of this preliminary proposal will follow, particularly from clinicians, as the ones who, along with their patients, experience medical ethics in directly tension-inducing ways. (shrink)

“Hard obscurantism” is a species of the genus scholarly obscurantism. A rough intensional definition of hard obscurantism is that models and procedures become ends in themselves, dissociated from their explanatory functions. In the present article, I exemplify and criticize hard obscurantism by examining the writings of eminent economists and political scientists.

Willful ignorance is an important concept in criminal law and jurisprudence, though it has not received much discussion in philosophy. When it is mentioned, however, it is regularly assumed to be a kind of self-deception. In this article I will argue that self-deception and willful ignorance are distinct psychological kinds. First, some examples of willful ignorance are presented and discussed, and an analysis of the phenomenon is developed. Then it is shown that current theories of self-deception give no support to (...) the idea that willful ignorance is a kind of self-deception. Afterwards an independent argument is adduced for excluding willful ignorance from this category. The crucial differences between the two phenomena are explored, as are the reasons why they are so easily conflated. (shrink)

Certain translational T-schemes of the form True(“f”) « f(f), where f(f) can be almost any translation you like of f, will be a conservative extension of Peano arithmetic. I have an inkling that this means something philosophically, but I don’t understand my own inkling.

This dissertation focuses on questions regarding the metaphysical and psychological possibility of self-deception and attempts to show that self-deception is a phenomenon best characterized as both motivated and intentional, such that self-deceivers can be held responsible for their deceptions in a stronger sense than that of being merely epistemically negligent. -/- In Chapter One, I introduce the paradoxes of self-deception, which arise when one attempts to draw a close analogy between self- and other-deception, and I discuss the various ways in (...) which one might characterize an unwarranted belief as irrational. I go on to show how the various ways one understands interpersonal deception may mirror the various accounts one might give of self-deception. I concluded the chapter with a brief discussion of the role of empirical studies in philosophical investigations of irrationality. -/- In Chapter Two, I look more closely at a particular kind of intentionalist account of self-deception, namely the claim that we must suppose the existence of a partitioned mind to make sense of the so-called "internal irrationality" of the self-deceiver. I discuss both stronger and weaker versions of this theory, in an attempt to show that it tends to raise more metaphysical worries than it solves. I argue further that if there is such a thing as divisions within the mind, an account of self-deception centered around such divisions will not get the intentionalist about self-deception what he or she wants. -/- In Chapter Three, I move on to discuss non-intentionalist accounts of self-deception. Such theories have gained in popularity in recent years, due to their appeals to explanatory parsimony. Against these theories, I argued that there are certain phenomenon we take to be central to self-deception that Mele, Barnes, et al. cannot account for. I therefore propose that a more robust account of self-deception is necessary to make sense of these phenomena. -/- Chapter Four attempts to provide such an account. I claim that if we focus more heavily on the diachronic process by which self-deceivers elicit and/or maintain their beliefs over time, what emerges looks much more like an intentional project aimed at the manipulation of one's evidence or evidential standards than a mere more-or-less unconscious process of motivated biasing. I suggest that such a view can escape the paradoxes of self-deception, while at the same time making sense of the features lacking on non-intentionalist accounts. -/- Finally, in Chapter Five I examine the morality of self-deception. I argue that self-deceivers are not only epistemically but also morally responsible for their self-deceptions, and that self-deception generally represents a moral failure on the part of the moral agent, regardless of the normative moral theory one adopts. (shrink)

Hysteria is thought to involve the unconscious production of symptoms that resemble neurological disorders. However, it is not usually possible to distinguish this from deception, leading some authors to advocate dropping the distinction. In this paper, I argue that deception is not a unitary concept, so that hysteria may indeed involve a form of deception without necessarily the ethical implications of lying. The evidence for and against deception in hysteria is considered, and a taxonomy of deception outlined. The evidence is (...) argued to support deception as a sufficient model for hysteria, though not necessarily in the form of lying, and not such as to exclude other models for much of their behavior. An appreciation of the distinct forms of deception may help clinicians to clarify their relationships with their patients with hysteria, and clarify the distinction from malingering. (shrink)

According to doxastic accounts of self-deception, self-deception that P yields belief that P. For doxastic accounts, the self-deceiver really believes what he, in self-deception, professes to believe. I argue that doxastic accounts are contradicted by a phenomenon that often accompanies self-deception. This phenomenon – which I term ‘secondary deception’ – consists in the self-deceiver's defending his professed (deceit-induced) belief to an audience by lying to that audience. I proceed to sketch an alternative, non-doxastic account of how we should understand self-deception (...) in terms of the self-deceiver's misrepresentation of himself as believing that P. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper offers an account of intending to self-deceive which opposes that provided by standard intentionalist accounts of self-deception. According to my account, self-deception is attained instantaneously: to intend to self-deceive that P is thereby to self-deceive that P. Relating this to the concepts of evidence, belief and self-awareness, I develop an account of self-deception which holds that self-deceivers misrepresent themselves as believing what they profess to believe. I argue that my account yields solutions to the central problems of (...) self-deception – the static problem and the dynamic problem – while remaining faithful to the phenomena of self-deception. (shrink)

What Heidegger means by “freedom” in Being and Time is somewhat mysterious: while the notion crops up repeatedly in the book, there is no dedicated section or study, and the concept is repeatedly connected to a new and opaque idea – that of the “choice to choose oneself.” Yet the specificity of Being and Time’s approach to freedom becomes apparent when the book is compared to other texts of the same period, in particular The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, The Fundamental (...) Concepts of Metaphysics, The Essence of Grounds, and The Essence of Freedom. Although there are some differences, the definition of freedom that can be found there identifies it with “existence” or “transcendence,” Dasein’s ek-static opening onto the world. Thus “being in the world must also be primordially bound up with or derived from the basic feature of Dasein’s existence, freedom… Dasein’s transcendence and freedom are identical! Freedom provides itself with intrinsic possibility: a being is, as free, necessarily in itself transcending” (GA 26: 238; Heidegger’s italics). Note the apodictic modality of the claim: it is not simply the case that Dasein, as transcending, is free. Anything that has the structure of being in the world must be free: freedom is co-extensive with Dasein. Yet Dasein is often pictured in Being and Time as anything but free: it “ensnares itself” (268), is “lost” (264), “alienated” (178), and needs to be “liberated” (264, 303). Thus comparison between Being and Time and other texts on freedom yields an important paradox: although by definition it transcends toward the world, the Dasein of Division I is deprived of freedom. It must be free, and yet phenomenological analysis shows that it is not free. To understand the specific meaning of freedom in Being and Time, one has to square this circle. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper identifies two central paradoxes threatening the notion of amor fati [love of fate]: it requires us to love a potentially repellent object (as fate entails significant negativity for us) and this, in the knowledge that our love will not modify our fate. Thus such love may seem impossible or pointless. I analyse the distinction between two different sorts of love (eros and agape) and the type of valuation they involve (in the first case, the object is loved (...) because we value it; in the second, we value the object because we love it). I use this as a lens to interpret Nietzsche's cryptic pronouncements on amor fati and show that while an erotic reading is, up to a point, plausible, an agapic interpretation is preferable both for its own sake and because it allows for a resolution of the paradoxes initially identified. In doing so, I clarify the relation of amor fati to the eternal return on the one hand, and to Nietzsche's autobiographical remarks about suffering on the other. Finally, I examine a set of objections pertaining both to the sustainability and limits of amor fati, and to its status as an ideal. (shrink)

In this paper, I criticize the claim made by Donald Davidson, among others, that Freud’s psychoanalytic theory provides “a conceptual framework within which to describe and understand irrationality.” Further, I defend my epistemological strictures on the explanatory and therapeutic foundations of the psychoanalytic enterprise against the efforts of Davidson, Marcia Cavell, Thomas Nagel, et al., to undermine them.

This paper consists of two related parts:I. A detailed critique of Donald Davidson's thesis—in his “The Paradoxes of Irrationality”—that “…any satisfactory [explanatory] view [of irrationality] must embrace some of Freud's most important theses” (p. 290). I argue that this conclusion is doubly flawed: (i) Davidson's case for it is logically ill‐founded, and (ii) its Freudian plaidoyer is also factually false.II. Relatedly, in the second part, I confute the recent arguments given by Marcia Cavell, Thomas Nagel, et al. to establish that (...) psychoanalytic causal explanations of irrationality are epistemically justified, because they are extensions of the desire‐cumbelief pattern of accounting for intentional actions. As a corollary, it becomes clear that these authors have failed to undermine my epistemological strictures on the foundations of psychoanalysis. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against three leading accounts of self-deception in the philosophical literature and propose a heretofore overlooked route to self-deception. The central problem with extant accounts of self-deception is that they are unable to balance two crucial desiderata: (1) to make the dynamics of self-deception (e.g., the formation of self-deceptive beliefs) psychologically plausible and (2) to capture self-deception as an intentional phenomenon for which the self-deceiver is responsible. I argue that the three leading views all fail on (...) one or both counts. However, I claim that many or most cases of self-deception conform to a different model, which I call ‘Self-deception as Omission’. In these cases, the process of self-deceptive belief formation and the intentional act for which the self-deceiver is responsible come apart, allowing us to meet both desiderata. Self-deceptive beliefs are often formed by unconscious mechanisms closely analogous to the 'System 1' processes of dual-systems psychology, or by other mechanisms of motivated reasoning. The nascently self-deceptive subject then acquiesces in the comforting belief and commits an epistemic failure by allowing it to persist. If this is done for motivationally biased reasons — e.g., preferring that the belief in question be true — then the subject is self-deceived and is blameworthy for her epistemic omission. (shrink)

I propose that paradigmatic cases of self-deception satisfy the following conditions: (a) the person who is self-deceived about not-P pretends (in the sense of makes-believe or imagines or fantasizes) that not-P is the case, often while believing that P is the case and not believing that not-P is the case; (b) the pretense that not-P largely plays the role normally played by belief in terms of (i) introspective vivacity and (ii) motivation of action in a wide range of circumstances. Understanding (...) self-deception in this way is highly natural. And it provides a non-paradoxical characterization of the phenomenon that explains both its distinctive patterns of instability and its ordinary association with irrationality. Why, then, has this diagnosis been overlooked? I suggest that the oversight is due to a failure to recognize the philosophical significance of a crucial fact about the human mind, namely, the degree to which attitudes other than belief often play a central role in our mental and practical lives, both by "influenc[ing our]... passions and imagination," and by "governing.. .our actions.". (shrink)

Self-deception is typically considered epistemically irrational, for it involves holding certain doxastic attitudes against strong counter-evidence. Pragmatic encroachment about epistemic rationality says that whether it is epistemically rational to believe, withhold belief or disbelieve something can depend on perceived practical factors of one’s situation. In this paper I argue that some cases of self-deception satisfy what pragmatic encroachment considers sufficient conditions for epistemic rationality. As a result, we face the following dilemma: either we revise the received view about self-deception or (...) we deny pragmatic encroachment on epistemic rationality. I suggest that the dilemma can be solved if we pay close attention to the distinction between ideal and bounded rationality. I argue that the problematic cases fail to meet standards of ideal rationality but exemplify bounded rationality. The solution preserves pragmatic encroachment on bounded rationality, but denies it on ideal rationality. (shrink)

I introduce and discuss an underappreciated form of motivated cognition: motivational pessimism, which involves the biasing of beliefs for the sake of self-motivation. I illustrate how motivational pessimism avoids explanatory issues that plague other (putative) forms of motivated cognition and discuss distinctions within the category, related to awareness, aetiology, and proximal goals.

Deflationists reduce self-deception to a motivated bias, eliminating the need for doxastic tension, divided minds, intentions, or even effortful action. While deflationism fits many cases, there are others that demand more robust psychological processes and complexity. We turn to the empirical literature on self-handicapping to find commonplace examples of self-deception with high levels of agential involvement. Many self-handicappers experience non-trivial doubts, engage in strategic and purposive self-deception, and possess knowledge that must remain unconscious for their project to succeed. This occurs (...) with self-handicapping for the sake of self-esteem regulation. Such self-handicapping not only requires self-deception but also furthers it. (shrink)

Two of the most basic questions regarding self-deception remain unsettled: What do self-deceivers want? What do self-deceivers get? I argue that self-deceivers are motivated by a desire to believe. However, in significant contrast with Alfred Mele’s account of self-deception, I argue that self-deceivers do not satisfy this desire. Instead, the end-state of self-deception is a false higher-order belief. This shows all self-deception to be a failure of self-knowledge.

The aim of this paper is to provide an account of a certain variety of self-deception based on a model of self-knowledge. According to this model, one thinks that one has a belief on the basis of one’s grounds for that belief. If this model is correct, then our thoughts about which beliefs we have should be in accordance with our grounds for those beliefs. I suggest that the relevant variety of self deception is a failure of self-knowledge wherein the (...) subject violates this epistemic obligation. I argue that construing this type of self-deception as a failure of selfknowledge explains two important aspects of it: The tension that we observe between the subject’s speech and her actions, and our inclination to hold the subject responsible for her condition. I compare this proposal with two other approaches to self-deception in the literature; intentionalism and motivationalism. Intentionalism explains the two aspects of self-deception but it runs into the so called ‘paradoxes’ of self-deception. Motivationalism avoids those paradoxes but it cannot explain the two aspects of self-deception. (shrink)

The present text follows three general objectives, which, at the same time, build its structure. Firstly, I would like to present and question Bernard Williams’ description of the virtue of accuracy. Secondly, I´ll try to complement Williams’ description by analyzing two dimensions of accuracy: care, on one side, and what I call “proximity to the problem”, on the other side. Related to that last issue, I add an excursus about writing. The third and last part of this article is an (...) attempt to relate the discussion about the so called virtues of truth —sincerity as well as accuracy— with the issue of self-deception. Specifically, I try to a) support Mele´s deflationary account of self-deception as motivationally biased belief, b) make an adjustment to this conception, and c) complement it with another aspect which has not received enough consideration in the discussion about self-deception, namely some beliefs we don´t generate or that manifest a high lack of accuracy. (shrink)

A distinction can be made between those who think that self-deception is frequently intentional and those who don’t. I argue that the idea that self-deception has to be intentional can be partly traced to a particular invalid method for analyzing reflexive expressions of the form ‘Ving oneself’ (where V stands for a verb). However, I take the question of whether intentional self-deception is possible to be intrinsically interesting, and investigate the prospects for such an alleged possibility. Various potential strategies of (...) intentional self-deception are examined in relation to Alfred Mele’s suggestion that doing something intentionally implies doing it knowingly. It is suggested that the best prospects for an intentionalist theory of self-deception lie with a strategy involving the control of attention. (shrink)

One objection to enhancement technologies is that they might lead us to live inauthentic lives. Memory modification technologies (MMTs) raise this worry in a particularly acute manner. In this paper I describe four scenarios where the use of MMTs might be said to lead to an inauthentic life. I then undertake to justify that judgment. I review the main existing accounts of authenticity, and present my own version of what I call a “true self” account (intended as a complement, rather (...) than a substitute, to existing accounts). I briefly describe current and prospective MMTs, distinguishing between memory enhancement and memory editing . Moving then to an assessment of the initial scenarios in the light of the accounts previously described, I argue that memory enhancement does not, by its very nature, raise serious concerns about authenticity. The main threat to authenticity posed by MMTs comes, I suggest, from memory editing. Rejecting as inadequate the worries about identity raised by the President’s Council on Bioethics in Beyond Therapy , I argue instead that memory editing can cause us to live an inauthentic life in two main ways: first, by threatening its truthfulness, and secondly, by interfering with our disposition to respond in certain ways to some past events, when we have reasons to respond in such ways. This consideration allows us to justify the charge of inauthenticity in cases where existing accounts fail. It also gives us a significant moral reason not to use MMTs in ways that would lead to such an outcome. (shrink)

Stubborn belief, like self-deception, is a species of motivated irrationality. The nature of stubborn belief, however, has not been investigated by philosophers, and it is something that poses a challenge to some prominent accounts of self-deception. In this paper, I argue that the case of stubborn belief constitutes a counterexample to Alfred Mele’s proposed set of sufficient conditions for self-deception, and I attempt to distinguish between the two. The recognition of this phenomenon should force an amendment in this account, and (...) should also make a Mele-style deflationist think more carefully about the kinds of motivational factors operating in self-deception. (shrink)

The problem of self-deception lies at the heart of Nietzsche's account of the slave revolt in morality in the first essay of On the Genealogy of Morals. The viability of Nietzsche's genealogy of morality is thus crucially dependent on a successful explanation of the self-deception the slaves of the first essay are caught in. But the phenomenon of self-deception is notoriously puzzling. In this paper, after critically examining existing interpretations of the slaves’ self-deception, I provide, by drawing on Alfred Mele's (...) work on self-deception, a deflationary account of the slaves’ self-deception; an account which explains the slaves’ self-deceived predicament but without either the attribution of contradictory mental states or an intention to produce or to facilitate the production of the belief the self-deceived subjects end up holding. In light of my account of self-deception, I interpret Nietzsche's intriguing claim that the slaves’ revaluation of ressentiment amounts to their ‘most mendacious artistic.. (shrink)

Alfred Mele's deflationary account of self-deception has frequently been criticised for being unable to explain the “tension” inherent in self-deception. These critics maintain that rival theories can better account for this tension, such as theories which suppose self-deceivers to have contradictory beliefs. However, there are two ways in which the tension idea has been understood. In this article, it is argued that on one such understanding, Mele's deflationism can account for this tension better than its rivals, but only if we (...) reconceptualize the self-deceiver's attitude in terms of unwarranted degrees of conviction rather than unwarranted belief. This new way of viewing the self-deceiver's attitude will be informed by observations on experimental work done on the biasing influence of desire on belief, which suggests that self-deceivers don’t manage to fully convince themselves of what they want to be true. On another way in which this tension has been understood, this account would not manage so well, since on this understanding the self-deceiver is best interpreted as knowing, but wishing to avoid, the truth. However, it is argued that we are under no obligation to account for this since it is a characteristic of a different phenomenon than self-deception, namely, escapism. (shrink)

The philosophical difficulties presented by self-deception are vexed and multifaceted. One such difficulty is what I call the ‘doxastic problem’ of self-deception. Solving the doxastic problem involves determining whether someone in a state of self-deception that ∼p both believes that p and believes that ∼p, simply holds one or the other belief, or, as I will argue, holds neither. This final option, which has been almost entirely overlooked to-date, is what I call ‘ nondoxasticism ’ about self-deception. In this article, (...) I present a negative case for nondoxasticism according to which, in the paradigm case of self-deception, there is no explanatory need to attribute the self-deceived person either their undesired belief that p, or their desired belief that ∼p. Folk psychology is replete with concepts other than belief, and if we bear this in mind, it becomes clear that the explanatory roles for which the self-deceived person's purported beliefs have traditionally been enlisted can be comfortably filled without recourse to belief. (shrink)

In this paper, I address an ignored topic in the literature on self-deception—instances in which one is self-deceived about their emotions. Most discussions of emotion and self-deception address either the contributory role of emotion to instances of self-deception involving beliefs or assume what I argue is an outdated view of emotion according to which emotions just are beliefs or some other type of propositional attitude. In order to construct an account of self-deception about emotion, I draw a distinction between two (...) variants of self-deception about emotion: cognitively motivated self-deception and phenomenologically motivated self-deception. After providing an account of each variant, I discuss the importance of the role that perception plays in cases of self-deception about emotion. I conclude with a comment on the relevance of this discussion for contemporary debates in moral theory. (shrink)

In this essay, I defend the following two claims: reflective, critical reasoning is essential to the process of self-deception; and , the process of self-deception involves a certain characteristic error of self-knowledge. By appeal to and , I hope to show that we can adjudicate the current dispute about the nature of self-deception between those we might term "traditionalists," and those we might term "deflationists.".

This paper argues that self-deception cannot be explained without employing a depth-psychological ("psychodynamic") notion of the unconscious, and therefore that mainstream academic psychology must make space for such approaches. The paper begins by explicating the notion of a dynamic unconscious. Then a brief account is given of the "paradoxes" of self-deception. It is shown that a depth-psychological self of parts and subceptive agency removes any such paradoxes. Next, several competing accounts of self-deception are considered: an attentional account, a constructivist account, (...) and a neo-Sartrean account. Such accounts are shown to face a general dilemma: either they are able only to explain unmotivated errors of self-perception--in which case they are inadequate for their intended purpose--or they are able to explain motivated self-deception, but do so only by being instantiation mechanisms for depth-psychological processes. The major challenge to this argument comes from the claim that self-deception has a "logic" different to other-deception--the position of Alfred Mele. In an extended discussion it is shown that any such account is explanatorily adequate only for some cases of self-deception--not by any means all. Concluding remarks leave open to further empirical work the scope and importance of depth-psychological approaches. (shrink)

I raise the question of what cognitive attitude self-deception brings about. That is: what is the product of self-deception? Robert Audi and Georges Rey have argued that self-deception does not bring about belief in the usual sense, but rather “avowal” or “avowed belief.” That means a tendency to affirm verbally (both privately and publicly) that lacks normal belief-like connections to non-verbal actions. I contest their view by discussing cases in which the product of self-deception is implicated in action in a (...) way that exemplifies the motivational role of belief. Furthermore, by applying independent criteria of what it is for a mental state to be a belief, I defend the more intuitive view that being self-deceived that p entails believing that p. Beliefs (i) are the default for action relative to other cognitive attitudes (such as imagining and hypothesis) and (ii) have cognitive governance over the other cognitive attitudes. I explicate these two relations and argue that they obtain for the product of self-deception. (shrink)

I raise three puzzles concerning self-deception: (i) a conceptual paradox, (ii) a dilemma about how to understand human cognitive evolution, and (iii) a tension between the fact of self-deception and Davidson’s interpretive view. I advance solutions to the first two and lay a groundwork for addressing the third. The capacity for self-deception, I argue, is a spandrel, in Gould’s and Lewontin’s sense, of other mental traits, i.e., a structural byproduct. The irony is that the mental traits of which self-deception is (...) a spandrel/byproduct are themselves rational. (shrink)

Virtually every aspect of the current philosophical discussion of self-deception is a matter of controversy including its definition and paradigmatic cases. We may say generally, however, that self-deception is the acquisition and maintenance of a belief (or, at least, the avowal of that belief) in the face of strong evidence to the contrary motivated by desires or emotions favoring the acquisition and retention of that belief. Beyond this, philosophers divide over whether this action is intentional or not, whether self-deceivers recognize (...) the belief being acquired is unwarranted on the available evidence, whether self-deceivers are morally responsible for their self-deception, and whether self-deception is morally problematic (and if it is in what ways and under what circumstances). The discussion of self-deception and its associated puzzles gives us insight into the ways in which motivation affects belief acquisition and retention. And yet insofar as self-deception represents an obstacle to self-knowledge, which has potentially serious moral implications, self-deception is more than an interesting philosophical puzzle. It is a problem of particular concern for moral development, since self-deception can make us strangers to ourselves and blind to our own moral failings. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of self-deception can be divided into two broad groups – the intentionalist and the anti-intentionalist. On intentionalist models what happens in the central cases of self-deception is parallel to what happens when one person intentionally deceives another, except that deceiver and deceived are the same person. This paper offers a positive argument for intentionalism about self-deception and defends the view against standard objections.

When people tend toward a political decision, such as voting for the Republican Party, they are often attracted to this decision by one issue, such as the party’s stance on abortion, but then they come to see other issues, such as the party’s stand on taxes, as supporting their decision, even if they would not have thought so in the absence of the decision. I demonstrate this phenomenon with opinion poll data and with an experiment done on the World Wide (...) Web using hypothetical candidates. For the hypothetical candidates, judgments about whether a candidate’s position on issue A favors the candidate or the opponent are correlated with judgments about other positions taken by the candidate (as determined from other hypothetical candidates). This effect is greater in those subjects who rarely make conflicting judgments, in which one issue favors a candidate and another favors the opponent. In a few cases, judgments even reverse, so that a position that is counted as a minus for other candidates becomes a plus for a favored candidate. Reversals in the direction of a candidate’s position are more likely when the candidate is otherwise favored. The experiment provides a new kind of demonstration of “belief overkill,” the tendency to bring all arguments into line with a favored conclusion. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that people can, and regularly do, deceive themselves. Yet closer examination reveals a set of conceptual puzzles that make self-deception difficult to explain. Applying the conditions for other-deception to self-deception generates what are known as the ‘paradoxes’ of belief and intention. Simply put, the central problem is how it is possible for me to believe one thing, and yet intentionally cause myself to simultaneously believe its contradiction. There are two general approaches taken by philosophers to account (...) for these puzzles about the self-deceptive state and the process of self-deception. ‘Partitioning’ strategies try to resolve the paradoxes by proposing that the mind is divided in some way that allows self-deception to occur. ‘Reformulation’ strategies suggest that the conditions we use to define self-deception should be modified so that the paradoxes do not arise at all. Both approaches are subject to criticism about the consequences of the strategies philosophers use, but recent cross-disciplinary analyses of self-deception may help shed light on the puzzles that underlie this phenomenon. (shrink)

Central to many discussions of motivated reasoning is the idea that it runs afoul of epistemic normativity. Reasoning differently about information supporting our prior beliefs versus information contradicting those beliefs, is frequently equated with motivated irrationality. By analyzing the normative status of belief polarization, selective scrutiny, biased assimilation and the myside bias, I show this inference is often not adequately supported. Contrary to what’s often assumed, these phenomena need not indicate motivated irrationality, even though they are instances of belief-consistent information (...) processing. Second, I engage with arguments purporting to show that belief-consistent information processing does not indicate motivated irrationality because of its mere differential treatment of confirming and non-confirming evidence, but rather because it reveals the undermining presence of an irrelevant influence, such as a desire or partisan identity-driven cognition. While linking belief-consistent reasoning to a deeper source of directional motivation to make good on the claim that it indicates motivated irrationality is indeed what’s needed, two prominent such arguments fail. The non-normativity of many reasoning processes often taken to indicate motivated irrationality is not in fact well established. (shrink)

In the paper, I examine the conditions that are necessary for the correct characterization of the phenomenon of self-deception. Deflationists believe that the phenomenon of self-deception can be characterized as a kind of motivationally biased belief-forming process. They face the selectivity problem according to which the presence of a desire for something to be the case is not enough to produce a self-deceptive belief. Intentionalists argue that the solution to the selectivity problem consists in invoking the notion of intention. According (...) to them, self-deception involves intentional distortion of one's own belief-forming process. In this paper, I defend the claim that intentionalists also face the problem of selectivity. Accordingly, I argue that this objection cannot be used to determine which theory of self-deception is superior. Furthermore, I argue that limiting folk-psychological explanations to reason-based explanations might be responsible for the resilience of the selectivity problem. In that context, as an additional explanatory factor, I emphasize personality traits that, along with motives, play an important role in the psychological explanation of human behavior. In the rest of the paper, I explore how such an expanded view of the folk-psychological explanation can be used to better capture individual cases of self-deception. (shrink)

In this thesis, I elaborate and defend Donald Davidson's account of knowing one's own mental states that exhibit first-person authority. To that end, I place Davidson's account among others in the philosophical landscape concerning self-knowledge. Next, I examine his response to philosophical challenges that arise from mental content externalism and self-deception. Finally, I draw some insights froms Davidson's account to the broader aims of epsitemology.

In this review, I discuss recent advances in philosophical and psychological approaches to self-control. The review is divided in 4 parts, in which I discuss: a) different conceptions of self-control; b) standard methods for studying it; c) some models of how self-control is exercised; and d) the connections between self-control and other relevant psychological constructs. The review was originally commissioned by the John Templeton Foundation to provide an informative overview that would knit together different strands of current debates in the (...) field. It is meant to be useful to well-informed audiences, as well as new-comers to the discussion. (shrink)

This paper raises a slightly uncomfortable question: are some delusional subjects responsible for their delusions? This question is uncomfortable because we typically think that the answer is pretty clearly just ‘no’. However, we also accept that self-deception is paradigmatically intentional behavior for which the self-deceiver is prima facie blameworthy. Thus, if there is overlap between self-deception and delusion, this will put pressure on our initial answer. This paper argues that there is indeed such overlap by offering a novel philosophical account (...) of self-deception. The account offered is independently plausible and avoids the main problems that plague other views. It also yields the result that some delusional subjects are self-deceived. The conclusion is not, however, that those subjects are blameworthy. Rather, a distinction is made between blameworthiness and ‘attributability’. States or actions can be significantly attributable to a subject—in the sense that they are expressions of their wills—without it being the case that the subject is blameworthy, if the subject has an appropriate excuse. Understanding delusions within this framework of responsibility and excuses not only illuminates the ways in which the processes of delusional belief formation and maintenance are continuous with ‘ordinary’ processes of belief formation and maintenance, it also provides a way of understanding the innocence of the delusional subject that does not involve the denial of agency. (shrink)

This article explores the alleged “selectivity problem” for Alfred Mele’s deflationary position on self-deception, a problem that can allegedly be solved only by appealing to intentions to bring it about that one acquires certain beliefs, or to make it easier for oneself to acquire certain beliefs, or to deceive oneself into believing that p. This article argues for the following thesis: the selectivity problem does not undermine this deflationary position on self-deception, and anyone who takes it to be a problem (...) for this position should regard it as being just as serious a problem for those who advocate the intention-featuring solution at issue. (shrink)