What is the role of the self in self-deception?

Proceedings of the Aristotelean Society

Volumn 101, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 53-69

  Holton, Richard ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0042109157     PISSN: 00667374     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.0066-7372.2003.00021.x     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. William Cowper, Task iii 316-19
2. Butler, Fifteen Sermons, Sermon VII, 'Upon the Character of Balaam'
3. Sermon X 'Upon Self-Deceit'
4. Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments III. 4
5. Dyke, The Mystery of Selfe-Deceiving (Revised Edition, London: Richard Higgenbothan, 1630)
6. For an amusing discussion of the problems, see Mark Johnston 'Self-Deception and the Nature of Mind' in B. McLaughlin and A. Rorty eds, Perspectives on Self-Deception (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 63-91
7. Though they are often used to mean something like pretending to oneself. 'For a while there, you try kidding yourself that you're going with an unmarried man' says Fran in Billy Wilder's 1960 film The Apartment; 'Then one day, he keeps looking at his watch, and asks you if there's any lipstick showing, then rushes out to catch the 7:14 to White Plains.' Fran never really believed that her lover was unmarried; she just pretended to herself that he was. For a compelling argument that such pretence can be morally important, see Stephen Darwall's illuminating article 'Self-Deception, Autonomy and Moral Constitution' in B. McLaughlin and A. Rorty eds, Perspectives on Self-Deception (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 407-30. But unlike Darwall, I do not think that it forms the core of what we think of as self-deception. And, despite his persuasive arguments, I am not convinced that this is what Butler meant by it either
8. Mele has presented this in a number of places. See, for instance, 'Real Self-Deception', Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20 (1997), 91-102
9. I am not going to investigate whether conditions 2-4 are necessary. I doubt that they are. Indeed, if self-deception is a cluster concept, there will be no set of conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient; indeed, even if it's fairly unified there is no reason to insist that there must be such a set. On the general issue of necessary conditions without sufficient, see Timothy Williamson Knowledge and its Limits (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000) pp. 31-3
10. On one reason for scepticism here: I doubt that the bias needs to be motivated, in the sense that it needs to be inspired by a desire on the part of the agent, either a desire to believe that proposition, or a desire that the proposition be true. Someone can be self-deceived in under-estimating their own competence without wanting either to believe that they are incompetent or wanting to be so. For some discussion of this issue see Martha Knight, 'Cognitive and Motivational Bases of Self-Deception', Philosophical Psychology 1 (1988), 179-88
11. and Alfred Mele, 'Twisted Self-Deception', Philosophical Psychology 12 (1999), 117-37
12. D. Lewis, 'Attitudes De Dicto and De Se', in Philosophical Papers Vol. I (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983). But note that since I want to contrast de se knowledge with de dicto knowledge, I want to resist Lewis's device of converting the latter to the former
13. and on Augustine, P. Courcelle, Connais-toi toi-même (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1974), Ch. VIII
14. Sermon X, 51-2. There are enormous differences within the tradition as to the explanation of why this information is available to us. Butler's position suggests a natural transparency of mind. In contrast, Augustine and Pascal stress the idea that God forces the information upon us: [Y]ou thrust me before my own eyes so that I should discover my iniquity and hate it. I had known it, but deceived myself, refused to admit it, and pushed it out of my mind. Augustine, Confessions VIII. vi (16)
15. and E. Gilson, 'Self-Knowledge and Christian Socratism', Ch. IX of The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy (London: Sheed & Ward, 1936)