self-deception

Self-Deception, Action, and WillAuthor(s): Robert AudiSource: Erkenntnis (1975-), Vol. 18, No. 2, Action, Agency, and the Will (Sep., 1982), pp. 133-158Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20010803 .

Accessed: 09/02/2015 11:39

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Erkenntnis (1975-).

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 155.54.213.4 on Mon, 9 Feb 2015 11:39:34 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=springer

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20010803?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


ROBERT AUDI

SELF-DECEPTION, ACTION, AND WILL

Self-deception has been widely regarded as paradoxical. Perhaps it has

seemed to many writers that since deceiving someone else typically in?

volves getting him to believe something one knows is not true, deceiving oneself would typically require getting oneself to believe something one

knows is not true. It is not clear how this is possible, if indeed it is; and

most philosophers writing on self-deception have tried to avoid conceiving it in this way. There have been widely differing attempts to resolve the

paradox implicit in this way of conceiving self-deception.1 Perhaps the

most important respect in which treatments of self-deception tend to differ

is the extent to which they take it to be cognitive2 or, on the other hand,

volitional.3 Cognitive accounts construe self-deception primarily in terms

of the subjects (5"s) beliefs or knowledge; volitional accounts construe it

primarily in terms of actions or patterns of action, and give S's beliefs a

subsidiary role.

The account of self-deception to be developed here is closer to the cog? nitive end of the continuum, and it gives a central role to unconscious

belief. But the account also uses volitional notions and attempts to do

justice to the data that make volitional treatments of self-deception

plausible. In developing the account, I have been guided by the assumption that it should be capable of solving, or helping us solve, at least the follow?

ing problems: How should we resolve the paradox of self-deception? How

can we account for the analogy that presumably exists between self-decep? tion and two-person deception? How are we to square the existence of

unconscious beliefs with certain plausible views of privileged access ac?

cording to which, if S has a belief, he either knows he does,or at least does

not falsely believe he does not?4 Moreover, if self-deception embodies

unconscious belief, how can self-deceivers bd morally responsible for get?

ting into it, or at least for remaining in it or acting out of it? (For if S has an

unconscious belief, how can he be expected to give it up or to avoid acting on it?) Is self-deception in some way under the subject's control and if so

how does that bear on the self-deceiver's moral responsibility? In approaching these questions I shall be extending and clarifying the

Erkenntnis 18 (1982) 133-158. 0165-0106/82/0182-133 $02.60

Copyright ? 1982 by D. Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland, and Boston, U.S.A.



134 ROBERT AUDI

account of self-deception I have sketched in earlier papers,5 exploring the

relation between self-deception and "the will," and specifying some major

ways in which self-deceivers may be morally responsible for their self

deception or for behavior connected with it. Section I presents my account

of self-deception. Section II addresses the relation between self-deception and the will. Section III applies the results of the previous sections to self

deception and moral responsibility. The concluding section will summarize

and extend some of the main points.

I. THE NATURE OF SELF-DECEPTION

The term 'self-deception' is vague, and, at least in philosophical literature, used in quite different ways. It may not be possible for a univocal account

to capture all its admissible uses. Some cases, however, appear to be central

to our use of the term, and I believe that if we can explicate these ad?

equately we can understand the other uses. In any event, the cases I have in

mind are a quite adequate field for testing an account of self-deception aimed at solving the problems cited above. The cases I refer to often occur

in the lover who cannot bear the thought that his beloved is drawing away, the alcoholic who cannot admit that he is unable by himself to stop drink?

ing, the terminal patient unable to face his death, and the athlete unable to

reconcile himself to his waning powers.

Imagine, e.g., that Ann is dying of cancer and is aware of many facts, such as her long, steady decline, pointing to this outcome, though no one

has told her that her case is terminal and she has avoided letting her doctor

give her a prognosis. Suppose further that she talks of recovery and dis?

cusses her various plans for the long future. If the facts pointing to her

death are not unmistakably prominent and her talk of recovery is ap?

parently sincere, it might be wrong to suppose she is lying when she says she will recover. But if we know that she has better than average medical

knowledge, and if (among other things) we notice that her talk of recovery lacks full conviction (or exhibits too much apparent conviction), and that

it is often followed by depression or anxiety, it might also be wrong to

suppose that she believes she will recover. No doubt some people in this

position might be just keeping up appearances and in a candid moment

would acknowledge that they believe they are dying. Others might simply fail to perceive the drift of the evidence. But (1) if Ann is in self-deception,



SELF-DECEPTION, ACTION, AND WILL 135

she has some sense of her dying; it is partly in virtue of this that she may be

said to deceive herself about it. (2) She also appears in some way to be

sincere in saying she will recover; it is partly in virtue of this that she may be said to be deceived. If these two points are uncontroversial, it is largely because they are vague. My aim in this section is to provide an account of

self-deception which clarifies them.

Let us speak not merely of self-deception, but of S" s being in self-decep? tion with respect to a proposition, p, e.g. that he will recover. Initially, I

propose that we conceive such self-deception as a state in which S uncon?

sciously knows that/?, but sincerely avows, or is disposed to avow sincerely, that not-p.6 Though this rough formulation seems to hold for paradigm

cases, I believe the self-deceiver may have, in place of knowledge that p,

only an unconscious true belief that p.71 also grant that sometimes people

say 'You're deceiving yourself without implying that the addressee has an

unconscious belief. But there what is referred to is not a state but an action, such as making a statement. This use of 'self-deception' seems to me non

literal, or at least peripheral, but I believe that on the basis of the account I

am developing such acts can be understood as the sort characteristic of

people in a state of self-deception. One might wish to liberalize the conception further by allowing that S

need only suspect that not-p, provided not-p is indeed true.8 But suppose S

merely suspects, and does not even weakly believe, that not-p. May he be in

self-deception with respect to pi Consider whether S can deceive someone

else with respect to p, when S tells him that p and thereby gets him to

believe p, which is false, yet S only suspects, but does not believe, that not

p. No doubt S causes him to be deceived in believing p and also deceives

him into believing that S knows (or believes) p. But it is at least not obvious

that S deceives him with respect to p. This is probably not so if S believes

that p is more likely to be true than not-/?. But suppose that not-p is, in S"s

eyes, at least as likely to be true asp. Here it is again quite unclear whether

S deceives him. These and other considerations lead me to conclude that if

S does not believe not-p, then even if he meets the other criteria for self

deception with respect to p, we have a borderline case of such self-decep? tion. Cases of this sort should be decided individually in the light of the

facts, and I see no need to weaken the belief condition to accommodate

them.

Let us now consider whether a motivational condition is needed.9 For



136 ROBERT AUDI

typically self-deception results in part because S wants something, say to see

himself as a certain kind of person, to be loved and respected, or to avoid

painful thoughts. As this suggests, self-deception may arise from wishful

thinking.10 But must a want (or other motivational element) occur in every case of self-deception? If Ann is deceiving herself about her impending death from cancer, must her self-deception be accompanied by, e.g., a want

not to die of cancer? This is not entirely clear. Perhaps, e.g., a person can

have an "instinctual" tendency not to think of his death when he perceives it near. This might explain self-deception.

It is difficult, however, to imagine cases of self-deception in which no

want explains why S is deceiving himself and why the relevant belief is

unconscious. Moreover, normally, at least, where S unconsciously believes

p9 the belief is unconscious because of a want in virtue of which he has a

stake in repudiating the belief. He may, e.g., want to believe he is not the sort of person who believes that, or want that not-p be the case instead. I

am not sure that the relevant concept of unconscious belief requires that it

be explainable in part by appeal to at least one of S"s wants; but that it

does require this is a plausible hypothesis. If it does, then a motivational

element in self-deception would follow from my unconscious belief con?

dition. In any case, normally part of what explains why a belief of S's is

unconscious is one or more of his wants, such as his wanting to avoid

certain painful thoughts; and typically the very wants which explain in

part why S believes not-p only unconsciously, also explain what motivates

him to do the things he does in becoming self-deceived with respect to p. Ann's wanting not to die of cancer, e.g., might explain both why it is only

unconsciously that she believes she will die of it and why she deceives

herself with respect to it.

I believe, then, that at least in the full-blooded cases of self-deception with respect to p S has one or more wants which explain, in part, both why the belief that p is unconscious and why S behaves or tends to behave in a

manner characteristic of self-deception. Perhaps this condition is not im?

plicit in the concept of self-deception; but I am inclined to think it is and to

add it to the sketch of self-deception given above. For paradigm cases,

certainly, the condition holds. These are the kind I have described, in which we seem to have both a deceiver and a dupe, as we in fact do in ordinary

two-person deception. I shall proceed, then, on the hypothesis that at least

the paradigm cases of self-deception may be understood as follows:




S is in self-deception with respect to p if and only if

(1) S unconsciously knows that not-p (or has reason to believe, and unconsciously and truly believes, not-p);

(2) S sincerely avows, or is disposed to avow sincerely, that/?; and

(3) S has at least one want which explains in part both why the

belief that not-p is unconscious and why S is disposed to dis?

avow a belief that not-p, and to avow /?, even when presented with what he sees is evidence against it.

So far, I have talked as if it were clear that there can be unconscious

beliefs. I have argued for this elsewhere.11 On my view, unconscious beliefs

are very much like conscious ones, apart from two major differences: (i) if

they manifest themselves in 5"s consciousness, he is very unlikely, without

special self-scrutiny or prompting from someone else, to attribute these

manifestations to them; and (ii), he is, with the same exceptions, very

unlikely to explain actions of his which are due to them, as due to them.

But - and this is the important point here - they do tend to manifest

themselves in consciousness and behavior, and in essentially the same way as conscious beliefs, though usually less frequently. S may even tend to

avow them and may actually do so through slips of the tongue. More must be said, however, about the force of calling a belief uncon?

scious. Roughly, we might say that S"s belief that p is unconscious if and

only if (1) he does not know or believe he has it, and (2) he cannot come to

know or believe he has it without either outside help (such as that of a

friend) or some special self-scrutiny.12 Note that this does not preclude the

beliefs manifesting itself in consciousness, e.g. in S" s entertaining the prop? osition in question or his drawing certain inferences from p. To be sure, there is a related use of 'unconscious' in which (1) but not (2) holds, e.g.

where one has been unconsciously assuming something in a debate. Here one will normally realize one believes the proposition, upon clearly for?

mulating it; but of course cases like this shade off into the kind I am

describing. Neither notion, I might add, is tied to Freudian psychology,

though I take the latter to be similar to some Freudian concepts of uncon?

scious belief.

Should we allow, as a Freudian might, that S can unconsciously know or

believe he believes, /?, where the latter belief is unconscious? Perhaps this



138 ROBERT AUDI

cannot be ruled out a priori. If not, we need a way to describe such uncon?

scious second-order beliefs so that we can protect the above characteriza?

tion of unconscious beliefs from circularity. We must not say merely that

unconscious beliefs are those S does not know or believe he has, except

perhaps through unconscious knowledge or unconscious belief. We might thus say something like this: An unconscious belief that /? is a belief such

that, apart from outside help13 or some special self-scrutiny, S is disposed

(1) sincerely to deny that he believes/? if asked whether he does, and (2) to

explain typical manifestations of this belief in his consciousness or be?

havior as due to some factor other than the belief. The notion of self

scrutiny here is vague, but must not be taken too strictly. We need not

construe unconscious beliefs as so buried that S cannot bring them to

consciousness by, e.g., analyzing his behavior and fantasy; and people differ in how much scrutiny they need to accomplish this.

It may be, however, that the want(s) explaining why S"s belief that p is

unconscious would prevent S's coming to know or believe, even uncon?

sciously, that he believes /?. But if S only unconsciously believes that he

believes p, perhaps he need not "face" believing it, and this may provide him all the "protection" he needs against consciousness of his belief that/?.

I am not sure this question can be settled by reflection alone. Fortunately,

my purposes here do not require resolving it. We can simply work with the

wider characterization of unconscious belief just suggested. It does not appear to me that 5"s being in self-deception with respect to p

and unconsciously believing not-p entails his also believing - albeit con?

sciously -

that/?. All my view requires regarding 5"s positive attitude toward

p is that S be disposed sincerely to avow it. Since S"s sincerely avowing/? is

generally excellent reason to think he believes it, we may want to say, in

virtue of his sincerely avowing it, that he "consciously believes" it. Should

we say, however, that he actually does believe /? when he unconsciously knows or believes not-pl I think not.14 In this respect, my account differs

from those requiring beliefs that p and that not-p. Let me offer several reasons in defense of the view that self-deception

does not embody beliefs that p and not-/?, beginning with some negative

points, (i) We surely need not take sincere avowal to entail belief.15 (ii) While it seems possible for one to have beliefs of incompatible propo?

sitions, it is not clearly possible for one to believe two propositions one

believes are incompatible. Yet/? and not-p are such that any normal person




would believe them incompatible, (iii) Even supposing that in self-decep? tion S could believe, e.g., both that he will die of his disease and that he will

recover from it, it is preferable to explain the data - as I shall argue we can - on a hypothesis not implying this irrational and, I suspect, inexplicable condition, (iv) The pattern of behavior and thought required to warrant

attributing to S a belief that /?, counts against attributing to him a belief

that not-p, even if one of the beliefs is unconscious; if, e.g., we may at?

tribute to Ann the unconscious belief that she will die of cancer - say

because she asks about funeral arrangements "just in case," rewrites her

will, and grasps that normally people in her condition do not pull through - can we also find adequate grounds to attribute to her the belief that she

will pull through? She says this, but "actions speak louder than words," and her overall behavior will not support the attribution of this belief nor,

I think, adequately explain her holding obviously incompatible beliefs. It is

not as though she had the sorts of grounds for both that one might have

for incompatible beliefs upon discovering Russell's Paradox.

That a person self-deceived with respect to /? does not believe it, is also

supported by a different kind of consideration. The behavior that seems to

justify attribution of such a belief to S is typically due to the wants, needs, etc. that explain why the unconscious belief is unconscious in the first

place. Thus, Ann's wanting not to die of cancer can explain her only

unconsciously realizing that she is dying of it and can also explain why she

talks with others about what she will do when well. Such talk superficially

suggests a belief that she will recover. But in the self-deceived as opposed to the deluded person in Ann's position there will be contrary indications,

e.g. little willingness to act on the ostensible belief, say by making vacation

plans that are not easily undone.

Supposing, however, it is true that if S is self-deceived with respect to /?,

he knows not-p, and does not also believe p, may we really say he sincerely

avows pi I think we may, though my account would be largely unchanged

if we said only that (e.g.) S non-lyingly avows/?. Consider Ann's saying she

will recover. This statement differs in several respects from an insincere

one. (a) She apparently lacks a belief that she is speaking falsely. With an

insincere statement, however, there is normally a quite conscious belief

that one is speaking falsely, (b) Similar points hold regarding an intention,

hope, or effort to deceive, or to withhold the truth from, the hearer(s):

either she lacks these or they are unconscious. In either case we have a



140 ROBERT AUDI

contrast with normal insincere statements, (c) Ann is not appropriately

disposed to affirm to herself or intimate friends she trusts, that she will not

recover. If she has this disposition, it is outweighed by conflicting tend?

encies. On this count, too, her statement differs from an insincere one. (d) If her hearer responds with something like 'You don't believe that', she is

strongly disposed to think she is being falsely accused of lying, deceitful

ness, pretense, or perhaps self-deception. This does not apply to normal

cases of insincere statements. With self-deception, we expect such a state?

ment to produce wounded sensibilities and honest protestations, whereas

with insincerity we expect (in a normal decent person) signs of guilt, and

more insincerity if there is a defensive reply. Far more could be said about

sincerity, but I believe these points at least show that the notion may be

plausibly applied to the range of avowals I have in mind.

To be sure, self-deception may pass over into simple delusion, and the

transition may be gradual. But we need to distinguish these things; and

normally, at least, when we reach a point at which it is clear that S con?

sciously believes /?, he has, I think, passed from self-deception to genuine

delusion and no longer believes that not-p. There is a natural tension here:

the sense of the evidence against p pulls one away from the deception and

threatens to break down one's defenses; the motivation and weakness that

sustain the deception pull against one's grip on the evidence and threaten

to overthrow one's perception of the truth. Self-deception resides, I sug?

gest, only where neither of these forces is paramount. Thus, if S"s behavior

and discourse are sufficiently free of conflict to justify saying he believes /?,

then at the time in question we cannot reasonably reject his sincere dis?

avowal of a belief that non-/?. We would not then be warranted in attribut?

ing self-deception to S; for if S does not know or truly believe not-p, he

cannot be deceived by himself with respect to /?. Granted the evidence may

change rapidly, so that moments after we are justifiably convinced S

simply believes/? we can justifiably conclude that he unconsciously believes

not-p. But this shows that self-deception must be distinguished from cer?

tain oscillations in belief, not that in self-deception S may believe p and

believe not-p.

If this view of self-deception is right, however, how can we do justice to

the analogy with typical cases of two-person deception? There one person

knows that not-/?; the other believes that /?. So shouldn't the self-deceiver

believe both p and not-/?? After all, it might be thought, just as we need to




suppose S knows not-p to account for how he can be said to deceive

himself about /?, we must suppose he believes p to account for his being

deceived about it.

My reply is that the analogy simply does not hold completely, any more

than does the analogy between self-denial and denying something to anoth?

er, or between self-control and controlling someone else. But why should

it? We have one person, not two. However, it is as if we had two; for S

operates, as it were, at two levels. On the unconscious level, at which he

knows /? is false, or at least at a kind of metalevel from which he ma?

nipulates his own consciousness or behavior, he gets himself to "believe" /?,

whether he aims at precisely that or not; and since he sincerely avows/? and

is not conscious that he believes not-p, it looks quite as if he did believe/?. I

think we thus preserve enough of the analogy to account for the term

'deception' in both cases; yet we avoid the paradox implied in saying the

self-deceiver believes something he knows (or believes) is not true. My

point is not that such a belief is impossible; but how it is possible, if it is, is

not clear, and we can account for self-deception without positing such

beliefs.

The analogy with ordinary deception suggests a further problem. If

someone falsely but quite justifiably believes not-p and intentionally gets another person to believe p, the former has apparently in some sense de?

ceived the latter. Now suppose S has a justified but false unconscious belief

that not-p, and that everything else goes as in paradigm cases of self

deception, so that S sincerely avows /?, etc. Is this self-deception? I do not

think it is self-deception with respect to p, which is the sort that concerns

me; for if/? is true, S is not deceived in believing it. But S is indeed being

deceiving toward himself. Perhaps what we have is a kind of abortive self

deceptiveness. The kinship to ordinary self-deception is obvious, and while

I would not call the case self-deception it can be understood in the light of

the points made above about self-deception with respect to a proposition. One may yet object that knowledge cannot be unconscious even if belief

can be. But why not? Not because knowing entails knowing that one

knows; for that is not so, even for first-order knowledge.16 Not because an

unconscious belief cannot be justified. For it surely can be.17 If one takes a

reliability view of knowledge,18 one may readily countenance unconscious

knowledge. For consciousness is not required for a belief to have the rele?

vant kind of reliable connection with the fact in virtue of which it is true. An



142 ROBERT AUDI

unconscious belief might, e.g., arise from excellent evidence which S simply does not consciously register as evidence for /?.

This is a good place to emphasize that I have been giving an account of

self-deception, not of deceiving oneself. I have already suggested that there

appears to be, for normal persons, at least, no act of deceiving oneself, if

that entails putting oneself into self-deception at a stroke, e.g. by a resolu?

tion to enter it. There are, to be sure, various kinds of behavior to which

'deceiving oneself applies, and I shall consider some shortly. Even if there

are no acts of deceiving oneself at a stroke, it may be that in fact persons

get into self-deception only through self-deceptive acts, such as concentrat?

ing on one-sided evidence. But this is not required by the concept of self

deception, and I have therefore not built it into my account. The account

does, however, make it easy to see why this should be so; for given the

want which partly causes the self-deception, we would expect such be?

havior as concentrating on one-sided, welcome evidence. But suppose a

neurosurgeon caused S to satisfy the conditions of the account simply by brain manipulation. Would we then have a state of self-deception without

5" s having deceived himself? I think so; but the case is problematic, in

much the way it would be problematic to call a person brave who (after,

say, a religious conversion) is ready to act bravely yet has never been

tested.

In closing this section, let me make explicit some of the central concepts I have examined, (a) The main subject of analysis has been a person's being in self-deception with respect to a proposition, /?. From this I have dis?

tinguished, (b) acts of self-deception, (c) being deceiving toward oneself,

(d) simple deception, i.e., merely being deceived (but not self-deceived) with respect to /?, and (e) being deluded as a result of self-deception, i.e.

being deceived in believing /?, as a result of having been in self-deception with respect to it. Acts of self-deception are not acts of putting oneself into

self-deception at a stroke; they are acts manifesting it or conducive to

producing it, such as putting certain kinds of evidence out of mind, or

sincerely denying something one unconsciously knows to be true. The

existence of such acts does not, of course, imply that self-deception itself is

ever an act. They do not constitute self-deception, any more than acts of

love constitute love. As to being deceiving toward oneself, this is the sort of

behavior by which one gets into self-deception, though it does not entail

that; a person may, e.g., manipulate evidence in a way characteristic of the




self-deceiver, but in the end sincerely avow what is true and unconsciously believe its negation. By contrast, the person who is simply deceived with

respect to p actually (and falsely) believes it. Since one can cause this in

oneself, e.g. by too hastily judging a complex matter, we must be careful to

distinguish self-deception from simple deception that is self-caused. Fi?

nally, since one can pass from self-deception to genuine delusion - in which

one is simply deceived in believing/?, without the ambivalence, oscillation,

anxiety, self-manipulation, or the like characteristic of self-deception - we

must distinguish being self-deceived from being simply deceived as a result

of being self-deceiving (or of self-deception). The account of self-deception offered in this section is meant to help us preserve and understand these

distinctions.

II. SELF-DECEPTION AND THE WILL

Some writers have talked as if they construed self-deception as a kind of

behavior,19 even if not as an action; and self-deception has frequently been

regarded as in some way motivated.20 Is it in a sense voluntary? And if it is

not voluntary, is it nevertheless under the person's control? These two

questions will be the main concern of this section.

We might first ask whether self-deception is in any sense something one

does. If one notes that we say such things as 'Don't deceive yourself, one

may suppose that in at least some cases self-deception is an act. But we can

explain such apparently behavioral uses of 'deceive oneself, 'deceive your?

self, and the like without supposing that self-deception is action or behavior.

Note that we also say such things as 'Don't believe that' and 'All right, I'll

believe you', where clearly no action of believing need be postulated. In

both sorts of context, there may be actions the addressee can appropriately

perform, e.g., reconsidering the evidence or reminding himself of his strong biases. But these actions neither are self-deception nor even necessarily

manifestations of it.

The analogy with belief indicates why some of the points most likely to

appear to show that self-deception is a kind of behavior do not establish

that. But we still need to explain the appropriateness of such imperatival locutions as 'Don't deceive yourself and 'Stop deceiving yourself. We

might suppose that they are in effect injunctions to reconsider the evidence, face one's biases, or the like. But since it is generally realized that such acts



144 ROBERT AUDI

may not prevent or eliminate self-deception, this view does not do justice to an apparent presupposition of the relevant locutions, namely that in

some sense self-deception is voluntary. What could this mean? It does not

mean, of course, that there is a sub-personal agent, the will, which de?

termines whether S enters or remains in self-deception. Nor need it mean

that self-deception is voluntary in the way actions are. We say of certain

non-actions, such as absences, that they are voluntary, where the force of

this is roughly that they are in some appropriate way a result of the agent's

voluntary action and in that sense under the control of the will. Let us

pursue this notion of control in relation to self-deception. It will help us to draw two sets of distinctions here. First, we must

distinguish between what is directly voluntary (or, in a terminology some

philosophers may prefer, under the direct control of the will) and what is

indirectly voluntary. It seems plausible to say that only actions are directly

voluntary. Indeed, on one conception of action, this is a truism. There are

several ways we might unpack the notion that an action is directly volun?

tary. On one view, to say this is to say that S can, under favorable con?

ditions (e.g. non-paralysis) just perform it, i.e., perform it without doing so

by performing some other action. I have in mind, of course, what are called

basic actions; and I am here characterizing directly voluntary actions in a

way that is neutral on the question whether their occurrence requires some?

thing like a volition. Alternatively (in a terminology I shall not adopt), one

might say that actions are directly voluntary if and only if one can, under

favorable conditions, perform them at will, where this implies that one

need not have any belief to the effect that one performs them only through

something else. Thus, one can normally move one's finger at will, but

normally one could not flip a switch if one did not have something like an

instrumental belief, e.g., that one can do so through moving one's finger.21 We might characterize what is only indirectly voluntary, by contrast, as

consisting of actions, events, and states of affairs which one can, under

favorable conditions, perform or bring about by performing some basic

action, and only in that way. A second set of distinctions we need cuts across the first set. Control may

be negative or positive. Let us say that a state of affairs (or type of state of

affairs) is under 5"s negative control provided S can, under favorable con?

ditions, prevent it. With positive control, we find a further distinction. Let

us say that S has partial positive control over a state of affairs provided he




can, under favorable conditions, either bring it about or, if it obtains, alter

it, but not both. If S can do both, then (and only then) he has full control

over the state of affairs. Clearly, control of each of these three kinds has

degrees, so that even full control need not be complete. For instance, other

things equal, the less S needs to do to bring about a state of affairs, the

greater is his control over it.

Does one, in any of the above respects, have control over one's being in

self-deception? My first point here is that there may be no general answer

to this implicit in the concept of self-deception. The question may be essen?

tially empirical, and if so a philosophical account of self-deception should

not be expected, by itself, to answer it. To be sure, when we say such things as 'Don't deceive yourself we appear to be conceiving self-deception as

under S's negative control. But surely such locutions apply to self-decep? tive acts, not states of self-deception. If S has control over unconscious

beliefs - e.g., can always render them conscious by an appropriate intro?

spective inventory of what he believes - then my account of self-deception would imply at least partial positive control of self-deception. For in prin?

ciple S could rid himself of it by rendering the relevant belief conscious.

Perhaps something like this is implicit in the concept of unconscious belief.

But rather than explore that possibility directly I want to suggest some

respects in which self-deception itself, as I conceive it, is under the subject's control.

It is at best doubtful that there is anyone for whom self-deception is

directly voluntary, anyone who can become self-deceived, or unself-de

ceived, at will. This is not because one cannot intelligibly will, intend, or

want, to become one of these. But surely becoming self-deceived cannot, for any normal person, be achieved like raising an arm. On the other hand, each of the kinds of indirect control sketched above is possessed by some

people for some kinds of self-deception. Some people can prevent their

becoming self-deceived about their chances of winning a contest by simply

reminding themselves of the evidence. Some can become self-deceived

about another person's affection for them by dwelling on the evidence for

the favored view and constantly avoiding or disregarding22 evidence for

the dreaded view. And some people can rid themselves of self-deception about their achievements when they look carefully at their careers to come

to terms with themselves simply as the individuals they are.

In none of these cases need S aim at avoiding, getting into, or getting out



146 ROBERT AUDI

of, self-deception. For instance, whether or not one suspects that one is

self-deceived about one's achievements, one might set out to reassess the

evidence with a view to being honest with oneself. An autobiography might also provide an occasion to root out self-deception. Clearly people will

differ considerably in the kind and degree of control they have over the

sorts of self-deception to which they are liable. Joan's self-deception may be readily uprooted by her honest reappraisals, while John's, tottering ego

makes it hard for him even to begin self-scrutiny. There are other ways self-deception may be eliminated, for instance

through S's gradually embracing, spontaneously and consciously, the prop? osition he previously believed only unconsciously, or through his forget?

ting that proposition altogether, say as changes in him make it irrelevant to

his main concerns. There are also factors other than the depth of the

constituent unconscious belief (i.e. how deeply repressed or otherwise in?

sulated from consciousness it is) which affect how entrenched self-decep? tion is. The most notable is perhaps the strength of S"s motivation to

maintain a certain self-conception, where this conception conflicts with the

evidence supporting the constituent belief. One merit of viewing self-decep? tion as I propose is that if it does embody unconscious belief, we can use

our theory of unconscious belief to account, in part, both for the entrench?

ment of self-deception and for the various ways S can uproot it, e.g. by careful self-observation.

Once it is clear that at least many instances of self-deception are in some

way indirectly voluntary, it is natural to ask whether self-deception may be

construed as a kind of weakness of will. One might think that weakness of

will is manifested only in actions and that self-deception therefore is not a

candidate for it. But surely intentions may manifest weakness of will (for reasons I have given elsewhere).23 Perhaps, then, we may also speak of

beliefs manifesting it. These might be, analogously with incontinent ac?

tions, uncompelled beliefs against S's better judgment; roughly, S will hold

them - without having been compelled (say, by psychosurgery) to hold

them - despite his judging that, on the basis of the evidence he has, the

proposition in question is false (or improbable). Here we must be very

careful, however: if we speak of a belief which is against one's better judg?

ment, we must not imply that normally beliefs are positively and directly

voluntary. They are, to be sure, sometimes under one's negative control;

and certainly such actions as dwelling on one-sided evidence are directly




voluntary. When S forms a belief against his better judgment, however, where it is under his negative control, or when he forms a belief by con?

centrating on what he realizes is one-sided evidence, the belief he forms

may be akratic in a derivative sense: it arises - or persists -

through the

action or permission of a weak will.

But must self-deception embody or arise from such beliefs, or even from

beliefs formed through similar self-manipulation but in the absence of a

judgment that one ought not to do the things constituting the manipu? lation? At this point we can see a major difference between my account of

self-deception and inconsistent-belief accounts. Since I maintain that S

does not believe/?, i.e., the proposition which, on some accounts, he con?

sciously believes or believes to some degree,241 need not take self-deception to embody akratic belief. This avoids a difficulty in accounting lor cases

(which some writers have held to be central in self-deception), in which S

believes in the face of what he sees as preponderant counterevidence.

Inconsistent belief accounts, as well as those which simply maintain that S

believes p, must explain how, despite his awareness of evidence against p which S regards as superior to his grounds for it, S comes to believe, or

continues to believe, /?. Such belief is by no means clearly impossible; but if

we can understand self-deception without positing it, that is surely pref? erable.

On the other hand, if self-deception need not embody akratic belief, it

may often arise in part from, and then later cause, akratic acts of a not

unusual sort. How are we to explain this? There are many ways weakness

of will can contribute to producing self-deception. In each case, there is an

action, intention, want, or perhaps belief, formed or maintained against one's better judgment, or a failure to perform an action, or form an inten?

tion, want, or belief, when one's judgment requires it. Here are some ex?

amples. Against his better judgment regarding what he ought to do, S may

(a) put evidence against p out of his mind, (b) manipulate evidence against p so as to reduce its apparent plausibility, (c) manipulate evidence for/? so

as to increase its plausibility, (d) seek new evidence for/? knowing that he is

biased toward inflating the evidence, and (e) do things - such as rejecting

advice that one write a will - appropriate only on the belief that/? (say, that

one will recover) is true. Similarly, S might exhibit weakness of will in

forming the corresponding intentions, whether or not he carries them out.

It will be clear that these sorts of weakness can also result partly from self



148 ROBERT AUDI

deception, most commonly where it motivates actions - such as putting evidence out of mind - which help to perpetuate it.

These and related examples show that self-deception can manifest weak?

ness of will in a variety of ways. If so, we can see more clearly how self

deception is often under 5"s control; for if S exercises enough will-power to

avoid the sorts of things just described, he is less likely to get into self

deception, and less likely to stay self-deceived when he has gotten into it. In

a way, then, volitional elements are essential to understanding self-decep? tion. But it is not itself a kind of action, any more than the deception we

produce in others we deceive is an action. We do, however, become self

deceived partly or largely through actions, and act as a result of being self

deceived. These are among the truths that make volitional accounts ap?

pealing. A major consequence of these reflections is this: once we see how self

deception may involve weakness of will and may be under S" s control, we

can begin to see how to assess self-deceivers. Indeed, we are now in a good

position to formulate a number of questions about how self-deception is

related to moral responsibility. Some of these questions are the concern of

the next section.

III. SELF-DECEPTION AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

Given the results of Sections I and II, we can deal with a number of

questions about moral responsibility and self-deception. I shall consider

three sorts of problems under this heading: (1) moral responsibility for

getting into self-deception; (2) moral responsibility for remaining in it; and

(3) moral responsibility for acting out of self-deception.

Regarding one's getting into self-deception, there are many important variables. Does S initially know or believe consciously that not-p, or does

he simply act so that he comes to know or believe not-p only uncon?

sciously? Does S realize, or may he be reasonably expected to realize, that

he is manipulating evidence, e.g. putting evidence against/? out of mind? Is

the situation one in which S does or should see that much depends on

whether or not /? is true? How reasonably does S respond to others who

give credible testimony regarding /?, or try to show him that he is un?

reasonable about it?

To illustrate, consider Tom, who is self-deceived with respect to the




merits of a paper of his. If he intially believes that it is mediocre, yet

manages to repress this belief by such things as manipulating the evidence, then other things equal he bears greater moral responsibility for getting into a state of self-deception in which he sincerely avows that the paper is

first-rate, than if he never consciously believed it mediocre. For one thing, a person generally has to do more to repress a belief than to acquire one as

unconscious and have it remain so; and some of the things one may need to

do are reprehensible. This takes us directly to a second point. Whether Tom's belief that the

paper is mediocre is initially conscious or not, the more he manipulates evidence to repress it, or to keep the proposition from consciousness, or

just to make the paper seem first-rate, the more reprehensible he is, other

things equal. He is more reprehensible still if he knows, or can be rea?

sonably expected to know, that he is manipulating the relevant evidence.

On the other hand, if the thought that the paper is mediocre is truly dam?

aging to his ego, then, other things equal, we would have an extenuating circumstance. Indeed, perhaps the thought or belief could be so damaging to Tom that at least for a time it would be reasonable for him to try to

deceive himself. It might be different if someone's well being depended on

his assessment, e.g. if he were determined to stay with his family only if his

talent did not warrant his leaving to develop it. It also matters how he deals

with advice. Does he deceive himself uninfluenced by credible attempts to

help him see his errors, or do such attempts at least delay him or lead him

to find further evidence for/? before letting himself espouse it as true? The

latter is preferable, other things equal; for it indicates that Tom is not

prepared to believe the paper is first-rate without having reasons for the

belief. This, in turn, suggests that his self-deception is more nearly rational

than it might have been, where the degree to which self-deception ap?

proaches rationality is determined by such things as how nearly reasonable

it would be for S to believe /?, how much he is prepared to stake on /?, and

the sorts of efforts he makes to see that he has evidence for p. Similar points hold for one's remaining in self-deception. For instance,

the more damaging it would be to S to be conscious that not-p, the less rep? rehensible it is for him to be in self-deception with respect top, other things

equal. A related factor is the degree to which he takes evidence into ac?

count. At one extreme is indifference. An intermediate case would be con?

sidering, but readily manipulating, the evidence he encounters against /?.



150 ROBERT AUDI

Near the other extreme is S's taking evidence so seriously that finding evidence against /? weakens his self-deception.

There are, however, some important differences between moral respon?

sibility for getting into self-deception and moral responsibility for remain?

ing in it. For one thing, whereas someone who is not in self-deception can

intentionally act in order to get into it, or to avoid it, someone who is in it

can rarely if ever intentionally act in order to remain in it, or to get out of

it. He can do things with these effects, e.g., keep his mind off evidence

against /?. But to act intentionally in order to remain in, or to get out of,

self-deception S would have to want to remain in it, or to get out of it, and

to believe certain actions would (or might) contribute to this. That seems at

best unlikely; to be consistent with 5"s being in self-deception, it would

require his unconsciously believing that he is in it and his unconsciously

wanting to remain so or to cease to be in it. We may talk this way; but the

facts admit of a simpler explanation, and we should avoid postulating any unconscious elements not required to explain the data.

The second morally noteworthy difference between getting into self

deception and remaining in it is less problematic. Getting into it requires that S undergo change and, typically, that he do a variety of things. But 5"s

remaining in self-deception does not entail his changing. For instance, no

evidence regarding /?, nor any occasion to act on it, need arise. Here he

might bear little responsibility for remaining self-deceived, perhaps none if

people do not have an obligation to review critically, from time to time, certain of their beliefs, or what they take to be their beliefs. (This is an

obligation which S would fail to fulfill if his apparent belief that/? is of the

sort which he ought to have reviewed.) By contrast, there is at least typi?

cally some responsibility, even if no blameworthiness, for getting into self

deception: in some sense one's cognitive system is not adequately respon? sive to the evidence.

Let us now consider moral responsibility for acting out of self-deception. Here we need a number of distinctions. To begin with, self-deception may

bring about both intentional and non-intentional actions. For the latter, S

may or may not bear moral responsibility, depending on, among other

things, the seriousness of the actions and the degree to which S could

reasonably have been expected to exercise control over behavior of the

kind in question under the circumstances. With respect to intentional ac?

tions arising from self-deception, there are at least three sorts: those stem




ming from the unconscious belief component (typically representing

knowledge); those arising ostensibly from the "conscious belief compo?

nent; and those emerging from some unconscious want(s) connected with

the self-deception. Let me take these up in turn.

Suppose that Tom, who unconsciously knows his paper is not first-rate, acts on the belief that it is not, by declining an offer to publish it. He might

give as a reason that he is a perfectionist, which, let us suppose, he is. This

trait might explain why he wants to publish only first-rate work; and that,

together with his unconscious belief, would largely explain why he declines

the offer. Here the action seems rational; and if it is, this shows that an

action arising from (and motivated in a common way by) an unconscious

mental state can be rational.25 To be sure, this is not a case one wants to

call acting out of self-deception. But the action does arise from self-decep? tion because of the way it is motivated by a crucial element in that decep? tion. Since that element represents knowledge, and the motivating want is

rational, it is not surprising that an action arising from this element is

rational. The point is important because there has been too little appreci? ation of the extent to which self-deception involves reason and can as a

result play a role in rational action.

An action arising from unconscious knowledge embodied in self-decep? tion may, however, be neither rational nor such that *S bears moral re?

sponsibility for it. Imagine that Ann foolishly believes her family plans to

cremate her and cannot bear to entertain this thought. Her unconscious

knowledge that she will soon die may then lead her to write her attorney

insisting on ordinary burial. This could be unreasonable because she should

see that her family plans to respect her wishes and that they will be hurt by the act; yet she might not be morally responsible for it because she does it

under a strong morbid compulsion. It is actions ostensibly arising from the "conscious belief element in

self-deception, or arising from an unconscious want connected with the

self-deception, that we think of as actions "out of self-deception. I say

"ostensibly arising from the 'conscious belief," of course, because I think

there is no such belief in self-deception. There normally is, however, a

conscious want regarding the proposition sincerely avowed though not

believed (/?), namely, to act in accordance with it; and there may be one or

more conscious wants operating, such as a want to put evidence against /? out of mind.



152 ROBERT AUDI

Consider first cases in which S ostensibly acts on the sincere avowal of/? and the want to act accordingly. The self-deceived cancer patient may do

this by talking of plans she has for the distant future, by explaining away evidence against her recovering, and in other ways. There is no reason why she cannot be morally responsible for such things. (Some, of course, may be quite harmless.) It appears, however, that these actions' arising from

self-deception is an extenuating circumstance, the degree of extenuation

depending on the situation. It is not that S cannot help himself. Rather, because he is not conscious of the truth of the situation and is at least

acting in accordance with his avowed belief, his errors are, on the first

count, based partly on an abnormal, or at least potentially debilitating, condition, and, on the second, based partly on a prima facie commedable

desire to act consistently with one's avowed beliefs. The extenuation would

be diminished and perhaps eliminated, however, if S" s remaining in self

deception were highly reprehensible. If S intentionally or knowingly got himself into the self-deception, this would also seem to reduce the degree of

extenuation, other things equal. We come now to actions out of self-deception which arise mainly from

an unconscious want of 5"s. The writer we imagined might unconsciously

want to put out of mind evidence that his paper is not first-rate. In some

people, of course, such a want might be quite conscious. But the kind of

person we are imagining could not face having such a want. He might

consciously want to refute claims he sees as evidence against his statement

that his paper is first-rate; but that is a quite different want. Suppose, then, that S does avert his gaze from evidence against his statement, e.g. by leaving a discussion, ostensibly to get fresh air, when his paper is under scrutiny.

Clearly, S may be morally responsible for doing this, even though he does

not (at least consciously) know why he is doing it. He is not compelled; and

his self-deception does not cancel his obligation to consider evidence re?

garding his views. The point is important. For it illustrates that S may be

morally responsible for doing something even if, unbeknownst to him, he

is doing it in order to satisfy an unconscious want. I believe that a good

many people have tended to assume the opposite.26 That is certainly en?

couraged by much of what Freud has said, though there are indications

that he would reject the assumption.27 Consider the metaphor of the mind

as an iceberg nine-tenths of which is below the surface. This suggests that a

great deal of what determines our behavior is unconscious and that we lack

the self-knowledge to control much of it.




In response to this I want to make a point crucial to assessing moral

responsibility for behavior brought about by unconscious factors. One

does not have to know or even suspect one has a desire in order to feel

oneself impelled or drawn toward the actions it motivates. One may there?

fore try to resist these pushes and pulls. This applies to both conscious and

unconscious desires (and other motivators). Moreover, inclinations arising from unconscious motives need not be irresistible. That an inclination

arises from them may often reduce, but it does not in general eliminate, moral responsibility for yielding to it. We must consider the strength of the

unconscious motivation, for example, as well as how much resistance S

might be reasonably expected to muster. This expectation is not just a

matter of 5"s own psychology. It is also a matter of what a morally sound

person may be expected to do in the circumstances.28

Let me carry this further. Suppose S's self-deception causes him to A

non-intentionally. Might he still be morally responsible for ^4-ing? Imagine Tom in a seminar, sitting next to a person setting out, from notes, argu? ments against Tom's paper. Tom's unconscious want to ignore evidence

against his paper's being first-rate might agitate him. That in turn might cause him to knock over his coffee, thereby soaking his colleague's papers.

Surely Tom is morally responsible for this, though the circumstances are

extenuating. For we may still expect that he perceive his agitation and

exercise additional care with his coffee. Indeed, even if he did not perceive his agitation, he should exercise care. Not all accidents are excusable, and

their causation by unconscious elements need not excuse the agent.

Self-deception, then, is not a morbid state that simply comes upon one

like an illness.29 At least typically it is indirectly voluntary, to some degree. This applies particularly to negative control, but S may also have con?

siderable positive control over his self-deception. Moreover, self-deception often occurs or remains only by virtue of a kind of voluntary complicity. One may, through intentional actions, get oneself into it, whether one aims

at becoming self-deceived or not. One may do things that keep one in self

deception, perhaps including things unconsciously aimed at maintaining it.

One may thus be morally responsible for getting into self-deception or for

remaining in it. One may also be morally responsible for any of the several

kinds of actions arising from it, though self-deception tends to be an ex?

tenuating circumstance for all of them. It may extenuate little, however, even when the action is performed to satisfy an unconscious want. We may



154 ROBERT AUDI

be quite responsible for doing something, even if we cannot make out the

origin of the force inclining us to do it.

IV. CONCLUSION

Recent times have seen much concern, by both scholars and lay people, about what factors should diminish an agent's legal responsibility. Psycho?

logical factors have led the list of defense attorneys' favorite extenuators.

Since our discussion of moral responsibility and self-deception has some

interesting implications for the extenuation of legal responsibility by psy?

chological factors, I want, in concluding, to bring some of them out. Most

of these implications are not confined to self-deception. I am not aware

that it has been cited to reduce anyone's legal responsibility, except per?

haps as part of a pattern of mental or emotional problems. There is a

tendency, however, for defense attorneys to construe unconscious in?

fluence on action as strongly extenuating, or even eliminating, the agent's moral responsibility for it. Given this tendency, they naturally also take

such influence to diminish his legal responsibility for it.30

On this tendency our discussion has considerable bearing. It indicates (1) that an action's being unconsciously motivated, or even in some sense

caused by an unconscious element, need not eliminate, and need not even

substantially reduce, the agent's moral responsibility for it; and (2) how a

number of the variables determining the degree of responsibility in cases of

self-deception are to be understood and, in some sense, measured.

Regarding the variables determining the degree of an agent's moral re?

sponsibility for an action influenced by unconscious motivation, whether it

is connected with self-deception or not, we have identified at least five

factors. First, clearly, other things equal, the stronger any irrational un?

conscious motivating elements, the less the moral responsibility. Much the

same applies, secondly, to what we may call their depth, i.e., their "dis?

tance" from 5"s consciousness, measured in terms of how difficult it would

be for S to come to know (consciously) that he has them. Third, other

things equal, the more an unconscious factor makes S ignorant of, or blind

to the importance of, facts relevant to morally evaluating the action, the

less his moral responsibility for it. Fourth, the more deliberate or pre? meditated the action is, the greater 5"s moral responsibility for it, other

things equal. Fifth, the better S's opportunities to disabuse himself of self




deception -

e.g., opportunities for self-scrutiny, or actually getting help from others in understanding the relevant behavior - the greater his moral

responsibility for acting out of the self-deception or the unconscious moti?

vation, other things equal.

Quite similar points seem to hold for self-deception or unconscious mo?

tivation in relation to legal responsibility conceived from the moral point of view.31 Apart from strict liability statues, liability to punishment should

be determined, one would think, primarily on the basis of the degree of

moral responsibility for the action in question. Much more needs to be

said, however, about what determines degrees of moral responsibility. The

problem is not merely one of fact-finding; and the same holds for de?

termining appropriate degrees of legal responsibility. In both cases, the

question of what a morally sound person can be reasonably expected to do in the circumstances is crucial for determining whether S fell short of his

moral responsibilities. If self-deception is conceived as I have proposed, and if it is indirectly

voluntary in the ways I have suggested, it is altogether reasonable to expect

many people to avoid it and to expect some self-deceivers to reduce or

eliminate their self-deception. So far as this case is a fitting model for the

law, it appears that recent trends have often led us to go too far in ex?

tenuating legal responsibility.32 To summarize briefly, I have argued that self-deception with respect to /?

is a state in which S unconsciously knows (or has some reason to believe, and unconsciously and truly believes) that not-/?, sincerely avows, or is

disposed so to avow, that /?, and has at least one want which in part

explains why the belief that not-p is unconscious. On the proposed account

of self-deception, it need not be paradoxical, and it can be understood as a

not unnatural response to the tension between certain of one's desires and

one's response to evidence that dims the prospect of their realization. In

examining the relation between self-deception and the will, we have seen a

variety of ways in which self-deception can be indirectly voluntary. In part because it can be, agents can be morally responsible for getting into self

deception, for remaining in it, and for actions arising out of it. We have noted some of the main variables that determine S's degree of moral re?

sponsibility for actions arising from self-deception. Against this

background, I argued that an action's arising from unconscious moti? vation does not necessarily eliminate, or even substantially diminish, the



156 ROBERT AUDI

agent's moral responsibility for it, and that an action stemming from self

deception need not be irrational. Similar points apply to responsibility before the law. It is perhaps not surprising that an account of self-decep? tion which makes unconscious knowledge central should have these impli? cations. For knowledge presumably entails justified belief, and if uncon?

scious factors can be justified, it becomes more natural to suppose that one

might be morally responsible for acquiring or retaining them and for ac?

tions stemming from them. The account of self-deception, then, far from

diminishing the apparent rationality and moral responsibility of the

human agent, encourages us to enlarge the domain of both.33

The University of Nebraska, Lincoln

NOTES

1 For a good discussion of most of what are perhaps the major types of approach to self

deception, see M. R. Haight, A Study of Self-Deception (Harvester Press and Humanities

Press, Sussex and Atlantic Highlands, 1980), and Bela Szabados, 'Self-Deception', Canadian Journal of Philosophy 4 (1974).

2 See, e.g., John V. Canfield and Donald F. Gustafson, 'Self-Deception', Analysis 23 (1962

63); Terence Penelhum, 'Pleasure and Falsity', American Philosophical Quarterly 1 (1964); and Jeffrey Foss, 'Rethinking Self-Deception', American Philosophical Quarterly 17 (1980). Sartre's view is not easily clarified. For good short discussions of his views on bad faith see

Haight, op. cit., Ch. 5, and Ronald E. Santoni, 'Bad Faith and Lying to Oneself, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 38 (1978).

3 See Herbert Fingarette, Self-Deception (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1969).

4 For illuminating discussion of various doctrines of privileged access, see William P.

Alston, 'Varieties of Privileged Access', American Philosophical Quarterly 8 (1971). 5

In my papers, 'The Epistemic Authority of the First Person', The Personalist 56 (1975), and 'Epistemic Disavowals and Self-Deception', The Personalist 57 (1976). Some of the

central views in those papers are similar to views of D. W. Hamlyn in 'Self-Deception',

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Vol. 65 (1971), a paper I read after

they were completed. 6

'The Epistemic Authority of the First Person', p. 12. 7

Ibid., p. 13. 8

I acknowleged this use in 'Epistemic Disavowals and Self-Deception' (p. 384) and have

discussed related issues there. 9

As Szabados plausibly argues, "One can be self-deceived only about matters in which one

has a personal stake. What one can be self-deceived about must link up with one's wants,

hopes, fears, and emotional needs". Op. cit., p. 67. 10

This is stressed in 'Epistemic Disavowals and Self-Deception', p. 382. That paper also

suggests how wishful thinking can generate self-deception.




11 My paper 'The Concept of Believing', The Personalist 53 (1972), defends an account of

believing on which beliefs can be unconscious. 12

This is essentially the formulation introduced in 'The Epistemic Authority of the First

Person', p. 10. The 'cannot' here is not that of logical impossibility, but I am tentatively

taking it to express a conceptual impossibility. 13

The outside help would normally come from a person; but its sources are virtually un?

limited. It could be a story meant to be about someone else, but giving S the relevant self

understanding. 14

See my papers mentioned in n. 5 for some comments on this difficult issue. 15

This has been argued by a number of writers. I have argued for it by implication in 'The

Limits of Self-Knowledge', Canadian Journal of Philosophy 4 (1974). 16

I have defended this claim in 'The Epistemic Authority of the First Person'. 17

Ibid., pp. 11-12. 18

For important statements of this view, see D. M. Armstrong, Belief, Truth and Knowledge

(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1973), esp. Chs. 12-14; Alvin I. Goldman, 'Dis?

crimination and Perceptual Knowledge', Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976); and Fred Dretske, 'Conclusive Reasons', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 51 (1973). 19

See, e.g., Fingarette, op. cit., pp. 28-29, 62-63, 72, and 98-99; on 72 he goes so far as to

speak of self-deception "as disavowal" (but perhaps disavowal as he understands it should

not be called behavior). Lance Factor at one point speaks of calling certain behavior self

deception, though he does not in general seem to conceive it as action or behavior; see 'Self

Deception and the Functionalist Theory of Mental Processes', The Personalist 58, 2 (1977, p. 155. Cp. Michael W. Martin's remark that "intentional self-deception is both purposeful and

engaged in knowingly", in 'Factor's Functionalist Account of Self-Deception', The Personal?

ist 60, 3(1979), p. 341. 20

The works cited in the previous note illustrate this, and I shall shortly indicate how self

deception can be motivated. 21

My main reason for introducing the second characterization is to avoid relying on the

controversial notion of a basic action. Quite apart from whether my formulations are correct

in detail, my distinctions can be made either within a fine-grained theory of act individuation

or within the Anscombe-Davidson coarse-grained theory of it. For penetrating discussion of

both theories see Hector-Neri Casta?eda, Tntentionality and Identity in Human Action and

Philosophical Method', Nous 13, 2 (1979). Alvin Goldman's reply, 'Action, Causation, and

Unity', appears in the same issue. For a view intermediate between Goldman's fine-grained

approach and the coarse-grained one, with many references to recent literature on the topic, see Lawrence Davis, Theory of Action (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1979), Ch. 2. Another

valuable treatment of the topic is Irving Thalberg's Perception, Emotion and Action: A Com?

ponent Approach (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1977). 22

Michael Martin makes a similar distinction in connection with self-deception, one between

distracting and disregarding. See op. cit., p. 341, and 'Ignoring and Self-Deception', read at

the Western Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association in 1979. 23

In my 'Weakness of Will and Practical Judgment', Nous 13, 2 (1979). 24

See, e.g., Penelhum, op. cit., p. 88; and Foss, op. cit., esp. p. 241. 25

I have argued for this in 'Psychonalytic Explanation and the Concept of Rational Action', The Monist 56 (1972). 26

John Hospers suggests that there is this tendency in 'What Means this Freedom?', in

Sidney Hook (ed.), Determinism and Freedom in the Age of Modern Science (New York

University Press, New York, 1957), esp. Section 3. It is not clear to me to what extent

Hospers is sympathetic to this tendency. In this article he appears somewhat inclined to hold a version of the view under discussion.



158 ROBERT AUDI

27 Freud says at one point, e.g., "Obviously one must hold oneself responsible for the evil

impulses of one's dreams". See 'Moral Responsibility for the Content of Dreams', Collected

Papers, Vol. V, (Basic Books, New York, 1957), p. 156. 28

I have discussed in detail the relation between the notion of compulsion and that of what a

morally sound person can reasonably be expected to do in the relevant circumstances, in

'Moral Responsibility, Freedom, and Compulsion', American Philosophical Quarterly 11

(1974). 29

That self-deception has no evil or sickly essence has been forcefully argued by John King

Farlow, e.g. in 'Philosophical Nationalism: Self-Deception and Self-Direction', Dialogue 17

(1978). 30

For some detailed discussion of the relation between legal and moral responsibility and a

number of citations of literature on the topic, see Michael S. Moore, 'Legal Conceptions of

Mental Illness', in B. A. Brody and H. Tristram Engelhardt (eds.), Mental Illness: Law and

Public Policy (D. Reidel, Dordrecht and Boston, 1980). 31

For a wide-ranging and judicious discussion of moral responsibility and diminished re?

sponsibility before the law, see Stephen J. Morse; 'Diminished Capacity: A Moral and Legal

Conundrum', International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 2 (1979). 32

Some of these trends are discussed and evaluated in Moore, op. cit. See also Morse, op. cit. 33

An earlier version of this paper was read at the University of North

Carolina/Greensboro's Symposium on Action, Agency, and the Will, and at the University of

Richmond. I especially want to thank my Commentator, Alfred Mele, for helpful comments.

I have benefited from comments by Robert M. Gordon, John Heil, Michael W. Martin,

Norman Malcolm, Louis Pojman, Richard Reilly, A. Aaron Snyder, Bela Szabados, and

Irving Thalberg.

Manuscript received 25 February, 1982



self-deception

Documents

account of selfdeception

paradox of selfdeception

jstor terms

jstor archive

terms conditions of

terms of actions

volitional notions

patterns of action