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Psychology and Politics: Lies, Damned Lies and Self-Deception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2010

K. V. Wilkes
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Extract

Can deception be a model for self-deception? There are familiar problems with saying that it can be. At the heart of all these problems, in the long run and despite the complexities and sophistications of the various theories, is this one evident point: all deception of another requires at least two choosing and believing agents, and such a duality is not—is it?—a model which we can tolerate for understanding a single person. Yet on the other hand we seem to have no other way of describing self-deception; most attempts to do so, even if they begin by criticising the ‘deception’ model, prove, in the long run, to come down to it.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 37 , March 1994 , pp. 115 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1994

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References

1 For example, when you explain someone's behaviour by saying that he did that because he wanted her to think that he didn't realise that she believed that Torn loved her.

2 I should make it clear that I do not require or suggest that either first-, or second-order, states need be conscious, although often both will be. More of this later.

3 It is interesting to consider how many paramilitary groups take as labels such names as ‘Tigers’. (E.g., the mass-murderer Arkan's troops.)

4 Not all cases of deception bring about self-deception in the deceived person (I can lie to you about the time); and not all cases of self-deception result from being deceived by others (I can persuade myself that a third scotch will leave my driving ability unimpaired).