Abstract

Self-deception seems paradoxical. How can a person set out to believe a claim which she already believes is false? How can she maintain such a belief in the face of her own conviction to the contrary? Many cases are explained by appealing to unconscious beliefs. Many others are explained away, as only seeming to involve intentionally maintained inconsistent beliefs. But not all can be explained thus or explained away. Many instances of self-deception involve simultaneous, conscious, opposed, beliefs, and can only be understood by looking at how people reason themselves into an inconsistent position. ;I try to show how a person can convince herself of something she continues to believe is false. She starts by trying to take a point of view from which what she wants to believe will seem plausible. A point of view is a context of thought, a way of interpreting information, governed by a strong interest. I argue that by learning how to control one's points of view, one can assume the viewpoint one wants, even in the face of an opposed viewpoint. From one's self-deceptive point of view one can then interpret information as evidence for one's desired belief, maintaining one's belief by finding both reasons for it and reasons against the opposed belief. ;As a method of diagnosis I make use of extended fictional examples of self-deception. They serve both to elucidate the concept of a point of view and to indicate the reasoning techniques the self-deceiver employs. I argue that self-deceptive techniques do not differ in kind from procedures that are fundamental to and typical of rational reasoning, and that our notion of rationality should be modified so that it acknowledges the influence of interests on the interpretation of evidence