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.".

I characterize a notion of internal irrationality which is central to hard cases of self-deception. I argue that if we aim to locate such internal irrationality in the _process of self-deception, we must fail. The process of self-deception, I claim, is a wholly arational affair. If we are to make a place for internal irrationality we must turn our attention to the _state of self-deception. I go on to argue that we are able to offer an account of this peculiar (...) form of irrationality only if we recognize the role the self-deceiver's own efforts at self-explanation play in the generation of internal irrationality. (shrink)

Wishful thinking and self-deception are instances of motivated believing. According to an influential view, the motivated believer is moved by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain; i.e. the motive of the motivated believer is strictly hedonic--typically, the reduction of anxiety. This anxiety reduction account would, however, appear to face a serious challenge: cases of unwelcome motivated believing [Barnes (1997) Seeing through self-deception, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Scott-Kakures (2000) Motivated believing: wishful and unwelcome, Nous, 34, 348-375] or "twisted" (...) self-deception [Mele (1999) Twisted self-deception, Philosophical Psychology, 12, 117-137]. Annette Barnes (1997) has recently argued that the anxiety reduction account can, in fact, handle such cases. I show that the anxiety reduction account cannot explain cases of unwelcome believing. Neither precipitous unwelcome believing nor the intensive and recurrent testing of unwelcome hypotheses characteristic of cases of self-deception can be explained by such a view. We have reason, then, to reject the notion that the motivated believer is moved by strictly hedonic interests. (shrink)

I develop the claim that paradigmatic cases of self-deceptive inquiry and belief-formation result from cognitive disorientation. In cognitive disorientation, the data, experiences, and practices we make use of in typical inquiry lead us awry in systematic fashion. The self-deceiver encounters a puzzle or a threat to her picture of the world; this doubt or uncertainty gives rise to questions she struggles to settle. Drawing on the theory of cognitive dissonance, I show that while taking herself to be engaged in the (...) familiar effort to settle a question, she undermines, by her own efforts, her success in achieving that goal. I appeal to two elements of such disorientation: Confusion of Aim and Misleading Feedback. I argue that we can find a role for both in the self-deceiver’s effort to settle a question. (shrink)

According to intentionalists, self-deceivers exercise the sort of control over their belief-forming processes that, in standard cases of interpersonal deception, the deceiver exercises over the deceived’s belief forming processes — they intentionally deceive themselves. I’ll argue here that interpersonal deception is not an available model for the sort of putatively distinctive control the self-deceiver exercises over her belief-forming processes and beliefs. I concentrate attention on a kind of case in which an agent allegedly intentionally causes herself to come to have (...) a false belief. I hope to show that contrary to appearances, the agents in such cases do not intentionally cause themselves to have false beliefs — do not intentionally deceive themselves. Indeed, if we take the model of interpersonal intentional deception seriously, we ought to conclude that a self-deceiver, so regarded, deceives herself unintentionally. (shrink)

At the center of Annette Barnes’s impressive contribution to the burgeoning literature on self-deception is her effort to adjudicate the dispute between, as I’ll call them, traditionalists and deflationists. Traditionalists insist that the process of self-deception must be mediated by an intention. As Barnes points out, such a view appears “doubly paradoxical”, in that it seems to require that.