A central debate in the ethics of deception concerns the moral comparison among the three media through which deception is executed: lying, falsely implicating, or nonlinguistic deception. The two prominent views are that lying is morally worse or that the choice of medium is morally insignificant. This article refutes both and argues for a new position. The article first presents a theory on the moral significance of the medium of deception as such: it argues that (...) the medium of communication affects the reliability of beliefs formed through it, which amounts to gradations in the warrant of truth of different media. Breach of lower warrant of truth is a lesser breach of trust; it therefore deserves lighter condemnation. Consequently, the article shows that, morally speaking, lying is either worse than or equal to falsely implicating and that there is no a priori gradation between nonlinguistic deception and the two linguistic media. (shrink)

I give a new argument for the moral difference between lying and misleading. First, following David Lewis, I hold that conventions of truthfulness and trust fix the meanings of our language. These conventions generate fair play obligations. Thus, to fail to conform to the conventions of truthfulness and trust is unfair. Second, I argue that the liar, but not the misleader, fails to conform to truthfulness. So the liar, but not the misleader, does something unfair. This account entails that bald-faced (...) lies are wrong, that we can lie nonlinguistically, and that linguistic innovation is morally significant. (shrink)

The central concern of this article is whether the semantic approach has the resources to appropriately capture the core tenets of structural realism. Chakravartty (2001) has argued that a realist notion of correspondence cannot be accommodated without introducing a linguistic component, which undermines the approach itself. We suggest that this worry can be addressed by an appropriate understanding of the role of language in this context. The real challenge, however, is how to incorporate the core notion of `explanatory approximate truth' (...) in such a way that the emphasis on structure is retained. (shrink)

Since at least 2016, many have worried that social media enables authoritarians to meddle in democratic politics. The concern is that trolls and bots amplify deceptive content. In this chapter I argue that these tactics have a more insidious anti-democratic purpose. Lies implanted in democratic discourse by authoritarians are often intended to be caught. Their primary goal is not to successfully deceive, but rather to undermine the democratic value of testimony. In well-functioning democracies, our mutual reliance on testimony also generates (...) a distinctively democratic value: decentralized testimonial networks evade control by the state or powerful actors. The deliberate exposure of deception in democratic testimonial networks undermines this value by implicating citizens in their own epistemic corruption, weakening the resilience of democratic society against authoritarian pressure. In this chapter I illustrate that danger through a close reading of recent Russian social media interference operations, showing both their epistemic underpinnings and their ongoing political threat. (shrink)

Autonomous robots are increasingly interacting with users who have limited knowledge of robotics and are likely to have an erroneous mental model of the robot’s workings, capabilities, and internal structure. The robot’s real capabilities may diverge from this mental model to the extent that one might accuse the robot’s manufacturer of deceiving the user, especially in cases where the user naturally tends to ascribe exaggerated capabilities to the machine (e.g. conversational systems in elder-care contexts, or toy robots in child care). (...) This poses the question, whether misleading or even actively deceiving the user of an autonomous artifact about the capabilities of the machine is morally bad and why. By analyzing trust, autonomy, and the erosion of trust in communicative acts as consequences of deceptive robot behavior, we formulate four criteria that must be fulfilled in order for robot deception to be morally permissible, and in some cases even morally indicated. (shrink)

The self-deception debate often appears polarized between those who think that self-deceivers intentionally deceive themselves (‘intentionalists’), and those who think that intentional actions are not significantly involved in the production of self-deceptive beliefs at all. In this paper I develop a middle position between these views, according to which self-deceivers do end up self-deceived as a result of their own intentional actions, but where the intention these actions are done with is not an intention to deceive oneself. This account (...) thus keeps agency at the heart of self-deception, while also avoiding the paradox associated with other agency-centered views. (shrink)

According to a traditional view of self-deception, the phenomenon is an intrapersonal analogue of stereotypical interpersonal deception. In the latter case, deceiversintentionallydeceive others into believing something,p, and there is a time at which the deceivers believe thatpis false while their victims falsely believe thatpis true. If self-deception is properly understood on this model, self-deceivers intentionally deceive themselves into believing something,p, and there is a time at which they believe thatpis false while also believing thatpis true.

The prediction error minimization framework denotes a family of views that aim at providing a unified theory of perception, cognition, and action. In this paper, I discuss some of the theoretical limitations of PEM. It appears that PEM cannot provide a satisfactory explanation of motivated reasoning, as instantiated in phenomena such as self-deception, because its cognitive ontology does not have a separate category for motivational states such as desires. However, it might be thought that this objection confuses levels of (...) explanation. Self-deception is a personal level phenomenon, while PEM offers subpersonal explanations of psychological abilities. Thus, the paper examines how subpersonal explanations couched in the PEM framework can be thought of as related to personal level explanations underlying self-deception. In this regard, three views on the relation between personal and subpersonal explanations are investigated: the autonomist, the functionalist, and the co-evolutionary perspective. I argue that, depending on which view of the relation between the personal and subpersonal is adopted, the PEM paradigm faces a dilemma: either its explanatory ambitions should be reduced to the subpersonal domain, or it cannot provide a satisfactory account of motivated reasoning as instantiated in self-deception. (shrink)

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.".

In this essay I offer a new interpretation of Wang Yangming's 王陽明 well-known doctrine of zhi xing he yi 知行合一 by contextualizing it in his endeavor to seek an alternative way of Confucian learning other than Zhu Xi's 朱熹. Both Wang and Zhu Xi understand the ideal of a Confucian sage as cheng 誠, but propose different ways to attain it. To some extent, Wang's original concern has long been neglected. The recent scholarship on Wang's unity of knowing and doing (...) focuses on whether Wang's notion of zhi is restricted to moral knowledge, and whether the dictum makes sense when facing the challenge of weakness of will. Frisina takes Wang's notion of... (shrink)

"Dishonesty inspires more euphemisms than copulation or defecation. This helps desensitize us to its implications. In the post-truth era we don't just have truth and lies but a third category of ambiguous statements that are not exactly the truth but fall just short of a lie. Enhanced truth it might be called. Neo-truth . Soft truth . Faux truth . Truth lite ." Deception has become the modern way of life. Where once the boundary line between truth and lies (...) was clear and distinct, it is no longer so. In the post-truth era, deceiving others has become a challenge, a game, a habit. High-profile dissemblers compete for news coverage, from journalists like Jayson Blair and professors like Joseph Ellis to politicians (of all stripes), executives, and "creative" accountants. Research suggests that the average American tells multiple lies on a daily basis, often for no good reason. Not a finger-wagging scolding, The Post-Truth Era is a combination of Ralph Keyes's investigative journalism and solid science. The result is a spirited exploration of why we lie about practically everything and the consequences such casual dishonesty has on society. American society has become permeated from top to bottom by deception. Its consequences for the nature of public discourse, media, business, literature, academia, and politics are profound. With dry humor, passionate fervor, and deep understanding, Ralph Keyes takes us on a tour of a world where truth and honesty are no longer absolutes but mutable, fluid concepts. (shrink)

Although some authors claim that deception requires intention, we argue that there can be deception in social robotics, whether or not it is intended. By focusing on the deceived rather than the deceiver, we propose that false beliefs can be created in the absence of intention. Supporting evidence is found in both human and animal examples. Instead of assuming that deception is wrong only when carried out to benefit the deceiver, we propose that deception in social (...) robotics is wrong when it leads to harmful impacts on individuals and society. The appearance and behaviour of a robot can lead to an overestimation of its functionality or to an illusion of sentience or cognition that can promote misplaced trust and inappropriate uses such as care and companionship of the vulnerable. We consider the allocation of responsibility for harmful deception. Finally, we make the suggestion that harmful impacts could be prevented by legislation, and by the development of an assessment framework for sensitive robot applications. (shrink)

The use of placebo in clinical practice has been the topic of extensive debate in the bioethics literature, with much scholarship focusing on concerns regarding deception. While considerations of placebo without deception have largely centred on open-label placebo, this paper considers a different kind of ethical quandary regarding placebo without an intent to deceive—one where the provider believes a treatment is effective due to a direct physiological mechanism, even though that belief may not be supported by rigorous scientific (...) evidence. This is often the case with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) techniques and also with some mainstream therapies that have not proven to be better than sham. Using one such CAM technique as a case study—electroencephalography (EEG) neurofeedback for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)—this paper explores the ethics of providing therapies that may have some beneficial effect, although one that is likely due to placebo effect. First, we provide background on EEG neurofeedback for ADHD and its evidence base, showing how it has proven to be equivalent to—but not better than—sham neurofeedback. Subsequently, we explore whether offering therapies that are claimed to work via specific physical pathways, but may actually work due to the placebo effect, constitute deception. We suggest that this practice may constitute unintentional deception regarding mechanism of action. Ultimately, we argue that providers have increased information provision obligations when offering treatments that diverge from standard of care and we make recommendations for mitigating unintentional deception. (shrink)

Recent developments in AI, especially the spectacular success of Large Language models, have instigated renewed questioning of what remains distinctively human. As AI stands poised to take over more and more human tasks, what is left that distinguishes humans? One way we might identify a humanlike intelligence would be when we detect it telling lies. Yet AIs lack both the intention and the motivation to truly tell lies, instead producing merely bullshit. With neither emotions, embodiment, nor the social awareness that (...) leads to a theory of mind, AIs lack the internal referents on which to judge truth or falsity. When we are deceived by our computers, we need to look for the hidden agent who benefits from the deception. (shrink)

This commentary defends intentionalist accounts of self-deception against Mele by arguing that: (1) viewing self-deception on the model of other-deception is not as paradoxical as Mele makes out; (2) the paradoxes are not entailed by the view that self-deception is intentional; and (3) there are two problems for Mele's theory that only an intentionalist theory can solve.

Contemporary ICTs such as speaking machines and computer games tend to create illusions. Is this ethically problematic? Is it deception? And what kind of “reality” do we presuppose when we talk about illusion in this context? Inspired by work on similarities between ICT design and the art of magic and illusion, responding to literature on deception in robot ethics and related fields, and briefly considering the issue in the context of the history of machines, this paper discusses these (...) questions through the lens of stage magic and illusionism, with the aim of reframing the very question of deception. It investigates if we can take a more positive or at least morally neutral view of magic, illusion, and performance, while still being able to understand and criticize the relevant phenomena, and if we can describe and evaluate these phenomena without recourse to the term “deception” at all. This leads the paper into a discussion about metaphysics and into taking a relational and narrative turn. Replying to Tognazzini, the paper identifies and analyses two metaphysical positions: a narrative and performative non-dualist position is articulated in response to what is taken to be a dualist, in particular Platonic, approach to “deception” phenomena. The latter is critically discussed and replaced by a performative and relational approach which avoids a distant “view from nowhere” metaphysics and brings us back to the phenomena and experience in the performance relation. The paper also reflects on the ethical and political implications of the two positions: for the responsibility of ICT designers and users, which are seen as co-responsible magicians or co-performers, and for the responsibility of those who influence the social structures that shape who has power to deceive or to let others perform. (shrink)

The target article by Christopher Meyers concerning justification of deception for clinical ethicists is both well-reasoned and plausible. Clearly grounded in utilitarian considerations, its...

In an analysis of the role of emotion in self-deception is presented. It is argued that instances of emotional self-deception unproblematically meet Mele's jointly sufficient criteria. It is further proposed that a consideration of different forms of mental representation allows the possibility of instances of self-deception in which contradictory beliefs (in the form p and ~p) are held simultaneously with full awareness.

While there has been extensive research on deception, extant literature has not examined how deception is processed solely from the customer's perspective. Extensive qualitative interviews were conducted and analyzed to inform the proposed framework. Cognitive dissonance theory and attribution theory are used to frame the process consumers go through when deception is perceived. When consumers perceive deceit, they will consider attribution before determining intentionality. Internal attributions relieve the company of wrongdoing to some extent, whereas external attributions lead (...) consumers to examine several elements of deception including intent. Unintentional deceit will trigger assessments of magnitude, stability, and switching costs; while less is considered when deceit is intentional. The findings of this research are important for advancing theory in relation to deceit and for helping practitioners understand the importance of changing consumer cognitions before consumers decide to change their behavior by discontinuing the relationship. (shrink)

Recent research in Baroque Scholastic and early modern meditational exercises has demonstrated similarity between Descartes’s Meditations and St. Teresa of Ávila’s El Castillo Interior. While there is growing agreement on the influence of Catholic meditations on Descartes, the extent of Teresa’s role is debated. Instead of discussing the full extent of Teresa’s influence, this paper concentrates on one example of the considered influence: the skeptical scenario of demonic deception, having clear anticipation in Teresa’s work where the exercitant faces off (...) against deceiving demonic forces, which confound and temporarily halt the meditative progress. The paper analyzes Teresa’s use of deceptive demons and its influence on the Cartesian Evil Demon scenario, while contrasting both with a discussion of demonic deception in the late Medieval and Baroque Scholastic context, arguing that demonological discussions in 1500s allowed both Teresa’s and Descartes’s deceivers to not only cause diversions but to make the deception laborious to resist. (shrink)

Previous behavioral research on advertising deception has focused on the extent to which consumers would be misled by claims and implications of advertisements. The present research examines the effect of an important, but largely neglected, dimension: the severity of anticipated harm as a result of being deceived. Two experiments disentangle the effect of anticipated harm on consumer brand attitudes and purchase intentions from that of perceived deception. Interestingly, greater harmfulness increases diagnosticity of perceived deception, which partially accounts (...) for consumers’ negative reactions to deceptive advertising. Theoretical, methodological, and ethical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Recent research, especially with functional brain imaging, demonstrated cases where the administration of a placebo produces objective effects in tissues that are indistinguishable from those of the real therapeutic agents. This phenomenon has been shown in treatments of pain, depression, Parkinsonism, and more. The main ethical complaint against placebo treatment is that it is a kind of deception, where supposedly we substitute what works just psychologically for a real drug that actually works on the tissue level. We claim that (...) the scientific findings bring to a new level the seeming deconstruction of the distinction between “placebo” and “real” drugs, and that instances of placebo treatment which fulfill this criterion should be recognized as a unique category—we call it “comparable placebo treatment” (CPT). The paper uses an analysis of the notion of deception to argue that CPT does not amount to deception; that it can preserve patient autonomy; and that it is therefore morally legitimate. (shrink)

Background Physicians face competing values of truth-telling and beneficence when deception may be employed in patient care. The purposes of this study were to assess resident physicians' attitudes towards lying, explore lie types and reported reasons for lying. Method After obtaining institutional review board review and receiving exempt status, posts written by Loma Linda University resident physicians in response to forum questions in required online courses were collected from 2002 to 2007. Responses were blinded and manually coded by two (...) investigators using NVivo software. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the data were performed with links to various attributes. A 95% binomial proportion CI was used to analyse the attribute data. Results The study found that the majority of residents would disclose the truth about medical errors. Similarly, many residents would disclose the truth regarding unanticipated events, especially if the error was serious enough to result in a malpractice suit. However, many residents would not reveal a near miss event because they believe it has no impact on patient health. Some residents would deceive the insurance company for additional patient benefits. Of those willing to lie, only a small group gave self-serving reasons. Conclusions This study demonstrates that the ethical issues related to deception that trouble attending physicians also exist at the resident physician level. Residents primarily lie for altruistic reasons and rarely for egoistic or self-serving purposes that may or may not result in harm to patients, insurance companies and/or physicians themselves. (shrink)

The apparently paradoxical nature of self-deception has attracted a great deal of controversy in recent years. Focussing on those aspects of the phenomenon which involve the holding of "contradictory" beliefs, it is our intention to argue that this presents no "paradox" if a non-classical, "paraconsistent", doxastic logic is adopted. (On such logics, see, for example, N. C. A. da Costa, 'On the theory of inconsistent formal systems', Notre Dame J Formal Logic 11(1974), 497-510, and A. I. Arruda, 'A survey (...) of paraconsistent logic', in A. I. Arruda, N. C. A da Costa and R Chuaqui, _Mathematical Logic in Latin America, North-Holland, 1984, pp. 1-41.). (shrink)

In a recent article, Erik Wielenberg has argued that positive skeptical theism fails to circumvent his new argument from apparent gratuitous evil. Wielenberg’s new argument focuses on apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment, and he argues that negative skeptical theistic responses fail to respond to the challenge posed by these apparent gratuitous evils due to the parent–child analogy often invoked by theists. The greatest challenge to his view, he admits, is positive skeptical theism. To stave off this potential problem with his (...) argument, he maintains that positive skeptical theism entails divine deception, which creates insuperable problems for traditional theism. This essay shows that Wielenberg is mistaken. Although positive skeptical theism claims that we should expect the appearance of gratuitous evil given Christian theism, this does not entail divine deception. I maintain that God is not a deceiver on positive skeptical theism because God does not meet two requirements to be a deceiver: God does not intend to cause people to believe any false propositions and God does not provide evidence for someone to justifiably believe a false proposition. Consequently, Wielenberg’s new argument from evil fails and positive skeptical theism remains a viable response to the evidential argument from evil. (shrink)

Against the background of a conventionalist theory, and staged as a defense of a naturalistic notion of names and naming, the critique of language developed in Plato’s Cratylus does not only propose that human language, in contrast to the language of the gods, is bound to the realm of myth and lie. The dialogue also concludes by offering a set of reasons to think that knowledge of reality is not within the reach of our words. Interpretations of the dialogue’s long (...) etymological sections often neglect this critique and tend to end up with an overly optimistic assessment of the theory of language on offer. In the light of one of the dialogue’s central etymological accounts, Socrates’ etymology of the name Hermes, this paper discusses two recent and influential versions of such a view: David Sedley’s theory of onomatopoetic encapsulation and Franco Trivigno’s qualified referentialism. It argues that the complex relation between language and reality expressed in the Cratylus cannot be exhaustively captured by either of these theories because Plato considers all names to be semantically underdetermined until they are put to use. It suggests that Plato rather works with a functionalistic notion of names and naming, and that the dialogue’s account of natural and correct naming is to be understood in these terms. (shrink)

According to the pragmatic hypothesis testing theory, how much evidence we require before we believe something varies depending on the expected costs of falsely believing and disbelieving it. This theory has been used in the self-deception debate to explain our tendencies towards self-deceptive belief formation. This article argues that the application of this theory in the self-deception debate has overlooked the distinction between belief and acceptance, and that the theory in all likelihood models acceptance rather than belief, in (...) which case it is probably not relevant to the explanation of self-deception. It is suggested, however, that doxastic error costs might be relevant to explaining some types of self-deception, though they feature in an evolutionary explanation of it rather than a psychological one. (shrink)

Despite significant ethical advances in recent years, including professional developments in ethical review and codification, research deception continues to be a pervasive practice and contentious focus of debate in the behavioral sciences. Given the disciplines' generally stated ethical standards regarding the use of deceptive procedures, researchers have little practical guidance as to their ethical acceptability in specific research contexts. We use social contract theory to identify the conditions under which deception may or may not be morally permissible and (...) formulate practical recommendations to guide researchers on the ethical employment of deception in behavioral science research. (shrink)

Williams, Elster and Pears hold that an effort to induce in oneself a belief in the truth of some proposition that one believes to be false can succeed only if one manages, somewhere along the way, to forget that one is engaged in such an effort. Although this view has strong intuitive appeal, it is false, and in this paper it is shown to be false by example.

An acute hospital environment is a confusing place for many patients requiring admission, especially when they are presenting as acutely unwell. This can be particularly difficult for people living with dementia. As cognition changes it is not uncommon for people living with dementia to have difficulties with their ability to orientate to time, place and person. These disorientating moments can lead to personal distress, and at times behavioural changes. As well as being distressing for the person living with dementia, it (...) can also be emotionally and ethically challenging for acute hospital staff, including nurses. One area found to be particularly challenging is the concept of whether actively engaging with a person living with dementia's living truth is deceitful. This raises further questions of what forms of nurse responses to temporal disorientation might be constituted as lying, colluding, or alternatively validating. This article uses autoethnography as a research methodology with which to explore a mental health nurse's lived experience of the challenges of responding truthfully to disorientation and distress in an acute hospital. This article is not attempting to offer conclusive answers to these challenging ethical questions. It is instead re‐opening and re‐visiting the discourse of what is truth in dementia from a personal and professional nurse perspective through a lived narrative. The conclusion to the concept of truth in dementia is complex, nuanced and individualized. However, it is essential that a nurse's response to disorientation and distress is always person and living present focused, and not lie focused. (shrink)

Self-deception poses longstanding and fascinating paradoxes. Philosophers have questioned whether, and how, self-deception is even possible; evolutionary theorists have debated whether it is adaptive. For Sigmund Freud self-deception was a fundamental key to understanding the unconscious, and from The Bible to The Great Gatsby literature abounds with characters renowned for their self-deception. But what exactly is self-deception? Why is it so puzzling? How is it performed? And is it harmful? ...

This response addresses seven main issues: (1) alleged evidence that in some instances of self-deception an individual simultaneously possesses “contradictory beliefs”; (2) whether garden-variety self-deception is intentional; (3) whether conditions that I claimed to be conceptually sufficient for self-deception are so; (4) significant similarities and differences between self-deception and interpersonal deception; (5) how instances of self-deception are to be explained, and the roles of motivation in explaining them; (6) differences among various kinds of self- (...) deception; (7) whether a proper conception of self-deception implies that definitive ascriptions of self-deception to individuals are impossible. (shrink)

This article reflects on the phenomenon of self-deception in the context of the psychodynamic approach to defense mechanisms. Building on Giovanni Jervis’ criticism of psychoanalysis, I pursue the project of a full integration of that approach in the neurocognitive sciences. In this framework, the theme of self-deception becomes a vantage point from which to sketch out a philosophical anthropology congruent with the ontology of neurocognitive sciences.

In a number of papers, Sydney Shoemaker has argued that first-order belief plus rationality implies second-order belief. This paper is a critical discussion of Shoemaker's argument.

Aesthetic attraction and artful execution of the object, careful design and seemingly blatant falsification by the creator, voluntarily accepted counterfeit imitation and celebration of a melancholy-filled illusion – these, and many other, often contradictory, particularities can describe one of the most complex aesthetic phenomena, that of fake ruins. Questions of perfection and mistake, accurate planning and permissive randomness, genuineness and authenticity – or the convincing justification of aesthetic experience despite the complete lack of them – profound references to the nature (...) of decay, the transience of all human creation and nostalgia can all be found around this object of art. In this article I analyse the fakeness of fake ruins with regard to the multiple consequences that this type of fake can contribute to the better understanding of both their aesthetics and the concept of mistake. (shrink)

The frequency of the use of deception in American psychological research was studied by reviewing articles from journals in personality and social psychology from 1921 to 1994. Deception was used rarely during the developmental years of social psychology into the 1930s, then grew gradually and irregularly until the 1950s. Between the 1950s and 1970s the use of deception increased significantly. This increase is attributed to changes in experimental methods, the popularity of realistic impact experiments, and the influence (...) of cognitive dissonance theory. Since 1980 there appears to have been a decrease in the use of deception as compared to previous decades which is related to changes in theory, methods, ethical standards, and federal regulation of research. (shrink)

Individuals deceive themselves about a wide variety of subjects. In fortunate circumstances, where those who manage to leave self-deception embrace reality, an interesting phenomenon occurs: the formerly self-deceived often confess to having ‘known [the truth] all along’. These post-self-deception judgments are not conceptually innocuous; if genuine, they call into question the core feature of prominent theories of self-deception, namely that self-deceived individuals do not believe the unwelcome truth. In this paper I argue that post-self-deception judgments do (...) not track a belief, but rather a suspicion of the unwelcome truth. I do this by showing that post-self-deception judgments are themselves instances of self-deception where the individual is self-deceived that they believed the unwelcome truth. I then suggest that the motivational cause of the self-deceit is hindsight bias, specifically the kind known as foreseeability, and that as a result, post-self-deception judgments are not reliable because they do not accurately track previous self-deceptive experiences. (shrink)

Escapism is defined as the attempt to avoid awareness of aversive beliefs. Strategies, and a few examples, of escapism are discussed. It is argued that self-deception is one species of escapism and that entrenched escapism, escapism pursued with the intention of permanently avoiding any awareness of one's belief, no matter what happens, is theoretically irrational, except in the special case where it compensates for irrationality elsewhere, by guarding one from the formation of further irrational beliefs of more serious import (...) than the belief one wishes to avoid. The model of rationality employed in this argument is then extended to practical rationality, and it is argued that entrenched escapism is pragmatically irrational as well, unless it compensates for other irrationalities elsewhere in a person, as, for instance, when a person must avoid certain facts to avoid succumbing irrationally to despair, or unless it compensates for the effects of an environment in which it is otherwise impossible for an optimally functioning person to survive emotionally. The results for entrenched escapism would apply to self-deception as well, since it aims (in all but very odd cases) at the permanent removal of the offending belief. The function of escapism, then, is to compensate for irrational patterns of belief formation, and to maintain effectiveness (for the sake of continuance of the species), insofar as that is possible, in situation in which a rational person would succumb to despair and suicide. (shrink)

I examine how the use of moral language is tactically employed by the meat-eating industry to exploit and manipulate the moral community. In particular, I discuss the treatment of the word humane in the context of factory farming. I argue that when the meat-eating industry employs phrases such as killing humanely, it deceitfully directs the attention of the moral community by inviting us to make judgments about the method of killing farmed animals, while ignoring judgments about the whether or not (...) such killing ought to happen. This difference is between killing humanely and a humane killing. (shrink)

I argue that framing the issue of motivated belief formation and its subsequent social gains in the language of self-deception raises logical difficulties. Two such difficulties are that (1) in trying to provide an evolutionary motive for viewing self-deception as a mechanism to facilitate other-deception, the ease and ubiquity of self-deception are undermined, and (2) because after one has successfully deceived oneself, what one communicates to others, though untrue, is not deceptive, we cannot say that self- (...) class='Hi'>deception evolved in order to facilitate the deception of others. (shrink)

Is there ever any reason for a doctor to lie to a patient? In this paper, we critically review the literature on lying to patients and challenge the common notion that while lying is unacceptable, a related entity--'benevolent deception' is defensible. Further, we outline a rare circumstance when treating psychotic patients where lying to the patient is justified. This circumstance is illustrated by a clinical vignette.

In this article I offer a defence of the use of deceptive placebos—inert treatments like sugar pills or saline injections—in clinical practice. In particular, I will defend what I call the ideal placebo case—where a doctor or nurse has good reason to believe that a deceptive placebo offers a patient’s best, or only, chance of some therapeutic benefit. Taking a Kantian approach to the question of clinical placebo use, I examine the Kantian prohibition on deception as interference with the (...) will of a rational agent, and argue that deception to promote the placebo effect can be carried out in a way that does not interfere with the patient’s will in the way prohibited by Kant. The deception involved in a placebo treatment is not carried out to interfere with or obstruct the function of the will, but merely to make possible a means to the patient’s ends that that would otherwise be unavailable. I will therefore argue that deception carried out in order to promote a therapeutic placebo effect can be done in a way that is consistent with respect for a patient’s autonomy, and may be a rare case of deception that is compatible with a Kantian ethical approach. (shrink)

Neuroimaging technologies have improved our understanding of deception and also exhibit their potential in revealing the origins of its neural mechanism. In this study, a quantitative power analysis method that uses the Welch power spectrum estimation of functional near-infrared spectroscopy signals was proposed to examine the brain activation difference between the spontaneous deceptive behavior and controlled behavior. The power value produced by the model was applied to quantify the activity energy of brain regions, which can serve as a neuromarker (...) for deception detection. Interestingly, the power analysis results generated from the Welch spectrum estimation method demonstrated that the spontaneous deceptive behavior elicited significantly higher power than that from the controlled behavior in the prefrontal cortex. Meanwhile, the power findings also showed significant difference between the spontaneous deceptive behavior and controlled behavior, indicating that the reward system was only involved in the deception. The proposed power analysis method for processing fNIRS data provides us an additional insight to understand the cognitive mechanism of deception. (shrink)