Self-Deception and Paradoxes of Rationality (Volume 69) by Jean-Pierre Dupuy

The general position on self-deception advanced here also is considerably more comprehensive than what I have been able to manage in my scattered efforts on the topic over the years. Although I draw on previously published work, the defense offered here of my central theses about the kind of self-deception that has received pride of place in the philosophical and psychological literature is much more robust and has an important new dimension that benefits from recent empirical work on hypothesis testing. WHAT MOTIVATED ME to accept Harry Frankfurt's kind invitation to submit a manuscript to this series was the opportunity to present and defend in a systematic way a position on self-deception that has evolved partly out of my earlier attempts to shed light on the phenomenon. The result is a comprehensive, elegant, empirically grounded theory of everyday self-deception that should engage philosophers and social scientists alike. Underlying Mele's work is an abiding interest in understanding and explaining the behavior of real human beings. Highlighting motivation and emotion, Mele develops a pair of approaches for explaining the two forms of self-deception: the 'straight' form, in which we believe what we want to be true, and the 'twisted' form, in which we believe what we wish to be false. At the heart of this theory is an appreciation of how emotion and motivation may, without our knowing it, bias our assessment of evidence for beliefs. In their place, Mele proposes a compelling, empirically informed account of the motivational causes of biased beliefs. Such attempts, he demonstrates, are fundamentally misguided, particularly in the assumption that self-deception is intentional. In this book, Alfred Mele addresses four of the most critical of these questions: What is it to deceive oneself? How do we deceive ourselves? Why do we deceive ourselves? Is self-deception really possible?ĭrawing on cutting-edge empirical research on everyday reasoning and biases, Mele takes issue with commonplace attempts to equate the processes of self-deception with those of stereotypical interpersonal deception. Self-deception raises complex questions about the nature of belief and the structure of the human mind.

Self-Deception and Paradoxes of Rationality (Volume 69) by Jean-Pierre Dupuy