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The Morality of Self-Deception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

Béla Szabados
Béla Szabados
Affiliation:
The University of Calgary
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Extract

Is self-deception always immoral? That it is always immoral to deceive oneself seems to have been the ‘received’ view amongst philosophers. Such a view was vigorously supported by Bishop Butler in the eighteenth century. Recently, Herbert Fingarette has argued for a similar position. In this paper I wish to examine Butler's and Fingarette's arguments and contend that no morally sensitive and reasonable person can possibly accept them without thereby ceasing to be morally sensitive and reasonable.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , March 1974 , pp. 25 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1974

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References

1 Butler, Sermon X, “Upon Self-Deceit”, Works, Vol. II, p. 143, ed. Gladstone, W. E. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896).Google Scholar

2 Fingarette, H.Self-Deception, (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969) pp. 138–139Google Scholar and passim.

3 Butler, op. cit., p. 150.

4 Ibid, p. 155.

5 Ibid, pp. 144–145.

6 Ibid, p. 148.

7 Butler, , “Dissertation upon Virtue”, reprinted in British Moralists, ed. Selby-Bigge, A. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897), Vol. I, pp. 251–52.Google Scholar

8 Butler, Works, Vol. II, p. 143.

9 Kierkegaard, Søren, Works of Love, trans. Howard, and Hong, Edna (New York: Harper Torch Books), p. 23.Google Scholar

10 Butler, op. cit., p. 147.

11 Ibid, p. 146.

12 E.g. Hypnotism or indoctrination.

13 Fingarette, op. cit., p. 138.

14 Ibid, p. 139.

15 Ibid, p. 143.

16 Butler, op. cit., p. 150.

17 The Hungarian equivalent of the K.G.B.

18 The phrase is J. J. C. Smart's. See his paper entitled “Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism”, Philosophical Quarterly, 6: 344–354, 1956.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Clifford, W. K., Lectures and Essays, Vol. II, ed. Stephen, Leslie and Pollock, Frederick (Macmillan, 1879), p. 178.Google Scholar

20 Patrick Gardiner seems to argue that there are cases of self-deception which are unrelated to moral considerations. See his paper “Error, Faith and Self-Deception”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 70: 221–243, 1969–1970.Google Scholar

21 Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics, 1113b, The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. McKeon, Richard (New York: Random House).Google Scholar