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Self-Knowledge, Choice Blindness, and Confabulation

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Self-Knowledge, Choice Blindness, and Confabulation University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses July 2019 Self-Knowledge, Choice Blindness, and Confabulation Hayley F. Webster University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Epistemology Commons Recommended Citation Webster, Hayley F., "Self-Knowledge, Choice Blindness, and Confabulation" (2019). Doctoral Dissertations. 1543. https://doi.org/10.7275/13524606 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1543 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SELF-KNOWLEDGE, CHOICE BLINDNESS, AND CONFABULATION A Dissertation Presented by HAYLEY FRANCES JOY WEBSTER Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2019 Philosophy © Copyright by Hayley. F. Webster 2019 All Rights Reserved SELF-KNOWLEDGE, CHOICE BLINDNESS, AND CONFABULATION A Dissertation Presented by HAYLEY FRANCES JOY WEBSTER Approved as to style and content by: ___________________________ Hilary Kornblith, Chair ___________________________ Joseph Levine, Member ___________________________ Christopher Meacham, Member ___________________________ Nilanjana Dasgupta, Member _________________________ Joseph Levine, Department Head Philosophy DEDICATION In loving memory of my Grandad, Peter Lamont. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Hilary Kornblith, for his steadfast support and guidance over the years. I would also like to express my gratitude to all the members of my committee – Joseph Levine, Christopher Meacham, and Nilanjana Dasgupta. I owe special thanks to my mum and dad for their endless support and love while I was studying for this degree. Also, love and thanks to my sister, Amy, for her pep talks and bringing Prosecco. Last but not least, thanks to Adam, for making me many cups of tea and putting up with me while I was stressed out. v ABSTRACT SELF-KNOWLEDGE, CHOICE BLINDNESS, AND CONFABULATION MAY 2019 HAYLEY FRANCES JOY WEBSTER, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN M.A., UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Hilary Kornblith There are two kinds of epistemic theories about self-knowledge: the traditional account, and the inferentialist account. According to the traditional view of self-knowledge, we have privileged access to our propositional attitudes. “Privileged access” means that one can gain knowledge of one’s own propositional attitudes directly via an exclusive, first-personal method called introspection. On the other hand, the inferentialist view of self-knowledge postulates that we don’t have privileged access to our propositional attitudes and must infer or self-attribute them instead. In this thesis I argue that the traditional view of self-knowledge, which postulates that we have privileged access to our propositional attitudes, ought to be abandoned in favor of an infernetialist picture of self-knowledge vi I argue that recent experimental results in social psychology strongly imply that we don’t have privileged access to our propositional attitudes. In the choice blindness paradigm, the majority of participants can be manipulated into becoming oblivious to choices that they made just moments previously. Not only do participants utterly fail to notice that they did not receive what they wanted, but they also provide confabulated reasons as to why they made their “decision.” I maintain that the phenomena of choice blindness and confabulation are very difficult for the traditional theory of self- knowledge to accommodate and explain; whereas, on the other hand, the inferentialist account actually predicts and anticipates these experimental findings. The traditional theorist cannot avoid the threat that choice blindness and confabulation pose by restricting the scope of privileged access even further, to exclude propositional attitudes, because privileged access to propositional attitudes is the very property which distinguishes the traditional view of self-knowledge from an inferentialist account. The traditional theorist might attempt to argue that privileged access to propositional attitudes is conceptually necessary, but I maintain that this argument fails. The traditional theorist’s only option, then, is to adopt a dual-method account whereby we sometimes gain self-knowledge via introspection and sometimes via inference. However, I maintain that the dual-method approach is a much weaker theory in terms of explanatory power when compared to the inferentialist account. On balance, then, the traditional view of self-knowledge should be rejected in favor of the inferentialist account. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................................................................... v ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................. xi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1 2. INTROSPECTION AND PRIVILEGED ACCESS ................................... 17 The traditional view of self-knowledge ............................................................. 17 The first-person method: Introspection .......................................................... 22 Privileged Access ............................................................................................... 35 The value of privileged access and self-knowledge .......................................... 50 The infererntialist view of self-knowledge ....................................................... 62 Looking ahead: thesis statement ....................................................................... 74 3. "TELLING MORE THAN WE CAN KNOW," CHOICE BLINDNESS, AND SELF-KNOWLEDGE ............................................................................... 80 Nisbett and Wilson's experiments into decision-making ................................. 81 Building on Nisbett and Wilson: the choice blindness paradigm .................. 108 From pretty faces to politics: expanding on the choice blindness paradigm .. 117 viii Advantages of the choice blindness paradigm ................................................ 127 Eye-tracking and verbal report analysis ......................................................... 134 Problems with the choice blindness paradigm, and replies ........................... 140 Chapter summary ............................................................................................ 149 4. WHAT IS GOING ON DURING CHOICE BLINDNESS? .................... 153 Attitudes ......................................................................................................... 158 Belief ......................................................................................................... 170 What is going on during choice blindness? ..................................................... 179 The upshot for the traditional view of self-knowledge .................................. 238 5. CONFABULATION .............................................................................. 243 The medical origins of confabuation ............................................................... 256 Characteristics of confabulation ...................................................................... 256 A definition of confabulation .......................................................................... 263 How confabulation threatens the traditional view of self-knowledge………...271 More bad news for the traditional view of self-knowledge ............................ 292 6. MOVING ON FROM THE TRADITIONAL VIEW OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE ...................................................................................... 297 The end of the traditional view of self-knowledge? ....................................... 306 Is privileged access conceptually necessary? ................................................. 326 Why the inferentialist account of self-knowledge is stronger ....................... 336 ix Does choice blindness threaten our rationality? ........................................... 346 What change blindness can teach us about choice blindness ....................... 350 Why choice blindness doesn't impugn our rationality .................................. 370 Chapter summary ............................................................................................ 377 7. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 384 BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................. 395 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. An ilustration of the manipulated choice blindness trial ..................... 111 2. The abstract and concrete moral statements used in the experiment ...................................................................................................... 120 3. Verbal reports for the moral principles (abstract) and moral issues (concrete), and the extent to which the reports were judged to support
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