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Journal of Philosophy, Inc. Lying to Oneself Author(s): Raphael Demos Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 57, No. 18 (Sep. 1, 1960), pp. 588-595 Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2023611 Accessed: 12-12-2015 22:02 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Journal of Philosophy, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Philosophy. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 134.82.162.153 on Sat, 12 Dec 2015 22:02:33 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 588 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY LYING TO ONESELF IN ordinary language the terms lying and deceiving are not strictly equivalent. For instance we speak of B's deceiving C unintentionally-as when B conveys to C a false impression about the facts although he (B) did not intend to do so. Thus, in 'de- ceiving', it is the effect that counts-inducing an erroneous belief in C's mind. But in 'lying', the intention is part of the meaning. I have lied to you although you have not believed me and so have not been misled by me. An odd consequence of this usage is that B, in lying to C, may, in fact, induce a true belief in C's mind. Suppose B dislikes C and wishes to injure him; suppose also that B himself is mistaken about what is the case. Now, C is consider- ing whether he should employ Jones in his business and asks B whether Jones is a reliable man. B believes (wrongly) that Jones is dishonest, so he replies: Jones is a fine fellow whom you can trust absolutely. In lying to C, B has conveyed the truth to him about Jones. My proposed usage of 'lying' is intended to avoid this oddity. I will say that 'B lies to (deceives) C' means: B intends to induce a mistaken belief in C, B succeeds in carrying out this intention, and finally B knows (and believes) that what he tells C is false. All three: intention, results, and knowledge, are in- cluded. From this meaning of lying and deceiving I will proceed to a discussion of 'lying to oneself' or 'deceiving oneself'. Here, too, I would like to restrict the meaning of these phrases to a special (their strongest) case. A man deceives himself into think- ing that he is an excellent scientist because his standards of ex- cellence in science are low. Having had no competition, he is simply ignorant of what good scientific work is. This is not what I am calling self-deception. Self-deception exists, I will say, when a person lies to himself, that is to say, persuades himself to believe what he knows is not so. In short, self-deception entails that B believes both p and not-p at the same time. Thus self-deception involves an inner conflict, perhaps the existence of a contradiction. But this would seem to be an impossibility-a problem which I will consider later on in this article. Meanwhile, I will remind the reader of the well-known passage in Republic (382a) where Plato speaks of the true lie (rb c4 a&Xr,OCos41vios), which, I suggest, is what I have described as lying to oneself. Plato contrasts the true lie with the lie in words which, since only in words, presumably does not deceive the liar; in addition, Plato characterizes the true lie as the lie in the soul. Plato is more explicit in Cratylus (428d), where he speaks of a person deceiving himself (ca7racriaOat aco6v This content downloaded from 134.82.162.153 on Sat, 12 Dec 2015 22:02:33 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions LYING TO ONESELF 589 vJp'tcTo), and comments that such a deception is a terrible evil be- cause the deceiver is always present; in other words, a man has become his own prisoner. Plato also says (in Republic) that the lie in the soul concerns vital matters about oneself. But, in my usage, this reservation is irrelevant; a mother who deceives herself about her son, thinking him to be a good boy when he is not, is deceiving herself in the same sense in which she might deceive herself about matters (vital or not) concerning herself. A man who lies to himself is blameworthy because he acts with knowledge of the facts and thus may be held responsible for his erroneous belief. Usually, a person deceives himself because he finds it unpleasant to believe what is the case, as in the example of the mother cited above. Such lying to oneself is an example of what is called wishful thinking. But this need not be so; a person may persuade himself to believe what is disagreeable. A man walk- ing alone in the woods after dark imagines wild beasts lurking around, and that is because he is terrified of them. So it would be more exact to speak of impulse or passion as influencing belief. I speak of 'influence' advisedly. It is misleading to say that so-and- so is 'overwhelmed' by passion. One yields to an impulse in the sense that one did not try hard enough to resist it, when, in fact, he could have tried and could have resisted. (a) We say that a person is responsible for an action because he decided or chose to do it. (b) We hold a person responsible when he simply consented to the act. (c) There is the still weaker case when the man 'lets himself' do it, for instance when (as we say) he yields to a momen- tary impulse. Even so he is responsible for his act. Trying and not trying (to resist the impulse) are within one's power. So with self-deception. A man wishes (or is inclined) to believe p, con- trary to what he knows to be the case. Eventually he comes to believe p because he has allowed the impulse to have the upper hand; he could have successfully resisted the impulse but he did not try hard enough. As I have already implied, self-causation is not sufficient as a condition for human responsibility. We must also be able to say of a person: he knew what he was doing, and he could have done otherwise. Thus, (a) we do not hold a kleptomaniac responsible for the fact that he is engaged in stealing food from the counter in the store, although we may hold that his 'mania' is due to some condition in his brain. (b) We hold a person responsible for his erroneous beliefs when the mistake is due to his neglect to consult the proper authorities or the relevant books in the library. Such a case must be distinguished (c) from the one where a person prac- tices a deception on himself. In the former case, the person is This content downloaded from 134.82.162.153 on Sat, 12 Dec 2015 22:02:33 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 590 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY directly responsible for his neglectfulness, of which the mistaken belief is only an incidental outcome. In the latter case, the causal link with the mistaken belief is direct. There are also beliefs normally called delusions (rather than deceptions) for which the person entertaining them is not held responsible. The assumption is that the cause is external to him- self. Thus, a person who is drunk may entertain delusions of grandeur, a person who is suggestible and completely under the influence of a dominating personality may come to think (mis- takenly) that the latter is a saint, a person who has been hypnotized may be persuaded that he is sick when, in fact, he is quite well. In such instances, we are inclined to say that the operation of reason has been obstructed, not that reason is intrinsically deficient. A like clouding of reason takes place in sleep when we dream and, dreaming, believe what is not so. An important difference between what I call delusions and self-deceptions is that the person having delusions experiences no conflict; there is no countervailing belief, as there is with self-deception. There are similarities between lying to oneself and pretending to oneself, but there are differences too; therefore we should clearly distinguish the two. When I lie to myself I come to believe what I know to be false; when I pretend to myself, it is not true that I believe p; I only make-believe. What does it, in fact, mean to pre- tend, to make-believe, to put on an act, to play at something? The word 'pretending' has a variety of meanings, which I do not pro- pose to explore; I am discussing only the meaning of 'pretending to oneself', as when children pretend to be Red Indians and to be fighting one another. Now, the children are not being 'deceived'; they know it is all a game. Their beliefs, feelings, and actions would be quite different if they really got angry with and fought one another like juvenile delinquents.