Abstract
Stubborn belief, like self-deception, is a species of motivated irrationality. The nature of stubborn belief, however, has not been investigated by philosophers, and it is something that poses a challenge to some prominent accounts of self-deception. In this paper, I argue that the case of stubborn belief constitutes a counterexample to Alfred Mele’s proposed set of sufficient conditions for self-deception, and I attempt to distinguish between the two. The recognition of this phenomenon should force an amendment in this account, and should also make a Mele-style deflationist think more carefully about the kinds of motivational factors operating in self-deception.
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Notes
Szabados’ idea is that wishful thinkers believe something unwarrantedly because they want it to be true, without having significant evidence either for or against it, often jumping to the welcome conclusion on the basis of a modicum of welcome evidence, while self-deceivers hold their belief in the face of contrary, unwelcome evidence. Thus self-deception involves taking a defensive reaction towards and resisting evidence (e.g., by reinterpreting it and explaining it away), while such measures aren’t necessary in wishful thinking. Condition 4 (see below) of Mele’s account, in that case, is critical for excluding cases of wishful thinking. This is why I think that Mele is wrong to say that condition 4 is expendable (2001: 51–52). In fact, it’s required if his account is not to conflate these two phenomena, a point he himself hints at elsewhere (1997: 100).
For further efforts to defend this general view of self-deception, see (Lynch 2012).
Mele’s holds that one can self-deceptively acquire the belief that p, or self-deceptively retain the belief that p, and in his exact formulation of these conditions, he presents them as applying to self-deceptively acquiring the belief that p by, for instance, stating (1) as “The belief that p which S acquires is false”. I have substituted ‘has’ for ‘acquire’, which gives the conditions increased generality by being ambiguous on whether the belief was self-deceptively acquired or retained.
Note that I don’t want to suggest here that it’s always unreasonable not to reconsider your beliefs when others are challenging them or encouraging one to reconsider. In the cases being considered here, we are assuming that the challenger’s position is warranted and persuasive, and would enjoin the subject to change his mind. Thus, the phrase ‘with good reason’ is important in the above formulation, which is supposed to indicate that the belief which the subject clings to is not epistemically warranted by his evidence in these cases.
Stubbornness may not always concern belief, however. Consider an old woman whose house is in the projected path of a new motorway, who refuses to relocate despite the fact that all her neighbors have moved and the very generous offers of compensation. We may describe her as stubborn, though this may not imply that she is being stubborn with respect to one of her beliefs.
References
Gardiner, P. (1969–1970). Error, faith and self-deception. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 70, 221–243.
Holton, R. (2001). What is the role of the self in self-deception? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 101, 53–69.
Lynch, K. (2012). On the “tension” inherent in self-deception. Philosophical Psychology, 25, 433–450.
Mele, A. R. (1983). Self-deception. The Philosophical Quarterly, 33, 365–377.
Mele, A. R. (1997). Real self-deception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20, 91–102.
Mele, A. R. (2001). Self-deception unmasked. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Szabados, B. (1973). Wishful thinking and self-deception. Analysis, 33, 201–205.
Szabados, B. (1974). Self-deception. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 4, 51–68.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Matt Soteriou, and the two anonymous referees from this journal, for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper. Thanks also to the audience at the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology meeting, Senate House, London, September 2012, for their comments on this material.
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Lynch, K. Self-Deception and Stubborn Belief. Erkenn 78, 1337–1345 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-012-9425-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-012-9425-0