Congressional Issues 2008 GOVERNMENT Self-Deception
Congress should
avoid self-deception
I believe most Congressmen violate their oath of
office. In short, they lie. They take an oath to "support the Constitution"
with no intention of keeping their promise. They commit acts of evil:
theft, murder, kidnapping, and perjury.
I try to avoid name-calling, because it does little good. But I believe
these are objective facts, and every person who signed the Constitution
would agree with me.
I tend to believe that politicians deceive themselves into believing
that their evil acts are morally justified. I believe Hitler and Stalin
saw themselves as "benefactors"
and do-gooders, not as evil, Satanic dictators and tyrants.
I tend believe politicians sincerely believe their evil and
unconstitutional acts are morally justified. I wonder if any person
commits evil without going through a series of mental hoops which create a
sincere belief that their evil acts are justified, or that the victim
somehow "deserved" the evil.
Below is a touching video about a couple from Portugal who created a
business in America, and are ready to pass it on to their two sons, only
to have a New Jersey city confiscate the business under "eminent
domain" laws to give the property to a politically-connected
developer. When they emigrated to America, they were filled with joy when
they first saw the Statue of Liberty. Now it
makes them cry. The couple's life and business (and their sons'
inheritance) are being seized by the government, and their retirement
funds are being transferred to lawyers in a futile quest to preserve
private property. Their "American Dream" is being destroyed.
What would "The
Sons of Liberty" have thought and done if the British Crown
seized the business of Paul Revere, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, James
Otis, John Adams, or his cousin, Samuel Adams? Violence, probably.
Violence is never the
answer. But neither are ignorance, apathy, inaction, or wishful thinking.
These politicians took a solemn oath not to do this. They lied. They
are stealing.
They would kill if protesters got in their way. This family business never
conducted its business using these tactics. But stealing and killing are
the very essence of "government."
I'm sure the politicians who are stealing this couple's property and
giving it to friends of the State are not deliberately seeking to make
these Americans cry, or destroy the vision symbolized by the Statue of
Liberty. I'm sure these politicians have genuinely deceived themselves
into believing that they are "public servants," and are an asset
to their community.
But they are wrong. The Nazis felt this way, and the Communists felt
this way, but they were wrong. Evil men always feel that there is some
moral justification for the evil they commit. They rationalize, justify,
and deceive themselves concerning the nature of their evil desires and
evil acts. They sincerely don't believe they are evil. They believe
they're doing what "has to be done."
The following is adapted from an article by my
mentor, Greg L. Bahnsen, in the Westminster
Theological Journal, vol. LVII
(1995) pp. 1-31, reprinted by Covenant
Media Foundation, 800/553-3938. The article is entitled,
The
Crucial Concept of Self-Deception in Presuppositional Apologetics
Don't be put off by the phrase "presuppositional
apologetics." "Apologetics" here means "a defense of
Christianity." What I want you to understand is my understanding of
the reality of "self-deception." Bahnsen writes:
Romans
1:18-32 18
For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because
that which may be known of God is manifest in
them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For
the invisible things of Him from the creation of
the world are clearly seen, being understood by
the things that are made, even His eternal power
and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because
that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not
as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in
their imaginations, and their foolish heart was
darkened. 22 Professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And
changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an
image made like to corruptible man, and to birds,
and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24 Wherefore
God also gave them up to uncleanness through the
lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own
bodies between themselves: 25 Who
changed the truth of God into a lie, and
worshipped and served the creature more than the
Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26 For
this cause God gave them up unto vile affections:
for even their women did change the natural use
into that which is against nature: 27 Likewise
also the men, leaving the natural use of the
woman, burned in their lust for one another, men
with men committing what is shameful, and
receiving in themselves the
penalty of their error which was due. 28 And
even as they did not like to retain God in their
knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind,
to do those things which are not appropriate; 29 Being
filled with all unrighteousness, fornication,
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of
envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity;
whisperers, 30 Backbiters,
haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters,
inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without
understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural
affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who,
knowing the judgment of God, that they which
commit such things are worthy of death, not only
do the same, but have pleasure in them that do
them.
Self-deception -- which is practiced by all unregenerate men according to
the Apostle Paul's incisive description in Romans 1:18ff. -- is at once
religiously momentous and yet philosophically enigmatic.
Paul asserts that all men know God so inescapably and clearly from
natural revelation that they are left with no defense for their unfaithful
response to the truth about Him. In verses 19-20, Paul says "what can
be known about God is plain within them because God made it plain to them...
[being] clearly perceived from the created world, being intellectually
apprehended from the things that have been made... so that they are without
excuse." Nevertheless, even as they are categorically depicted as
"knowing God" (v. 21), all men are portrayed in their
unrighteousness as "holding down the truth" (v. 18). They are
suppressing what God has already successfully shown them about Himself. As a
result of hiding the truth from themselves, unbelievers neither glorify nor
thank God, but instead become futile in their reasoning, undiscerning in
their darkened hearts, and foolish in the midst of their professions of
wisdom (vv. 21-22). According to God's word through Paul, then, unbelievers
suppress what they very well know, confirming what Jeremiah the prophet so
aptly declared, "The heart is deceitful above all things" (17:9).
As long as the notion of self-deception appears uncertain, awkward, or
unclear, the cogency of the presuppositional method will remain in the
balance. We must say in conformity to Romans 1 that in some sense the
non-Christian knows and does not know God. In some sense, he believes, but
disbelieves in God. In some sense, he is unconscious of suppressing the
truth and still responsibly conscious of doing so. So then, what might prove
especially beneficial would be for us to give some sense to these apparent
paradoxes. If we can do so, the philosophy of presuppositionalism will be
noticeably advanced and more readily presentable to struggling defenders of
the faith who need it so desperately.[54]
An
Enigmatic yet Familiar Notion
The concept itself has certainly not been unfamiliar. Portraying men as
self-deceived has been a virtual commonplace in Western literature, and thus
the apparently paradoxical nature of the concept cannot be thought to be a
uniquely religious matter.
[54] It is
because of the pivotal importance of the concept
of self-deception to presuppositional apologetics
that I pursued an in depth analysis of it for my
doctoral dissertation in philosophy: "A
Conditional Resolution of the Apparent Paradox of
Self-Deception" University of Southern
California, 1978. What follows is a brief
synopsis.
[55] Joseph
Butler, Sermons (New York: Robert Carter
& Bros., 1870 [1729]), p. xv.
[56] Leo
Tolstoy, War and Peace, vol. 1 (New York:
Penguin Books, 1972), p. 698.
[1] Most
recently by John M. Frame in a chapter on
"Cornelius Van Til" in Handbook of
Evangelical Theologians, ed. Walter A. Elwell
(Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), pp. 163-165.
Examining various discussions of the unbeliever's
knowledge of God in Van Til's writings, Frame
says, "It is difficult to make sense out of
all this.... Contrary to Van Til, a biblical
apologetic need not exclude common notions or
ideas, but may legitimately draw conclusions from
them."
[2] For Van
Til's place in the historical unfolding of the
discipline see Greg L. Bahnsen, "Socrates or
Christ: The Reformation of Christian
Apologetics" in Foundations of Christian
Scholarship: Essays in the Van Til Perspective,
ed. Gary North (Vallecito, California: Ross House
Books, 1976), pp. 191-239.
[3] Cornelius
Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology,
vol. 2 of the series "In Defense of Biblical
Christianity" (n.p.: den Dulk Christian
Foundation, 1969), p. 4.
[4] Cornelius
Van Til, "My Credo," Jerusalem and
Athens: Critical Discussions on the Theology and
Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til, ed. E. R.
Geehan (n.p.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing
Co., 1971), p. 20. Also note: "The only
'proof' of the Christian position is that unless
its truth is presupposed there is no possibility
of 'proving' anything at all" (p. 21). For an
illustration of how this argument is put into
practice, consult the "Bahnsen-Stein
Debate" (at the University of California,
Irvine, in 1985), tapes #ASST from Covenant Media
Foundation at 1-800/553-3938.
[5] Cornelius
Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic
Theology, vol. 5 of the series "In
Defense of Biblical Christianity"
(Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing Co., 1974), p. 9.
[6] Contrary to
the unbalanced and misleading remark about
ontological priority in Jim Halsey, "A
Preliminary Critique of Van Til: the
Theologian,"Westminster Theological
Journal 39 (Fall, 1976): 122-130.
[7]
John W. Montgomery, "Once Upon an A
Priori," Jerusalem and Athens, p.
391; Norman Geisler, Christian Apologetics
(Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976), p. 56;
R. C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur
Lindsley, Classical Apologetics: A Rational
Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of
Presuppositional Apologetics (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), p. 184.
[8] Van Til,
A Survey of Christian Epistemology, p. 11.
[9] Ibid., p.
205.
[10] Cornelius
Van Til,The Defense of the Faith
(Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing Co., 1955), pp. 117-118, 131; cf. pp.
125-126, 132. References throughout are to the
first edition.
[11] Ibid., p.
119.
[12]
Cornelieus Van Til, A Christian Theory of
Knowledge (n.p.: Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing Co., 1969), p. 19; cf. The Defense
of the Faith, p. 197.
[13] E.g., A
Survey of Christian Epistemology, pp. 189,
201, 204, 206, 225; The Defense of the Faith,
pp. 94, 110, 117, 119-120, 194-195, 198, 266-267,
279, 283.
[14] Cornelius
Van Til, Common Grace (Philadelphia:
Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1947),
p. 62.
[15] Van Til,The
Defense of the Faith, p. 396.
[16] Ibid., p.
317.
[17] Ibid.,
pp. 67, 290; cf. Van Til,A Christian Theory of
Knowledge, pp. 43-44.
[18] Van Til,
A Christian Theory of Knowledge, p. 13.
[19] Van Til,
A Survey of Christian Epistemology, p. xii.
[20] Van Til,
The Defense of the Faith, p. 355.
[21] Van Til,
A Christian Theory of Knowledge, p. 22.
[22] Van Til,
The Defense of the Faith, p. 120; cf. p. 260.
[23] Ibid., p.
103.
[24] Ibid., p.
111.
[25] Ibid., p.
173.
[26] Ibid.,
pp. 173-174, 192.
[27] Ibid., p.
257; cf. pp. 107, 109.
[28] Ibid., p.
173; cf. p. 257.
[29] Ibid.,
pp. 109, 111, emphasis added; cf. pp. 102, 115,
285, 305-306.
[30] Ibid., p.
100 (cf. p. 26); Van Til, A Christian Theory
of Knowledge, p. 46.
[31] Van Til,
The Defense of the Faith, pp. 385-386.
[32] Ibid., p.
110, emphasis added; cf. p. 112.
[33] Van Til,
An Introduction to Systematic Theology, p.
26. On the preceding page he labels the problem
"complex," and on page 93 he speaks of
Romans 1:18-21 as "this most difficult
passage."
[34] Van Til,
The Defense of the Faith, pp. 261-262.
[35] Ibid.,
pp. 363-364.
[36] Ibid, p.
66, emphasis added.
[37] Ibid., p.
388, emphasis added.
[38] Van Til,
A Christian Theory of Knowledge, p. 45.
[39] E.g.,
ibid, pp. 45, 46; Van Til, The Defense of the
Faith, p. 388.
[40] Van Til,
The Defense of the Faith, pp. 120, 111.
[41] Ibid., p.
259.
[42] Ibid.,
pp. 257, 112, 111. (Interestingly, this type of
example is common in recent philosophical
literature on self-deception.)
[43] Ibid., p.
355.
[44] Ibid.,
pp. 257, 111.
[45] Ibid., p.
115.
[46] E.g.,
ibid, p. 306; Van Til, A Christian Theory of
Knowledge, p. 42.
[47] Van Til,
A Survey of Christian Epistemology, p. 225.
[48] Van Til,
The Defense of the Faith, p. 191, emphasis
added.
[49] Van Til,
A Christian Theory of Knowledge, p. 46.
[50] Van Til,
The Defense of the Faith, p. 259; cf. A
Christian Theory of Knowledge, p. 42.
[51] Ibid., p.
306.
[52] Van Til,
A Survey of Christian Epistemology, p. 4.
[53] Van Til,
The Defense of the Faith, p. 109.
[57] Raphael
Demos, "Lying to Oneself," Journal
of Philosophy 57 (Sept. 1, 1960): 588-594.
[58] Jean-Paul
Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans.
Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Washington Square
Press, 1956), p. 89.
[59] John V.
Canfield and Don F. Gustavson,
"Self-Deception,: Analysis 23
(1962)32. Throughout this essay I will use
"S" to stand for any subject who knows
or believes, and "p" for any proposition
which is known or believed.
[60] Patric
Gardiner, "Error, Faith, and
Self-Deception," Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society 70 N.S. (1969-1970)
224-25.
[61] Cf.
Stanley Paluch, "Self-Deception," Inquiry
10 (1967) 271-72; David Pugmire, " 'Strong'
Self-Deception," Inquiry 12 (1969)
339-46.
[62] John Turk
Saunders, "The Parados of
Self-Deception," Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 35 (1975) 561.
[63] Herbert
Fingarette, Self-Deception (New York:
Humanities, 1975) 561.
[64] Ludwig
Wittgenstein, Blue and Brown Books, (New
York: Harper Torch Books, 1958) 18; Philosophical
Investigations (3rd ed.; New York: Macmillan,
1968), sections 65-71.
[65] Sadly we
sometimes find both of the two preceding,
artificial, and philosophically unhelpful
treatments in popular presentations of Van Til's
position: e.g., Jim S. Halsey, For a Time Such
as This (Phillipsburg, New Jersey:
Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1978), pp.
63, 66-68.
[66] E.g.,
Paluch, "Self-Deception"; A. E. Murphy, The
Theory of Practical Reason (LaSalle: Open
Court Publishing Co., 1965); T. S. Champlin,
"Self-Deception: A Reflexive Dilemma," Philosophy
52 (July, 1977): 281-299.
[67] E.g., H.
O. Mounce, "Self-Deception," Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society, Supplemental Volume
35 (1971): 61-72.
[68] E.g.,
Frederick A. Sigler, "Demos on Lying to
Oneself," The Journal of Philosophy
59 (Aug. 2, 1962): 469-475;
"Self-Deception," Australasian
Journal of Philosophy 41 (May, 1963): 29-43.
[69] E.g.,
Canfield and Gustavson,
"Self-Deception"; Terence Penelhum,
"Pleasure and Falsity," Philosophy
of Mind, ed. Stuart Hampshire (New York:
Harper and Row, 1966), pp. 242-266.
[70] E.g.,
Richard Reilly, "Self-Deception: Resolving
the Epistemological Paradox," The
Personalist 57 (Autumn, 1976): 391.
[71] E.g.,
James M. Shea, "Self-Deception," Ph.D.
dissertation, Cornell University, 1966 (Ann Arbor,
Michigan: Xerox University Microfilms 67-1411);
Eugene Valberg, "Rationality and
Self-Deception," Ph.D. dissertation, State
University of New York at Buffalo, 1973 (Ann
Arbor, Michigan: Xerox University Microfilms
73-29,146).
[72] E.g.,
Alan R. Drengson, "Self-Deception,"
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oregon, 1971
(Ann Arbor, Michigan: Xerox University Microfilms,
72-14,723).
[73] E.g.,
Charles B. Daniels, "Self-Deception and
Interpersonal Deception," The Personalist
55 (Summer, 1974): 244-252.
[74] E.g., D.
W. Hamlyn, "Self-Deception," Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society, Supplemental Volume
35 (1971): 45-60.
[75] E.g.,
Eric J. Lerner, "The Emotions of
Self-Deception," Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell
University, 1975 (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Xerox
University Microfilms, 75-27,038); Sigler,
"An Analysis of Self-Deception," Nous
2 (May, 1968): 147-164.
[76] E.g.,
John King-Farlow, "Self-deceivers and
Sartrian Seducers," Analysis 23
(June, 1963): 131-136.
[77] E.g.,
Bela Szabados, "Rorty on Belief in
Self-Deception," Inquiry 17 (Winter,
1974): 464-473; "Self-Deception," Canadian
Journal of Philosophy 4 (September, 1974):
51-68.
[78] E.g.,
Demos, "Lying to Oneself"
[79] E.g.,
Charles D. Bruce, "An Investigation of
Self-Deception," Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan
State University, 1975 (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Xerox
University Microfilms, 75-20,815).
[80] E.g.,
Pugmire, "'Strong' Self-Deception"
[81] E.g.,
Gardiner, "Error, Faith, and
Self-Deception"
[82] E.g.,
Hamlyn, "Self-Deception"
[83] E.g.,
Saunders, "The Paradox of
Self-Deception"
[84] E.g.,
Fingarette, Self-Deception
[85] This is
especially evident in many treatments of doxastic
logic in our day.
[86] Cf. Knowledge
and Belief, ed. A. Phillips Griffith (London:
Oxford University Press, 1967); H. H. Price, Belief
(London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969); Robert J.
Ackermann, Belief and Knowledge (Garden
City, New York: Achor Books of Doubleday and Co.,
1972); Belief, Knowledge, and Truth, eds.
Robert R. Ammerman and Marcus G. Singer (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970); D. M. Armstrong, Belief,
Truth and Knowledge (London: Cambridge
University Press, 1973); J. O. Urmson,
"Parenthetical Verbs," Essays in
Conceptual Analysis, ed. Antony Flew (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1956), pp. 192-212;
Mitchell Ginsberg, Mind and Belief:
Psychological Ascription and the Concept of Belief
(New York: Humanities Press, 1972); Paul Helm, The
Varieties of Belief (New York: Humanities
Press, 1973); F. P. Ramsey, "Last
Papers," The Foundations of Mathematics
and Other Logical Essays, ed. R. B.
Braithwaite (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
[1931] 1954).
[87] Cf.
especially the works by Armstrong, Ramsey and
Price cited in the previous footnote.
[88] This
characterization enables us to distinguish
believing from related notions. Thought is not
action-guiding, and judgment is a mental act
rather than state. Hope adds to a propositional
belief a valuational belief pertaining to the
proposition. We are only "under an
impression" when the evidence for the
proposition cannot be readily adduced. We say we
"suspect that p" when p is deemed a
relevant possibility and treated in hypothetical
fashion in our inferences. Suspicion, supposition,
surmise, opinion, thinking and conviction
represent degrees of confidence with which the
belief is held (although in common parlance
"belief" itself can denote a particular
level on such a scale); they are distinguished by
their varying causal efficacy in guiding one's
theoretical and practical inferences.
[89] Robert
Audi, "The Limits of Self-Knowledge," Canadian
Journal of Philosophy 4, no. 2 (December,
1974): 266.
[90] Notice
that this analysis does not affirm a logical
contradiction in S's beliefs or a logical
contradiction about S. The claim is not that S
believes [p and not-p]. Nor is the formula that
[(S believes p) and it is not the case that (S
believes p)]. We are dealing with two levels of
believing: one is about p, the other is about S.
Now then, although it is not necessary, S's denial
of his belief that p can sometimes take the form
of - or be facilitated by - S coming to believe
not-p (as a way of counteracting S's belief that
p), but even here the appearance of logical
contradiction is avoidable. Rather than saying
that S believes [p and not-p], it should be said
that [(S believes p) and (S believes not-p)].
[91] When any
human activity becomes habitual, one
might not always be fully conscious or aware of
what he is purposely doing.
Popular, cynical platitudes about man's proclivity to self-deception have
been published continually by men from Demosthenes to Benjamin Franklin, who
once quipped, "who has deceived thee so often as thyself?" The
Puritan preacher, Daniel Dyke, wrote a four-hundred page treatise published
in 1617, entitled The Mystery of Selfe-Deceiving. A century later,
the Anglican apologist, Bishop Butler, included his famous sermon "Upon
Self-Deceit" in a published collection of his sermons. In it he
correctly recognized, "A man may be entirely possessed of this
unfairness of mind, without having the least speculative notion what the
thing is."[55] It has been common to make mention of
self-deception, even though it may be uncommonly difficult to explain
philosophically just what it is.
Yet even among philosophers the notion has been common stock. From what
was said about it by Plato, Rousseau, Goethe, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche,
one would learn how dubious a view it is that men really want the truth when
the truth happens to be uncomfortable for them. Special attention is given
to the concept of self-deception in Hegel's theory of "unhappy
consciousness," in Kierkegaard's discussion of "purity of
heart," and Sartre's view of "bad faith." According to
Sartre, men evade responsibility for their existential freedom through
intentional ignorance of the human reality.
Apart from the obscure works of the philosophers, however, self-deception
is also one of those human realities on which great works of Western
literature have been richly sustained over many years. One thinks of the
classic portrayal of it in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex or Shakespeare's The
Tragedy of King Lear. We remember the soliloquy on self-swindling in
Dickens' Great Expectations, Emma's intrigues with lovers in
Flaubert's Madame Bovary, or Strether's efforts to remain oblivious
to unwanted evidence in Henry James' The Ambassadors. The tragic
condition of self-deception is discussed and depicted in great Russian
literature of the past - such as Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground,
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina,Father Sergius, and The Death
of Ivan Ilych. Indeed, one of the most graphically accurate depictions
of self-deception is found in Tolstoy's War and Peace, when Count
Rostov returns home from a business trip to discover that something has
happened to his daughter. We read:
The
Count saw clearly that something had gone wrong during his absence; but it
was so terrible for him to imagine anything discredible occurring in
connection with his beloved daughter, and he so prized his own cheerful
tranquility, that he avoided asking questions and did his best to persuade
himself that there was nothing very much wrong or out of the way....[56]
The illustrations from literature could be multiplied many times over. We
could mention O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, or Andre Gide's Pastoral
Symphony, or Camus' The Fall, or any number of other
entertaining, perplexing accounts.
We still would not be fully aware of how common the notion of
self-deception has been in human thought until we supplemented the survey
with those sociological and psychological approaches to man which have so
profoundly affected Western culture in the last century. One thinks here, of
course, of the discussion by Marx of "false consciousness" and
collective illusion, causing an entire social class to obscure the motives
of its thought from itself. We recall the sociology of knowledge presented
by Karl Mannheim, who pointed to the tenacity of commitment to theoretical
formulations which, although impractical, have been acquired in the
cooperative process of group life. Finally, we cannot overlook Freud's
psychoanalytic study of subconscious maneuvers and defense mechanisms by
which men cling to their cherished illusions.
So whether we turn to works in religion, philosophy, literature,
sociology or psychology, we cannot come to the conclusion that the notion of
self-deception is somehow an unfamiliar one. We have ample evidence that men
identify something in their experience as self-deception. The notion is
readily utilized in everyday conversation, not simply in published works of
scholars. The vocabulary of self-deception is recognizable (even by
children), mastered by people, and taught to others. And so, when the son of
Mrs. Jones has been caught red-handed stealing lunch money out of students'
desks at school, and Mrs. Jones continues to protest her son's innocence -
despite this being the third time such an incident has taken place, despite
her discomfort and red face when the subject of dishonesty comes up in
casual conversations, despite the fact that she does not trust her son
around her purse any longer - and she continues to explain his innocence
with strange explanations (like the school officials have a vendetta against
little Johnny, they were framing him, etc.) nobody finds it awkward to say
the poor lady "is deceiving herself." You see, self-deception is
part of our common experience, and familiarity with it breeds acceptance of
it as a genuine reality of life.
Self-deception is also one of the focal points in continuing criticism of
Cornelius Van Til's apologetic[1] and, as such,
invites analysis with a view to supplementing and strengthening the saintly
professor's remarkable contribution to the history of apologetics.[2]
The apologetical importance of such self-deception should be quite evident.
Throughout the history of apologetics we find that Romans 1 has been of
guiding interest to Biblically oriented apologists, and indeed the
self-deceptive character of man as presented there has itself been stressed
periodically by scholars of Reformed persuasion. However, no apologist has
drawn more consistent attention to this characteristic of the natural man or
made it more pivotal for his system of defending the Christian faith than
has Dr. Van Til. It is an indispensable concept in his epistemology, as one
will see in systematically studying Van Til's writings or analyzing his
apologetical perspective. The point is not simply that references to the
unbeliever's self-deception, as taught in Romans 1, are conspicuous and
common in Van Til's books, but that this notion functions in such a crucial
manner in his argumentation that without it presuppositional apologetics
could be neither intellectually cogent nor personally appropriate as a
method of defending the faith. A short rehearsal of a few basic points in
Van Til's apologetic shows why this is so.
In A Survey of Christian Epistemology Van Til claims that
"there can be no more fundamental question in epistemology than the
question whether or not facts can be known without reference to God... [and
so] whether or not God exists."[3] That is, a
metaphysical issue is the most fundamental question in epistemology. Van
Til's apologetical argument for the metaphysical conclusion that God exists,
however, is in turn epistemological in character. The Christian defends the
faith "by claiming... he can explain... [the] amenability of fact to
logic and the necessity and usefulness of rationality itself in terms of
Scripture."[4] He could thus write: "it appears
how intimately one's theory of being and one's theory of method are
interrelated."[5] This mutual dependence of
metaphysics and epistemology has always been characteristic of Van Til's
apologetical position.[6]
So then, far from being a species of "fideism," as it is so
often misconstrued by writers like Montgomery, Geisler or Sproul,[7]
Van Til's approach to the question of God's existence offers, I believe, the
strongest form of proof and rational demonstration - namely, a
"transcendental" form of argument. He writes, "Now the only
argument for an absolute God that holds water is a transcendental
argument... [which] seeks to discover what sort of foundations the house of
human knowledge must have, in order to be what it is."[8]
To put it briefly, using Van Til's words, "we reason from the
impossibility of the contrary."[9]
In The Defense of the Faith, Van Til explains that this is an
indirect method of proof, whereby the believer and the unbeliever together
think through the implications of each other's most basic assumptions so
that the Christian may show the non-Christian how the intelligibility of his
experience, the meaningfulness of logic, and the possibility of science,
proof or interpretation can be maintained only on the basis of the Christian
worldview (i.e., on the basis of Christian theism taken as a unit, rather
than piecemeal).
The
method of reasoning by presupposition may be said to be indirect rather than
direct. The issue between believers and non-believers in Christian theism
cannot be settled by a direct appeal to "facts" or
"laws" whose nature and significance is already agreed upon by
both parties to the debate. The question is rather as to what is the final
reference-point required to make the "facts" and "laws"
intelligible.... The Christian apologist must place himself upon the
position of his opponent, assuming the correctness of his method merely for
argument's sake, in order to show him that on such a position the
"facts" are not facts and the "laws" are not laws. He
must also ask the non-Christian to place himself upon the Christian position
for argument's sake in order that he may be shown that only upon such a
basis do "facts" and "laws" appear intelligible.... The
method of presupposition requires the presentation of Christian theism as a
unit.[10]
Taking Christian theism "as the presupposition which alone makes the
acquisition of knowledge in any field intelligible," the apologist must
conduct a critical analysis of the unbeliever's epistemological method
"with the purpose of showing that its most consistent application not
merely leads away from Christian theism, but in leading away from Christian
theism, leads to [the] destruction of reason and science as well."[11]
This point, which Van Til drives home persistently throughout his large
corpus of publications, is expressed with these words in A Christian
Theory of Knowledge: "Christianity can be shown to be, not 'just
as good as' or even 'better than' the non-Christian position, but the only
position that does not make nonsense of human experience."[12]
Because the unbeliever's commitment to random eventuation in history (i.e.,
a metaphysic of "chance") renders proof impossible, predication
unintelligible, and a rational/irrational dialectic unavoidable, Van Til
claims repeatedly in his writings that the truth of Christianity is
epistemologically indispensable.[13]
It
is in this sense, then, that the presuppositional argument for the existence
of God and the truth of the Bible is "from the impossibility of the
contrary."
The
argument for the existence of God and for the truth of Christianity is
objectively valid.... The argument is absolutely sound. Christianity is the
only reasonable position to hold. It is not merely as reasonable as other
positions, or a bit more reasonable than other positions; it alone is the
natural and reasonable position for man to take.[14]
"Christianity is proved as being the very foundation of the idea of
proof itself."[15] Admittedly those are rather
strong claims, and as I see it, they constitute the most rigorous
apologetical program of intellectual defense being advanced in our time. It
is, moreover, just in the all-or-nothing epistemological boldness of
presuppositionalism that Van Til finds the distinctiveness of Reformed
apologetics - what he calls "the basic difference" between it and
other types of defense.
The Romanist-evangelical type of apologetics assumes that man can first
know much about himself in the universe and afterward ask whether God exists
and Christianity is true. The Reformed apologist assumes that nothing can be
known by man about himself or the universe unless God exists and
Christianity is true.[16]
Ironically, those who are uneasy with the presuppositional approach to
apologetics include not only those who think that it, being fideistic, does
not prove enough, but also those who (reading the claims that we have just
cited) say that it proves far too much! The charge is made, you see, that
presuppositionalism implies that unbelievers can know nothing at all and can
make no contribution to science and scholarship since belief in God is
epistemologically indispensable according to the presuppositionalist. And it
is right here, right at this crucial point in the analysis, that the notion
of self-deception by the unbeliever enters the picture.
Van Til always taught that "the absolute contrast between the
Christian and the non-Christian in the field of knowledge is said to be that
of principle." He draws "the distinction... between the
regenerated consciousness which in principle sees the truth and the
unregenerate consciousness which by its principle cannot see the
truth."[17] If unbelievers were totally true to
their espoused assumptions, then knowledge would indeed be impossible for
them since they deny God. However the Christian can challenge the
non-Christian approach to interpreting human experience "only if he
shows the non-Christian that even in his virtual negation of God, he is
still really presupposing God."[18] He puts the
point succinctly in saying: "Anti-theism presupposes theism."[19]
The intellectual achievements of the unbeliever, as explained in The
Defense of the Faith, are possible only because he is "borrowing,
without recognizing it, the Christian ideas of creation and
providence."[20] The non-Christian thus "makes
positive contributions to science in spite of his principles"[21]
- because he is inconsistent. Van Til replies directly to the charge that we
are now considering with these words:
The
first objection that suggests itself may be expressed in the rhetorical
question "Do you mean to assert that non-Christians do not discover
truth by the methods they employ?" The reply is that we mean nothing so
absurd as that. The implication of the method here advocated is simply that
non-Christians are never able and therefore never do employ their own method
consistently.... The best and only possible proof for the existence of such
a God is that his existence is required for the uniformity of nature and for
the coherence of all things in the world.... Thus there is absolutely
certain proof for the existence of God and the truth of Christian theism.
Even non-Christians presuppose its truth while they verbally reject it. They
need to presuppose the truth of Christian theism in order to account for
their own accomplishments.[22]
The sense of deity discussed by Calvin on the basis of Paul's doctrine in
Romans 1 provides Van Til not only with an apologetical point of contact,
but also with an account of how those who disclaim any belief in God can
know much about most subjects.[23]
The knowledge of God which every man has as the image of God and as
surrounded by God's clear revelation assures us, then, that all men are in
contact with the truth.[24] Not even sin in its most
devastating expressions can remove this knowledge, for Van Til says
"sin would not be sin except for this ineradicable knowledge of
God."[25] It is this knowledge of God, of which Paul
speaks in Romans 1, that Van Til identifies as the knowledge which all men
have in common, contending that such common knowledge is the guarantee that
every man can contribute to the progress of science, and that some measure
of unity in that task can exist between believers and unbelievers.[26]
Because he is convinced that self-consciousness presupposes
God-consciousness,[27] the presuppositionalist can assert
then, in the most important sense, "There are no atheists."[28]
Van Til clearly relies very heavily on Paul in making such a surprising
claim.
The
apostle Paul speaks of the natural man as actually possessing the knowledge
of God (Rom. 1:19-21). The greatness of his sin lies precisely in the fact
that "when they knew God, they glorified him not as God." No man
can escape knowing God. It is indelibly involved in his awareness of
anything whatsoever.... We have at once to add Paul's further instruction to
the effect that all men, due to the sin within them, always and in all
relationships seek to "suppress" this knowledge of God (Rom.
1:18).... Deep down in his mind every man knows that he is the creature of
God and responsible to God. Every man, at bottom, knows that he is a
covenant breaker. But every man acts and talks as though this were not so.
It is the one point that cannot bear mentioning in his presence.[29]
Van Til speaks of the unbeliever sinning against his "better
knowledge" - that "it is of the greatest possible importance"
to acknowledge that man knows God in some "original sense."[30]
Now then, just because knowledge is a category of belief (viz., justified
true belief), and because it can reduce unnecessary philosophical
complications throughout this discussion, we could just as well speak of the
unbeliever's suppressed belief about God as we could speak of his suppressed
knowledge of God. In fact, Van Til makes his point in just that way also in
his writings.
To
be sure, all men have faith. Unbelievers have faith as well as believers.
But that is due to the fact that they too are creatures of God. Faith
therefore always has content. It is against the content of faith as belief
in God that man has become an unbeliever. As such he tries to suppress the
content of his original faith.... And thus there is no foundation for man's
knowledge of himself or of the world at all.... When this faith turns into
unbelief this unbelief cannot succeed in suppressing fully the original
faith in God. Man as man is inherently and inescapably a believer in God.
Thus he can contribute to true knowledge in the universe.[31]
Our brief rehearsal of presuppositional apologetics has brought us step
by step to the realization that a crucial component in Van Til's
perspective, one that is necessarily contained in any credible account of
its functioning, is the conviction that the non-Christian is self-deceived
about God - that the one who does not believe in God actually does believe
in God. The cogency of presuppositionalism is tied up with the
intelligibility of this notion of self-deception. If we do not find our
point of contact with the unbeliever in his suppressed knowledge of God and
reason with him in such a way as to "distinguish carefully between the
natural man's own conception of himself and the Biblical conception of
him" - that is, if we do not proceed on the firm premise that the
unbeliever is engaged in self-deception of the most significant religious
kind - then, according to Van Til, we "cannot challenge his most basic
epistemological assumption" that his reasoning can indeed be
autonomous. And immediately Van Til adds, "on this everything
hinges."[32]
The concept of self-deception is critical to Van Til's
presuppositionalism. Everything hangs on it, according to him. If there
should be something suspect or muddled about the notion of self-deception
here, then the entire presuppositional system of thought is suspect and
unacceptable as well. Its key argumentive thrust relies completely on the
truth of the claim that unbelievers are suppressing what they believe about
God the Creator. That is why I stated at the beginning that the
self-deception as depicted in Romans 1 is religiously momentous and also why
the unbeliever's self-deception is a pivotal notion - a sine qua non
truth - for the presuppositional method of defending the faith.
However, as I also wrote at the outset of this essay in reference to
Romans 1, the notion of self-deception is philosophically enigmatic. It is
more that just a bit odd, is it not, to say that someone believes what he
does not believe! Indeed, it sounds downright self-contradictory. At just
the crucial point where the presuppositionalist must make reference to clear
and compelling considerations in order to give a justifying and credible
account of the very heart of this apologetical method, he seems to take an
unsure step into philosophical perplexity. It hardly seems to the critics of
presuppositionalism that its account of itself explains the unclear in terms
of the clear. It appears rather to move from the unclear to the even more
unclear. For now the obvious question, if not challenge, will arise: what
could it mean for an unbeliever to simultaneously be a believer?
Is the notion of self-deception at all coherent?
The quite enigmatic character of his conception of the unbeliever as
self-deceived is confessed very plainly in Van Til's writings, where he
admits that the problem of the unbeliever's knowledge "has always been
a difficult point..., often the one great source of confusion on the
question of faith and its relation to reason."[33]
Van Til insists that we must do justice to the twin facts that every
unbeliever knows God, and yet, that the natural man does not know God. If we
do not stress these two points, following Romanist and Arminian apologists,
then we will necessarily allow for a compromising apologetic.[34]
Van Til was aware of the counter charge that was likely to be made.
It
is ambiguous or meaningless, says the Arminian, to talk about the natural
man as knowing God and yet not truly knowing God. Knowing is knowing. A man
either knows or he does not know. He may know less or more, but if he does
not "truly" know, he knows not at all.... In reply to this the
Calvinist insists that... the natural man does not know God. But to be thus
without knowledge, without living, loving, true knowledge of God, he must be
one who knows God in the sense of having the sense of deity (Romans 1).[35]
As we can see, Van Til was appropriately sensitive to the charge of
self-contradiction. Accordingly he wanted to draw some kind of distinction
which would indicate that he, with Paul, was not taking away with one
assertion what he gives in another. Thus he qualified his statements.
"Non-Christians know after a fashion, as Paul tells us in Romans."[36]
Elsewhere he writes that "there is a sense in which all men have faith
and all men know God. All contribute to science."[37]
Therefore he taught "there are two senses to the word 'knowledge' used
in Scripture."[38]
A common way in which Van Til denominates those two senses, and the
difference between them, is by saying that unbelievers know God but
"not according to the truth," or they do not "truly"
know him, or they do not have "true knowledge."[39]
How is this to be construed? Unbelievers presuppose (and hence believe) the
truth of God and of Christianity "while they verbally reject it."
The non-Christian "acts and talks as though this were not so," for
he cannot bear the mentioning of his knowledge of God.[40]
Why not? Van Til says all sinners "have an ax to grind and do not want
to keep God in remembrance. They keep under the knowledge of God that is
within them. That is they try as best they can to keep under this knowledge
for fear they should look into the face of their judge."[41]
Being troubled in conscience, the unbeliever must make an effort "to
hide the facts from himself," somewhat like a cancer victim who, in
distress, keeps the awareness of the truth at a distance from himself.[42]
Some students of presuppositionalism have made, I think, the hasty error of
conceiving of this situation as a simple matter of lying. The unbeliever, it
is thought, knows God, but simply says that he does not know God. However,
Van Til did not take this artificial and simplistic route. He recognized
that the unbeliever's situation is epistemologically strange and hard to
describe accurately (unlike the lying scenario). On the one hand, Van Til
portrayed the unbeliever as holding this knowledge of God
"subconsciously." The non-Christian is said to borrow Christian
ideas "without recognizing it."[43] "He
knows deep down in his heart" or "deep down in his mind,"[44]
so that the natural man's knowledge of God is taken as "beneath the
threshold of his working consciousness."[45] And yet
on the other hand Van Til wanted to contend unequivocally for the sinful
guilt of men who suppress the knowledge of God. Thus they are also portrayed
by him as somehow conscious of what they are doing. Knowing that it cannot
successfully be done, says Van Til, the unbeliever pursues the impossible
dream of moral and epistemological autonomy, seeking to suppress what he
knows about God.[46] Van Til writes, "He knows he is
a 'liar' all the time,"[47] and accordingly his
denying of the truth is a self-conscious act. And yet in saying this, Van
Til immediately felt the need to place a qualification on his claim. Notice
that the word 'liar' in the preceding quotation is placed conspicuously in
quotes. Van Til wants to say it with some measure of reservation. Elsewhere
he explained that the unbeliever's hostility is not "wholly
self-conscious."[48] To his qualitative distinction
(knowledge/true knowledge), and to his spatial distinction (knowing/knowing
deep down), he now adds a quantitative distinction (wholly
self-conscious/partially self-conscious).
Again
it must be borne in mind that when we say that fallen man knows God and
suppresses that knowledge so that he, as it were, sins self-consciously,
this too needs qualification. Taken as a generality and in view of the fact
that all men were represented in Adam at the beginning of history, we must
say that men sin against better knowledge and also self-consciously. But
this is not to deny that when men are said to be without God in the world
they are ignorant.... There is therefore a gradation of those who sin more
and those who sin less, self-consciously.[49]
One way or another, however, Van Til teaches that the natural man is
"ethically responsible" for his suppressing of the truth.[50]
He states that "the Scriptures continue to hold man responsible for his
blindness,"[51] and he calls the result of the
unbeliever's self-deceptive effort "culpable ignorance."[52]
The reason for his failure to recognize God as he should "lies
exclusively in himself," says Van Til; it is nothing less than
"willful transgression" which accounts for his refusal.[53]
So again, Van Til has indicated how awkward it is to speak of the unbeliever
as self-deceived. On the one hand, the unregenerate's knowledge is
considered sub-conscious, and he does not recognize his utilizing of it. And
yet on the other hand, the unregenerate is portrayed as actively seeking to
suppress it, and in some measure he consciously and willfully works to hide
it from himself. Van Til runs his reader from pole to pole. On the one hand
he does not want to say that the unbeliever is a bare liar, and yet on the
other hand he does want to say that the unbeliever is fully culpable, just
like any liar would be.
Given this short review of Van Til's discussion of the apologetical
situation, we have learned (1) that a recognition of the unbeliever's
self-deception is indispensable to presuppositional apologetics, and yet (2)
that its recognition is fraught with obscurity.
The
Apparent Paradox and Search for a Solution
Our ready acceptance of the phenomenon of self-deception, however, has
been challenged over the last thirty-five years; philosophical attention has
been given to conceptual questions about self-deception which arise in both
the theory of knowledge and the philosophy of mind.
The analytical-epistemological approach to the subject was somewhat
anticipated in Bertrand Russell's critique of Freud in The Analysis of
Mind (1921) and in Gilbert Ryle's criticism of mind-body dualism in The
Concept of Mind (1949). Russell spoke of desire-motivated beliefs (or
wishful thinking), and Ryle pointed out that the practice of self-deception
challenges the common dualist assumption that man has some direct
introspective knowledge of the workings of his own mind, a knowledge free
from illusion and doubt. However critical, intense and thorough
philosophical scrutiny of the notion of self-deception was inaugurated in
1960 by Raphael Demos in his pioneering article entitled "Lying to
Oneself."[57] A long series of reactions and
counter-proposals has developed in the philosophical journals since that
time. Now inquiry was made into just what self-deception must involve to
qualify as such, and into whether it is a feat which can literally be
accomplished. Analyses of the notion always seemed headed for some form of
paradox.
You see, the natural thing to do is to model self-deception on the
well-known activity of other-deception. Deceiving oneself is thought of as a
version of deceiving someone else. A problem here, of course, is that in
other-deception the roles of deceiver and deceived are incompatible; yet in
self-deception a person is thought to play both of these incompatible roles
himself! Sartre put the matter plainly in his book Being and Nothingness.
It
follows first that the one to whom the lie is told and the one who lies are
one in the same person, which means that I must know in my capacity as
deceiver the truth which is hidden from me in my capacity as the one
deceived. Better yet I must know the truth exactly in order to conceal it
more carefully - and this not at two different moments, which at a pinch
would allow us to re-establish the semblance of duality - but in the unitary
structure of a single project. How then can the lie subsist if the duality
which conditions it is suppressed?[58]
Let us stop and analyze the situation. In a case of other-deception,
Jones is aware that some proposition is false, but Jones intends to make
Smith believe that it is true - and he succeeds. If we take Smith out of the
picture and substitute in Jones, so as to gain "self-deception,"
we end up saying "Jones, aware that p is false, intends to make himself
believe that p is true, and succeeds in making himself believe that p is
true."[59] Such a statement is surely puzzling, for
it suggests, "that somebody could try to make, and succeed in making,
himself believe something which he, ex hypothesi, at the same time
believes not to be true."[60] It would be easy to
conclude, then, that self-deception is an incoherent project that cannot be
fulfilled.
So we are forced to ask whether there actually is such a thing as
perpetrating a deception on oneself. How could it occur in practice? How
could it be described without contradiction? How can someone, after all, as
deceived, believe p, yet as deceiver disbelieve p? It now
appears that self-deception, despite the familiarity of the notion, is about
as difficult to do as presiding over one's own funeral. When we introduce
the element of mendacity (dishonesty, lying) into the picture, the problem
is even further complicated. Here we move from epistemic notions about
belief into the philosophy of mind with questions about consciousness,
purpose, and intention. There have been "weak models" of
self-deception proposed by some philosophers, intending to take the sting
out of the paradox by maintaining that an agent does not know what he is up
to in self-deception.[61] In "strong"
self-deception the enterprise is purposeful and not so innocent. And it is
this strong version of self-deception which is usually thought
necessary for moral culpability in self-deception. This approach,
however, only intensifies the philosophical perplexity involved in the
notion, for the kind of thought that goes into planning and executing what
you are doing in purposefully deceiving someone else, makes doing it to
yourself seem impossible. "Self-deception is not a matter of mere
stupidity or carelessness in thinking. It is a craftily engineered project,
and this is why it seems pointless and self-contradictory."[62]
So then, the analytical-epistemological approach to the literature on
self-deception in recent years makes us hesitant to speak of it confidently
and clearly. And the maze of philosophical treatments given to the
paradoxical notion only intensifies our confusion. Herbert Fingarette, in
the first full book published on the subject, summarizes the problem nicely:
Were
a portrait of man to be drawn, one in which there would be highlighted
whatever it is most human, be it noble or ignoble, we should surely place
well in the foreground man's enormous capacity for self-deception. The task
of representing this most intimate, secret gesture would not be much easier
were we to turn to what the philosophers have said. Philosophical attempts
to elucidate the concept of self-deception have ended in paradox - or in
loss from sight of the elusive phenomenon itself. . . . We are beset by
confusion when once we grant that the person himself is in self-deception.
For as deceiver one is insincere, guilty; whereas as genuinely deceived one
is an innocent victim. What, then, should we make of the self-deceiver, the
one who is both the doer and the sufferer? Our fundamental categories are
placed squarely at odds with another. . . . 'The one who lies with
sincerity,' who convinces himself of what he even knows is not so, who lies
to himself and to others and believes his own lie though in his heart he
knows that it is a lie - the phenomenon is so familiar, the task so easy,
that we nod our heads and say, 'of course.' Yet when we examine what we have
said with respect to our inner coherency, we are tempted to dismiss such a
description as nonsense.[63]
At this juncture we can take the route of denying the reality of
self-deception or the route of resolving the apparent contradiction involved
in the notion. My procedure will be to take self-deception as a datum,
and thus I am committed to saying that at best it is only apparently
self-contradictory. While it is not inconceivable that those many people who
have made use of the notion of self-deception over the centuries have been
unwittingly contradicting themselves, it is still not very likely. We resist
the conclusion that self-deception is actually impossible because we know
that people do not merely play at self-deception. They engage in it in
tragic ways, and very often they later come to realize the fact (for
instance, think here of that devastating book by Albert Speers, Inside
the Third Reich). Given Paul's teaching in Romans 1 - not to mention
the actual use of the phrase 'to deceive oneself' in James 1:26 and 1 John
1:8 - the Christian especially will want to resist dismissing self-deception
as an incoherent impossibility. Most people, then, will be more sure that
self-deception occurs than they would be of any explanation which renders it
only apparent. So whenever we confront an account of self-deception which
makes it appear self-contradictory, our assumption should be that the
confusion lies not in the notion of self-deception but in the person's
philosophical account of it. Accordingly our work is cut out for us: as
elusive as it may be, we are committed to finding an adequate and coherent
analysis of self-deception.
What will be required of us if we are going to succeed? The basic
requirement for an acceptable analysis of self-deception is simply that it
must "save the phenomenon," while at the same time respecting the
law of contradiction. Thus our account must be descriptively accurate - true
to paradigm examples of self-deception. It is useful here to recall
Wittgenstein's warnings against a reductionistic "craving for
generality" which is "contemptuous of the particular case."
We must admit at the outset that the many and varied uses for the term
'self-deception' bear a "family resemblance" to each other.[64]
Doubtless there will be borderline cases, where ambiguous evidence makes it
difficult to tell if all of the usual elements of self-deception are
present. There will be extreme cases where some element of self-deception is
accentuated out of proportion - even as the colloquial exclamation
"That's insane!" is an exaggeration of the literal and proper use
of the concept of insanity. There will be analogous cases, deficient cases,
peculiar cases, and on and on. Nevertheless, there are typical or
paradigmatic cases from which we learn to use the expression
"self-deception" and apply it to further, diverse cases. Our use
of this vocabulary is not so ad hoc as to preclude the possibility of our
picking out genuine cases of self-deception. So I will aim to give necessary
and sufficient conditions for the truth of the assertion, "S deceived
himself into believing that p," as it is taken in the full-fledged and
paradigmatic sense.
In order to be descriptively correct, our analysis must not radically
depart from ordinary language. Nor must it confuse or merge self-deception
with related and similar phenomena in human experience (e.g., ignorance,
wishful thinking, change of belief). Beyond being accurate and exact, our
account must also be completely rid of any incoherence, which requires using
clearly defined notions in the analysis so that self-contradiction (or its
absence) is detectable. We do not want to explain self-deception, moreover,
by appealing to concepts which are even less clear than the one we are
attempting to understand - for example, by an ambiguous and misconceived
distinction between "psychological knowing" and
"epistemological knowing," which is easily faulted as obscure, if
not simply wrong. Yet on the other hand, we do not want to make the analysis
so pat and easy that the perplexing element in self-deception is dismissed
altogether, causing us to wonder why it should ever have appeared
problematic to begin with (for instance, by drawing a trivial distinction
between what someone ought to know and what he actually does know - a
strategy which brings self-deception down to the level of any mundane
oversight in one's thinking, such as not knowing your father's age).[65]
Within the guidelines we have rehearsed here, we need to formulate an
adequate analysis of self-deception. While existentialist treatments (e.g.,
Sartre, Fingarette) affirm the contradiction found in self-deception as an
experienced reality, the analytic tradition has offered various avenues for
removing the apparent logical difficulties. In the philosophical journals,
you will notice three basic strategies for resolving the paradox.
The first strategy is to deny that there is a parallel between
self-deception and other-deception. Some maintain that deception is
inherently other-regarding, and thus the skeptical conclusion is advanced
that there actually is no such thing as self-deception. What is commonly
called "self-deception" needs to be given a more accurate
description.[66] Others say that words like
"deceive," "know," or "believe" are used in a
non-standard fashion in accounts of self-deception, not having the same
intended sense as in descriptions of other-deception.[67]
Finally, others who deny the other-deception parallel recommend that we
"look and see" what conditions actually hold when self-deception
locutions are utilized, in which case we will notice that self-deception
situations do not involve two incompatible beliefs (as in other-deception),
but rather only a particular kind of single belief entertained under
peculiar circumstances. Thus we speak of "self-deception" when we
want to reprimand irresponsible holding of an unwarranted belief,[68]
or self-deceived beliefs are taken as those held in belief-adverse
circumstances,[69] or where there is an irrational
refusal to look at evidence,[70] or where one simply
desires to hold the belief,[71] or where weak-willed
dishonesty permits desire-generated blindness,[72] or
some emotion has irrationally obscured the contrary evidence.[73]
The second strategy is to accept the other-deception model (the reality
of perpetrating a deception upon oneself) and maintain that self-deception
is a conflict state of holding incompatible beliefs, but then resolving the
paradox of believing contrary things by introducing various kinds of
distinctions. Some distinguish between knowledge and
"as-it-were-knowledge,"[74] or between full
belief and "half-belief,"[75] contending that
the different senses for this epistemic vocabulary in analyses of
self-deception render the paradox only apparent. Other philosophers treat
self-deception as a literal case of other-deception, positing some kind of
duality (e.g., levels of consciousness, split personality) within the
self-deceived person himself.[76] Another approach is to
draw a temporal distinction between S-the-deceiver and (later)
S-the-deceived.[77] Finally, many writers have attempted
to give a coherent account of self-deception as a conflict state of
incompatible beliefs by drawing some kind of distinction regarding
consciousness - for instance, distinguishing two levels of awareness,[78]
or between general and explicit consciousness,[79] or
between general awareness and detailed awareness,[80] or
between conscious purpose and unreflective purpose,[81]
or between conscious and unconscious knowledge,[82] or
between strong and weak consciousness.[83]
The third strategy proposes to utilize an altogether different model for
self-deception which avoids appeal to such epistemic terms as
"knowledge" or "belief," using instead a volition-action
model wherein one fails to "spell-out" for himself his engagements
in the world. In this way it is thought we can preserve the purposiveness
and culpability essential to any adequate account of the phenomenon, yet
avoiding the paradoxes which have proved inherent in the epistemic accounts
of self-deception.[84]
My evaluation is that none of these three major strategies for resolving
the apparent paradox will pass the tests of adequacy prescribed above. In
some cases we find necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for
self-deception set forth (e.g., adverse evidence, the influence of desire on
human belief). In other cases necessary conditions are dismissed altogether
(e.g., belief, incompatible beliefs). Some proposals merely state all over
again the need for a resolution to the problem (e.g., those using new senses
for the epistemic vocabulary), or else they reintroduce the paradox at a
different point (e.g., having a policy of not spelling-out an engagement in
the world). Some suggestions end up reducing self-deception to something
else (e.g., reducing it to a change of belief, ignorance, cognitive error,
or pretending) and thereby render the notion dispensable. Another group of
attempted solutions rely on notions which are even more obscure or
problematic than self-deception itself (e.g., diverse kinds of
consciousness), escaping the appearance of paradox at the price of
equivocating on just what the self-believer believes he is aware of. Other
analyses confuse or merge self-deception with one of many related states or
actions (e.g., with wishful thinking, delusion, simple trust, vacillation of
opinion, obstinacy, or motivated belief). Virtually all of the authors who
have written on the subject have contributed some helpful insights into the
difficult issue of self-deception, and I will draw from many of them in my
own proposed resolution to the apparent paradox. However, I am not convinced
that these writers have been fully true to the phenomenon or have escaped
paradox.
Belief
and Its Characteristics
There is something of a cognitive mess at the core of our lives. We are
inconsistent in our choices, incoherent in our convictions, persuaded where
we ought not to be, and deluded that we know ourselves transparently. The
concept of belief shows up in all of these kinds of personal failures, and
it should seem obvious that it does as well in the kind of cognitive error
we call "deception." Deceived people have been misled, deluded,
beguiled or somehow mistaken in what they think and expect to be the case;
they engage in false believing. There are few (if any) plausible grounds for
disputing the claim that self-deception involves holding one or more false
beliefs. Ordinarily in everyday thinking we construe self-deception in terms
of belief (of some variety, under some circumstance, etc.).
Fingarette, however, proposes as an alternative analysis a volitional
account of self-deception which, stressing the element of intentional
ignorance, takes it to be a kind of action rather than a kind of belief.
Consciousness is an active and vocal power (rather than, as traditionally
thought, passive and visual), and a person becomes explicitly conscious of
something through an intentional act of "spelling out his engagements
in the world." Sometimes, though, there are overriding reasons for a
person to avoid spelling out these engagements, as when doing so would be
destructive of his self-conception or the personal identity he has achieved.
Lest the effort to avoid spelling out the engagement itself reveal the
engagement, one must avoid spelling out that effort as well. Self-deception
thus involves adopting an avoidance policy whereby one purposefully chooses
to stay ignorant of some engagement in the world.
This is an inadequate alternative to belief-analyses of self-deception,
in the first place, because the troublesome concept of self-deception is
explained at the price of even greater obscurity (the unfamiliar metaphor of
"spelling out an engagement in the world"). Secondly, the
volition-action family of terms (which Fingarette prefers for explaining
self-deception) is itself heavily laden with notions involving cognitive or
epistemic terms like "belief," "knowledge,"
"perception," etc. A further difficulty is that Fingarette's
analysis overlooks completely those cases of self-deception which involve an
artificial and misleading overdoing of spelling out one's engagements in the
world with an inappropriate emotional detachment - the very opposite of
Fingarette's avoidance policy. Finally, Fingarette's alternative account
does not rid the notion of self-deception of paradox, but simply restates
the paradox in new terms. The effort to avoid spelling out one's (preceding)
effort to avoid spelling out a distressful engagement in the world makes one
conscious of making oneself unconscious.
Others use the word "deceive" in a way which does not seem to
make believing false propositions essential to the act. Freudian
psychologists speak of the self-deceived person as being in the grip of
unconscious motivations (without mention of cognitive processes).
Kierkegaard spoke of a person's failure to be true to himself and ethically
consistent as self-deception. However, Freudian and existentialist uses of
"deception" are either figurative language or implicitly employ
the cognitive sense of believing. If we are unable to cash in talk of
unconscious motives and true selves into descriptions of ourselves which can
be believed, it makes little sense to say we are "being false" to
ourselves or "living a lie." Even when we say the husband who is
unfaithful to a knowing wife (they do not speak to each other of his
indiscretions) has "deceived" her, we mean he has violated her
expectations- in which case the cognitive sense of "deceive" is
again waiting in the wings.
There is simply no good reason to omit reference to belief in a proper
analysis of self-deception. More particularly, what is essential in
self-deception is that people hold a false belief - not simply an
unwarranted belief (e.g., the patient who chooses to disbelieve his doctor's
report of cancer, only to turn out right in his wishful thinking), and not
simply the absence of expected belief (e.g., the cuckold who literally
thinks nothing about his wife's infidelity, although the neighborhood is
loud with rumors and she has too many shady late-night excuses). Even where
people deceive themselves about their attitudes, hopes, emotions, etc.
(e.g., false security, false pride), the objects of self-deception
themselves have a cognitive core. The parent who is inappropriately proud of
his child's report card experiences a certain emotion only by believing
something about the marks on the card. About the colleague who shows false
sorrow over a fellow worker's firing we say, "He may think that he is
sorry, but he knows quite well he is delighted over this turn of
events."
I would maintain, then, that self-deception, as a form of deception,
involves believing false propositions. Further, the mistaken believing which
is involved is fully genuine believing. We do not here speak of
"belief" in some odd, defective, or "twilight" sense.
The self-deceiver is not merely feigning ignorance or being an obvious
hypocrite. He is concerned with the truth and makes efforts, albeit
strained, to sustain his false belief as rational. He is aware of the weight
and relevance of the evidence contrary to his belief, so he distorts the
evidence through pseudo-rational treatment of it. He is not simply
pretending. Although his twisting of the evidence shows that he is trying to
convince himself of something unlikely, he still behaves in ways which rely
upon the truth of what he says about his (false) belief. He must say that he
really believes the false proposition, or else he would not be
"deceived" after all. This is not simply half-belief or
near-belief, for that proposal would reduce self-deception to mere
vacillation, lack of confidence, or insincerity. There is no lack of
evidence for the self-deceiver's full-fledged believing; it is just that we
have too many beliefs of his for which there is adequate evidence - beliefs
which are incompatible. Moreover, the self-deceiver's false belief is not
simply performatory in character (an avowal which initiates a commitment
about which he will not follow through), for that would reduce
self-deception to personal determination, striving, hoping contrary to fact,
or wishful thinking.
We must turn attention, then, to the concept of belief if we would hope
to analyze self-deception adequately. This is a safe and promising move
because the concept of belief is familiar to everyone (despite notorious
philosophical questions which can nettle one's understanding of it). Of
course "belief" could be defined in such a way as to preclude the
possibility of self-deception, but philosophers who have done so have paid
the price of implausibility. In the history of epistemology belief is
sometimes artificially restricted to an ideal philosophical notion where
people never believe contradictory propositions - which might better be
termed "rational belief."[85] This will hardly
do as an account of belief itself, for human nature is capable of more
things and stranger than common-sense philosophers suppose or than
rationalistic philosophers impose on the world in Procrustean fashion. One
has a far smaller opportunity to rid the world of irrationality if he takes
the short-cut of defining unreasonable or incoherent thinking out of
existence. Accordingly, I would suggest that the adequacy of one's
conception of belief and of one's conception of self-deception will probably
need to be judged jointly. To give a satisfactory account of one while being
untrue to the other is to fail to do justice to the full range of human
reality.
The term 'believe' has received analysis as a "parenthetical
verb," a performative utterance, an expression denoting an occurrent
mental event or denoting a personal disposition to act in certain ways under
certain conditions.[86] Each analysis has its advantages
and drawbacks, and in the end we are probably unable to provide a genuine
"analysis" of belief just because it appears to be a notion which
is primitive or fundamental in the explanation of the wide range of concepts
in epistemology and philosophy of mind. Belief cannot be traditionally
defined in terms of anything more basic than itself. Nevertheless, nothing
prevents us from offering a general characterization of the ordinary notion
of belief (without claiming completeness).
Belief is a positive, intellectual, propositional attitude which is
expressed in a large variety of symptoms (some of which are subject to
degrees of strength). To believe something is to have a favorable attitude
toward a proposition - an attitude of the intellectual (rather than merely
conative or affectional) kind. It is to take the proposition as true in a
virtually automatic response to the evidence as it is perceived by the
person. Thus to believe p is to see it as evidenced, to regard p as
reliable. In the sense that belief is controlled by and informed by the way
evidence is construed by the believer, belief is often said to be
"constrained" - and some propositions are popularly said to be
"beyond belief." Even seemingly unreasonable beliefs (cf.
"blind faith") will turn out upon exploration to rest on something
which is regarded by the believer anyway as a warrant, calling for the
belief in question. Although belief is a positive propositional attitude
informed by the evidence, that evidence can (and often is) misconstrued,
misperceived, and approached with myopia of mind and senses. On this
characterization, belief by no means precludes believing false propositions.
We can attempt a more precise characterization of belief here, one which
with a modicum of judicious philosophical industry can survive whatever
problems may remain to be worked out elsewhere.[87] The
proposed way of speaking of belief shows initial plausibility, has been
defended by respected scholars, and is bolstered by our common understanding
of the concept of belief (even though it may not be a completely systematic
account or analysis). At base belief is an action-guiding state of mind; it
is a map-like mental state that is a potential cause of particular action
(mental, verbal, or bodily). Specifically, belief is a persisting,
intentional, mental state (made up of ideas which give a determinate
character to the state corresponding to the proposition believed) with a
stimulus-independent causal capacity to affect or guide one's theoretical
and practical behavior, under suitable circumstances, in a wide variety of
manifestations. In what follows, then, the expression "S believes that
p" will be understood as true if and only if S relies upon p
(sometimes, intermittently, or continuously) in his theoretical inferences
and/or practical actions and plans.[88]
The grounds for saying that someone is self-deceived will coincide with
or include the grounds for saying that he believes some proposition. If S
did not take p as evidenced - that is, if S did not have a positive attitude
or mental state such that p was relied upon in his theoretical or practical
inferences - then we could not distinguish self-deception from mere
ignorance of, or dislike for, p. It is just because S unavoidably looks upon
some evidence as supporting p - and is thereby in the mental state of
relying upon p in his inferences (practical and/or theoretical) - that his
desire to avoid or manipulate that evidence in "self-deception" is
meaningful. S does not wish to have his mind "in-formed" by the
evidence in this fashion; he does not want to believe what he does believe.
He would rather forget or hide the unpleasant truth that has gripped him,
that is, to make covert that he relies upon p in his theoretical inferences
and/or practical actions and plans. His negative emotional response to p
leads him to try and escape his uncontrived way of seeing things.
There are certain further points regarding belief about which we should
make special mention. First, the bases for ascribing a belief to someone
(the marks by which we discern a belief) are provided by both occurrent and
dispositional accounts of belief. We consider the person's outward assertion
of p (or inward, if ourself), and the way in which he behaves, reasons,
gestures, feels, etc.; we take into account his decisions, emotions, habits,
and even inaction. Of course neither a person's actions nor his utterances
are infallible signs of belief, but they do offer fairly reliable
correlations. The various kinds of indicators for belief should be used to
supplement and qualify each other. One's own avowals of belief have a
presumptive authority in determining what he believes, but those avowals can
be defeated by cautious and relatively thorough observation of his other
behavioral indicators. To put it simply: over time, actions will speak
louder than words.
Second, not all of our beliefs are formed consciously, rationally, and
with the giving of internal or external assent. To give assent to a
proposition is explicitly to spell out (inwardly or outwardly) how one
stands in respect to that proposition, thereby bringing one's belief to a
conscious level of experience. However, there is no special logical or
conceptual connection between beliefs and their linguistic expression.
Holding a belief is not logically dependent upon a willingness or competence
to express that belief verbally to oneself or others. Assent is not
necessary to the mental state of belief. The cognitive and affective aspects
of belief can sometimes be separated in a person and even be at odds with
each other (e.g., hoping for what cannot be, fearing what you know does not
hurt, failing to feel conviction in the face of strong proof). Accordingly
we can easily imagine situations where most of the affective manifestations
of a belief that p occur in S, and yet S does not assent to p, even when the
proposition is attended to in his mind. He does not notice that his actions,
emotions, assumptions, inferences, etc. are such as would be expected
symptoms of someone who accepts p. It is a false picture we entertain of
intelligent beings if we think of them as incessantly talking to themselves
internally and always making explicit (or reporting on) their mental states
and acts. A person's condition can be quite obviously belief-like, even when
the (usual) assent-symptom of belief is absent; most, if not all, of the
other symptoms of belief are evident. His behavior can hardly be explained
without postulating in him a belief that p. It would be an artificial
imposition to erect a terminological rule at this point, prohibiting us from
saying that "S believes p" under such circumstances.
That would only screen off the complexity of human nature and behavior
from us. We can certainly imagine, if we have not actually encountered,
people who would protest that they do not hold beliefs about the inferior
human dignity of people from other races - and yet who evidence just such an
attitude in their social behavior nonetheless. The fact that belief can be
divorced from explicit assent shows us, then, that there can be beliefs held
by a person of which he is not aware - not consciously entertaining in his
mind by introspection. A person can rely upon a proposition in his
theoretical inferences and/or practical plans (e.g., "There is
sufficient gas in the car's tank") without entertaining that
proposition in mind; the proposition may not come to mind until something
goes wrong (e.g., when he ends up stranded down the road). When I am
surprised by meeting my previously vacationing neighbor at the mall, it is
hardly because I had consciously inferred or entertained the proposition
that he would not yet be back from his travels. The fact is that our set of
beliefs is expanded and diminished throughout our waking moments (through
sense experience, casual reflection, etc.), and thus beliefs can be adopted
without concentrating on the adoption procedure or even being aware of its
results. Furthermore, it is quite clear that not everything that a person
believes can be simultaneously attended to by him in thought. We must
conclude that introspection and assent do not invariably accompany a
person's each and every mental state or action.
Third, we must add that self-ascriptions of belief by way of assent -
just like disavowals of belief - are not incorrigible (i.e., there can be
overriding reasons to think them false) and therefore not infallible (i.e.,
such reports can be mistaken). A person can be held to believe something
from which he dissents, and can be found not to believe something to which
he assents. To some appreciable extent we can be mistaken about our own
beliefs. This may seem surprising, but there are after all limits on our
self-knowledge, even though our own reports about our beliefs (or pains, or
perceptions, etc.) have a presumptive authority and are granted a degree of
accuracy.
We
have seen that normally first-person, present-tense, occurrent mental state
beliefs are direct, far more reliable than the counterpart beliefs about
others, excellent evidence for the presence of the states they
"report," ... but they are like our beliefs about others in being
fallible, dubitable, corrigible, and testable.[89]
People may have the best word on what they believe, but they do not
logically have the last word (as in the example of racial prejudice above).
It is not hard to find examples in ordinary experience of someone believing
something, but yet withholding, avoiding or suppressing internal and
external assent to it. We also have ready examples of someone believing that
he believes something, although in fact he does not believe it. Such
examples can only be explained away or recategorized by the ex post
facto imposition of artificial conditions upon what we call
"belief." People can and do sometimes come to realize, on the
evidence in their behavior, that their previous avowals (or disavowals) of a
belief were mistaken.
Fourth, the last thing about belief which calls for special mention is
its voluntariness. This may seem strange since we have above spoken of
belief as a propositional attitude which is "constrained" by the
evidence as seen by the person in question. The seeing of the evidence as
this or that - the taking of it in a particular way - constrains one to
believe as he does. Since I see myself as right-handed, I cannot voluntarily
and on the spot believe (genuinely) that I am left-handed. Nobody can
believe contrary to the way in which he sees the evidence, to be sure.
However, one can exercise some control over the way in which he sees that
evidence - directing his attention, giving prominence to some matters over
others, suppressing what he does not wish to encounter, re-evaluating the
significance of past considerations, etc. If belief is like
"seeing-as," then we must also recognize that seeing-as is
somewhat subject to one's will. A person is free to ignore the grounds for a
belief, in which case that belief is not compelled (in an absolute sense)
after all. A person cannot choose voluntarily and arbitrarily to believe
whatever he wishes, but he can nevertheless freely doubt propositions,
suspend judgment about them, voluntarily inhibit extending inferences based
on them, etc. Directing our thoughts is a kind of doing, and by the
directing of our attention we can encourage or thwart our propensity to
believe things. People are thus free to fortify or undermine beliefs they
have by voluntarily concentrating on certain lines of evidence, ignoring
others, misconstruing yet others, etc. In such ways we can deliberately
cultivate a belief (whether about some matter or about ourselves and our
beliefs) which turns out contrary to the facts.
Everyone knows the experience of weighing or deliberating about the
options and then "taking the plunge" of assenting to one over the
other. We ordinarily take responsibility - and are held responsible - for
our beliefs. They are assessed as though we had some control over them; our
beliefs are evaluated as more or less reasonable, justifiable, and even
moral. We at times hear people declare "I cannot believe that"
(e.g., a close relative has been convicted of a heinous crime), but we all
realize that the "cannot" here should be interpreted as "will
not" - because one does not want it to be true, cannot emotionally
afford to admit it, thinks it is his duty to resist it, or lacks the
intellectual energy to rise to the occasion. In many ways, then, we
recognize the voluntary aspect of belief.
Given the preceding explanation of belief as such, and with the salient
features of belief just enumerated in mind, we can proceed to explicate a
non-paradoxical account of self-deception.
Incompatible
Beliefs, Motivated Rationalization, and Self-Covering Intention
We should maintain the appropriateness of modeling self-deception on
other-deception, contending that there is a common sense for the word
"deception" in both cases. This does not commit us to going to the
extreme of making self-deception a literal case of other-deception (the same
in every detail), as though we were dealing with a split personality. Rather
self-deception should be seen as a general parallel to other-deception in
certain specifiable ways. For instance, elements of deception which are
shared by both self-deception and other-deception are the deceiver's
responsibility for causing the deceived to believe falsely, the deceived
holds (at least implicitly) an erroneous belief about the deceiver's
beliefs, and the rationalization maneuvers taken in the face of evidence
brought to the attention of the deceiver by others.
Given the other-deception model, incompatible beliefs need to be
attributed to the self-deceiver on the basis of his behavior. Self-deception
is a conflict state in which S holds incompatible beliefs, but the nature of
this incompatibility needs to be noted. The self-deceived person holds a
first-order belief (viz., that p) which is not a matter of personal
indifference to himself, but somehow distressing; he has a personal stake in
(or against) p. Thus it is a special kind of belief: one which S dreads,
cannot face up to, or wishes were otherwise since it brings some unpleasant
truth before him. Accordingly, S brings himself to deny that belief - not
only to deny p (about the distressing issue in question) but more
significantly to deny something about himself (namely, his believing p).
Thus the analysis of self-deception involves reference to iterated beliefs
(i.e., beliefs about one's beliefs). While believing p, S comes to hold
additionally a (false) second-order belief about that belief - namely, that
S does not believe p. A person may believe that dogs are dangerous
(first-order), and may also believe (second-order) that this belief
concerning dogs is quite reasonable. A person may believe (first-order) that
members of other races are inferior and yet (second-order) believe about
himself that he does not believe in racial inferiority.[90]
It is important to note that the behavioral symptoms of believing p
overlap extensively with the behavioral symptoms of believing that you
believe p. In the examination of one's actions, emotions, words, etc. it
will be found that they can easily be taken as indicators of both the
first-order and the second-order belief. Likewise, the behavioral indicators
for S not believing p readily shade back and forth into the behavioral
indicators for S believing (about himself) that he does not believe p. A man
who believes that dogs are dangerous engages in most of the same inferences,
reactions, emotions and behavior as a man who believes that he believes dogs
are dangerous. This helps us to understand that the nature of the
incompatibility of beliefs in self-deception is not logical in nature, but
behavioral and practical. The first-order and second-order beliefs are not
formally contradictory, but the inferential and behavioral effects of the
two beliefs are in conflict with each other. The self-deceiver believes
something (which causes him distress) and gives evidence of believing it;
however, he brings himself to believe that he does not believe it (which
brings a measure of relief) and gives evidence that he does not think of
himself as believing it. S believes p, but his assent to it is blocked by
acquiring the (false) second-order belief that S does not believe p. The
incompatibility between these two beliefs is thus practical in nature. They
call for conflicting kinds of intellectual, verbal, and behavioral
responses.
Now S has an obvious interest at stake in maintaining the rationality of
his second-order belief (which brings him into a conflict state with his
first-order belief). This analysis of self-deception holds that it comes
about when, in the face of evidence adverse to his cherished second-order
belief (about himself), S engages in contrived and pseudo-rational treatment
of the evidence. That is, he manipulates, suppresses, and rationalizes the
evidence so as to support a belief which is incompatible with his believing
that p. He ignores the obvious, focuses away from undesirable indicators,
twists the significance of evidence, goes to extreme measures to enforce his
policy of hiding his belief that p from himself and others. If he looked at
himself as others see him, he would have all the evidence he needs to
conclude that he believes that p, but he strains and strains to convince
himself that he does not believe that p.
This rationalizing activity, in order to count as self-deception and not
something else (e.g., a cavalier disagreement), must be given a motivational
explanation. S distorts the evidence in order to satisfy a desire - namely,
the desire to avoid the discomfort, distress, or pain associated with
believing that p. By means of it he enters into and maintains
self-deception, believing that he does not believe that p. Actions or
reactions which have the effect of achieving the special state of
incompatible beliefs traced above are referred to in statements like "S
is deceiving himself regarding p" (namely, by bringing himself to
believe about himself that he does not believe that p). Avowal of the
second-order belief about his not believing that p may function for S as
"the taking of a stand" on his identity as a person; it amounts to
a commitment to a particular conception of himself (although by no means
logically free from mistake).
As human actions, self-deceiving maneuvers may be purposively engaged -
done intentionally (although they need not be in all cases).
"Falling" into self-deception would no more be a uniquely human
action than falling into a pit. We should be concerned, then, to complete
our analysis by considering self-deception as something done on purpose
(i.e., "strong self-deception"). Only then could it be considered
morally culpable and, as such, of interest to Christian apologetics and
ethics.
The vexed questions of awareness and purpose in self-deception address
what is perhaps our underlying perplexity in making sense of the notion. If
S is intentionally trying to deceive himself (thus being conscious of what
he is up to), how could he ever be successful (making himself believe
contrary to that of which he is conscious)? This is what I propose. While
the self-deceiver is aware of the truth of p or sees it as evidenced (i.e.,
p presents itself to S as the truth), and while his belief that p is
indicated by his behavior (i.e., relying upon it in his theoretical or
practical inferences), he will not give assent to p but induces in himself -
by controlling attention to the relevant evidence - an incompatible (and
false) belief that S does not believe p. Accordingly, the self-deceiver is
not aware that he holds incompatible beliefs; after all, he does not believe
that he believes that p, but believes of himself that he does not believe p,
thus avowing mistakenly and only that he does not believe p. S should
recognize the conflict state of incompatible beliefs (if his self-knowledge
were not defective), but the strategy of hiding his dreaded belief prevents
him from doing so. If he did recognize the incompatibility of his genuine
beliefs, but did not resolve it, he would simply be vacillating or
irrational. Thus the self-deceiver is not personally aware that his
professed and cherished belief about himself (that he does not believe that
p) is false. He is not simply a liar.
The critical question is whether one can try to deceive himself and not
be aware of such things. Can S engage in self-deception on purpose? The
common assumption is that if S purposes to do something, then he must be
aware of its character. In that case, if S purposely engaged in the activity
of self-deception (e.g., rationalizing the evidence so as to hide a dreaded
belief), it seems he would be aware that he is attempting to deceive
himself, and that would foil the effort - just as much as if R realized that
S were intending to mislead him from the truth, S could not successfully
deceive R. However, I argue that S's awareness of his aim to make the belief
that p covert (by believing something incompatible with it) need not
undermine the success of his effort at deception. What S thinks about in his
purposeful attempt at self-deception need not be deception-defeating, for
the intention to deceive oneself can be self-covering. That is, it
is one of a special class of human intentions which obscure awareness of
themselves, in which case S can purpose not only to hide his belief that p,
but also - to preserve his self-esteem as a rational agent - to hide his
hiding of it. The self-deceiver conceals his intention from himself,
deceiving himself about his intention to deceive himself.
To avoid an infinite regress of self-deceptions (about the self-deceived
intention to deceive oneself, etc.) in the case of "strong"
self-deception, it must be possible for an intention to be self-covering.
The intention to practice self-deception must obscure itself in the
process of obscuring S's belief that p, and yet without calling for a
further intention regarding itself in this matter. But can (some) intentions
have two objects in this way? If so, the intention to practice
self-deception could have as its object both the dreaded belief (to be
covered) as well as the deceiving intention (also to be covered). The fact
that (some) intentions can indeed be self-covering is obvious from the
common experience of intending to go to sleep. A person can purposely choose
to go to sleep, doing the things necessary to accomplishing that end (e.g.,
relaxing, lying down, counting sheep, etc.). However, if he is successful in
that intention, he does not continue to be aware of the intention itself, or
else he would stay awake (aware). So then, there are intentions which cover
themselves when they are successfully performed, and there is no good reason
to refrain from classifying self-deception as that kind of intention. When a
person intentionally tries to deceive himself and is aware of that intention
at the outset,[91] he is eventually going to lose his
awareness of what he is doing (i.e., "will fall asleep" concerning
it). If successful, the "strong" self-deceiver will reach a point
where he no longer looks back and spells out what he was doing. Likewise, if
you intend to put out your own eyes, at some point in the process you can no
longer visually examine (in a mirror) what is going on. When self-deception
is intentional, then, I propose that it is a self-covering intention, such
as we are familiar with in our ordinary experience.
Summary
The analysis of self-deception fostered here maintains that when S
deceives himself:
S believes that p,
S is motivated to ignore, hide, deny (etc.) his belief that p, and
By misconstruing or rationalizing the evidence, S brings himself to
believe falsely that "S does not believe that p."
In order to preserve something about his own self-conception, S engages
in motivated rationalization of the evidence so that he relies in his
theoretical and practical inferences on the proposition that he is not
relying in his theoretical and practical inferences on p. He is morally
culpable for this lie about himself because it is engaged intentionally, and
yet he may not be aware of his intention since it has become habitual or,
being self-covering, has become something he no longer thinks about (like
falling asleep). S obscures his dreaded belief that p, as well as his
intention to obscure it by rationalizing the evidence. Self-deception
involves deception of the self, by the self, about the self, and for the
sake of the self.
This analysis of self-deception in terms of iterated beliefs, corrigible
disavowals, motivated rationalization of evidence, and self-covering
intentions is adequate to explain the common illustrations of self-deception
which we encounter. Recall the example about Mrs. Jones. The principal calls
her to say that her son Johnny (her pride and joy, her only child) has been
caught stealing lunch money out of students' desks. The evidence is plain
that Johnny is a thief, and this is the third time she has received such a
call from the school. She has also noticed money missing out of her own
purse at home, and Johnny has been coming home with expensive items from the
store. Mrs. Jones shows the affective symptoms of believing the proposition
that Johnny is a thief. She tries to avoid situations where she is likely to
be reminded of his dishonesty. She moves to a new neighborhood, transferring
Johnny into a new school, and refusing to put a phone in her new home. She
keeps an unusually attentive eye on her boy, but will not admit that she
does so, etc. Yet on the other hand, since nobody in the Jones family has
ever stooped to dishonesty, and Johnny is her one reason left for living in
the cruel world, she persuades herself that Johnny could not have done the
dishonest deeds reported by the principal. She forgets the past evidence and
supplies "more credible" explanations of present evidence (e.g.,
money is missing from her purse because she is so careless or forgetful).
She goes out of her way to express confidence in her son to others, makes a
show of giving him mature responsibilities, and tries to do only what one
who believed in Johnny's virtue would do. She avers that she has a fine boy
who is a joy to her, a regular paragon of virtue. Nevertheless, she flies
off the handle at him over trifling matters (in a way unlike the way she
related to him prior to the principal's phone calls). She astonishes and
embarrasses others by seizing on every oblique innuendo to defend Johnny's
honesty. When neighbors get curious over her missing cash and Johnny's new
acquisitions, Mrs. Jones fidgets, blushes, looks away, answers in halting
fashion or changes the subject. She treats the evidence broached in an
unusual and distorted way, all the while apparently satisfying herself that
her interpretations are quite plausible.
In this situation we find it very natural to express the view that Mrs.
Jones is self-deceived. The affective symptoms justify us in attributing to
her the belief that Johnny is a thief. Because she cannot stand that thought
with its attendant psychic discomfort, she is motivated to hide this
information from herself and direct her attention to the evidence in odd
ways. She dissents from believing her son is dishonest. She claims the
school officials had a vendetta against Johnny and were framing the poor
boy. She leans on implausible interpretations of facts, ignores the best and
most obvious indicators, and brings herself to believe that she does not
believe in Johnny's dishonesty. (She is not the mother of a crook!) She
fools herself about her awareness of the truth. The symptoms of this false
second-order belief are nearly identical with believing that it is not the
case that Johnny is a thief. She conceives of herself as trusting this
untrustworthy son, and while guarding herself against his untrustworthiness
she enthusiastically affirms her belief in him to others. She meets all the
criteria of self-deception as proposed above, and we are able to describe
what she is doing without resorting to paradox.
The analysis of self-deception offered here not only is adequate to
account for mundane and well-known cases of self-deception, but more
importantly, it is adequate to explain Paul's description in Romans 1 of men
who know (believe) that God exists and yet suppress that belief
unrighteously. The analysis thus strengthens, defends and advances the cause
of Van Til's presuppositional apologetic.
All men know and hence believe that God exists. The revelational evidence
is so plain that nobody can avoid holding the conviction that God exists,
even though they may never explicitly assent to this belief. We are
justified in ascribing such a belief to men on the basis of their observed
behavior in reasoning (e.g., relying on the uniformity of nature), in morals
(e.g., holding to ethical absolutes in some fashion), and in emotion (e.g.,
fearing death). Nevertheless, all men are motivated in unrighteousness and
by fear of judgment to ignore, hide, and disavow any belief in the living
and true God (either through atheism or false religiosity). By misconstruing
and rationalizing the relevant, inescapable evidence around them
("suppressing it"), men bring themselves to believe about
themselves that they do not believe in God, even though that second-order
belief is false. Sinners can purposely engage in this kind of activity, for
they also deceive themselves about their motivation in handling the evidence
as they do and about their real intentions, which are not noble or rational
at all. Thereby they "go to sleep" (as it were), forgetting their
God. Because the evidence is clear, and because the suppression of the truth
is intentional, we can properly conclude that all men are "without
excuse" and bear full responsibility for their sins of mind, speech,
and conduct.
Given the elaboration of self-deception offered here, we can better
appreciate what Paul says in Romans 1, namely, that "knowing God,"
all men "suppress the truth in unrighteousness." And we can assert
non-paradoxically that unbelievers culpably deceive themselves about their
Maker.