Self-deception and Morality
Title | Self-deception and Morality PDF eBook |
Author | Mike W. Martin |
Publisher | |
Pages | 200 |
Release | 1986 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN |
This book systematically explores the moral issues surrounding self-deception. While many articles and books have been written on the concept of self-deception in recent years, Martin's gives much greater emphasis to self-deception as a significant topic for both ethical theory and applied ethics. "Self-deception is . . . perplexing from a moral point of view. It seems tailor-made to camouflage and foster immorality. . . . Does all self-deception involve some guilt, and is it among the most abhorrent evils. as some moralists and theologians have charged? Or is it only wrong sometimes, such as when it has bad consequences? Could it on occasion be permissible or even desirable to deceive ourselves, just as we are sometimes justified in deceiving other people? Are self-deceivers perhaps more like innocent victims than perpetrators of deceit, and as such deserving of compassion and help? Or, paradoxically, are they best viewed with ambivalence: culpable as deceivers and simultaneously innocent as victims of deception?" (from the introduction) Martin develops a conception of self-deception as the purposeful evasion of acknowledging to oneself truths or one's view of truth. He details a systematic framework for understanding the main moral perspectives and traditions concerning self-deception that have emerged in western philosophy. In so doing, he clarifies related concepts like sincerity, authenticity, honesty, hypocrisy, weakness of will, and self-understanding. Ranging across traditions both philosophical (Kant, Kierkegaard, and Sartre) and non-philosophical (Freud, Eugene O'Neill, and Henrik Ibsen), Martin shows why self-deception is as morally complex as any other major form of behavior. The appeal of this book is broad. The volume will challenge professional philosophers and psychologists, yet it is organized and written to be accessible to students in courses on ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of literature. Martin's numerous literary examples should also interest literary critics.
Self-deception and Self-understanding
Title | Self-deception and Self-understanding PDF eBook |
Author | Mike W. Martin |
Publisher | |
Pages | 336 |
Release | 1985 |
Genre | Psychology |
ISBN |
Self-deception and Morality
Title | Self-deception and Morality PDF eBook |
Author | Jacqueline Anne Taylor |
Publisher | |
Pages | 78 |
Release | 1984 |
Genre | Ethics |
ISBN |
Self-Deception
Title | Self-Deception PDF eBook |
Author | Herbert Fingarette |
Publisher | Univ of California Press |
Pages | 204 |
Release | 2000-02-23 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 9780520923638 |
With a new chapter This new edition of Herbert Fingarette's classic study in philosophical psychology now includes a provocative recent essay on the topic by the author. A seminal work, the book has deeply influenced the fields of philosophy, ethics, psychology, and cognitive science, and it remains an important focal point for the large body of literature on self-deception that has appeared since its publication. How can one deceive oneself if the very idea of deception implies that the deceiver knows the truth? The resolution of this paradox leads Fingarette to fundamental insights into the mind at work. He questions our basic ideas of self and the unconscious, personal responsibility and our ethical categories of guilt and innocence. Fingarette applies these ideas to the philosophies of Sartre and Kierkegaard, as well as to Freud's psychoanalytic theories and to contemporary research into neurosurgery. Included in this new edition, Fingarette's most recent essay, "Self-Deception Needs No Explaining (1998)," challenges the ideas in the extant literature.
Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform
Title | Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform PDF eBook |
Author | Laura Papish |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 281 |
Release | 2018-05-15 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 019069212X |
Throughout his writings, and particularly in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Kant alludes to the idea that evil is connected to self-deceit, and while numerous commentators regard this as a highly attractive thesis, none have seriously explored it. Laura Papish's Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform addresses this crucial element of Kant's ethical theory. Working with both Kant's core texts on ethics and materials less often cited within scholarship on Kant's practical philosophy (such as Kant's logic lectures), Papish explores the cognitive dimensions of Kant's accounts of evil and moral reform while engaging the most influential -- and often scathing -- of Kant's critics. Her book asks what self-deception is for Kant, why and how it is connected to evil, and how we achieve the self-knowledge that should take the place of self-deceit. She offers novel defenses of Kant's widely dismissed claims that evil is motivated by self-love and that an evil is rooted universally in human nature, and she develops original arguments concerning how social institutions and interpersonal relationships facilitate, for Kant, the self-knowledge that is essential to moral reform. In developing and defending Kant's understanding of evil, moral reform, and their cognitive underpinnings, Papish not only makes an important contribution to Kant scholarship. Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform also reveals how much contemporary moral philosophers, philosophers of religion, and general readers interested in the phenomenon of evil stand to gain by taking seriously Kant's views.
Political Self-Deception
Title | Political Self-Deception PDF eBook |
Author | Anna Elisabetta Galeotti |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 273 |
Release | 2018-09-13 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1108423728 |
Explores self-deception and its consequences for political decision-making.
The Philosophy of Deception
Title | The Philosophy of Deception PDF eBook |
Author | Clancy W. Martin |
Publisher | Oxford University Press on Demand |
Pages | 293 |
Release | 2009 |
Genre | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS |
ISBN | 0195327934 |
This title gathers together essays on deception, self-deception, and the intersections of the two phenomena, from the leading thinkers on the subject. It will be of interest to philosophers across the spectrum including those interested in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, and metaphysics.