I’ve gotten some nice responses on my previous blog onSelf-Deception and Moral Dilemmas. I argued there that self-deception in the context of a moral dilemma has morally negative consequences, because it undermines our ability to minimize damage on whichever side of the dilemma we break a moral requirement.

评论中出现了两个主要问题。首先，自欺的定义是什么?第二，兰斯·阿姆斯特朗(Lance Armstrong)自以为能战胜癌症，复出并赢得环法冠军，这是自我欺骗吗?第二个问题表明，自欺可能是好的，因为它可以帮助人们有一个积极的前景，促进克服困难。正如一位自称Anaxagoras的评论员所说，“自我欺骗可以带来变革，而且……相信非理性能让我们度过白天的工作、孤独的夜晚和我们的局限。”当然，第二个问题的答案取决于第一个问题的答案，所以我将按顺序处理它们。(警告:定义的东西是技术性的;你可以跳过接下来的三段来讨论兰斯，即使不读定义也能很好地理解。)

Here’s the definition I’ve come up with.

An agent is in a state of self-deception if and only if she holds a belief (i) that is contrary to what her epistemic norms in conjunction with what evidence she has would usually dictate and (ii) a desire for a certain state of affairs to obtain, or to have a certain belief, causally makes the difference what belief she holds in an epistemically illegitimate fashion.

“Epistemically illegitimate fashion” in the second clause means here illegitimate according to the usual epistemic norms of the agent. I relativize in this fashion because it isn’t psychologically interesting when an agent believes contrary to epistemic norms shedoesn’tactually have; it’s when the agent’s own better standards of belief are subverted that you get a bizarre and interesting epistemic upheaval. Of course, it can’t be justanydesire that plays the role of the deceptive element; it must have a content relation to the resulting self-deceptive belief. So I add a content restriction to complete the definition.

Content Thesis: in order for the definition of self-deception to be satisfied, the first-order content of the desire that brings about the belief must be identical to the content of the belief or its negation, or the higher-order content of the desire must be the content of the belief.

我不会详细分析我的定义(如果你想要更深入的讨论，请给我发电子邮件)。但有一件重要的事情需要注意。为了成为自我欺骗状态的一部分，一种信念不一定是错误的。The reason falsity is not required is that, from a psychological perspective, it’s possible to be in the same mental state as someone who’s self-deceived, even though your belief comes out trueaccidentally. Take the following case: an abused spouse in denial counts as being in a state of self-deception about whether her husband will beat her again even if he gets hit by a bus the next day and never does beat her. Her belief that he wouldn't was still self-deceptive, even though it turned out accidentally true.

This is a good place to turn to the second question. Was Lance Armstrong self-deceived? If you require falsehood of the belief as a necessary condition on being self-deceived (as philosophers like Al Mele and Robert Audi do), then he wasn’t. But the better question is, I think: was he in a state of self-deception? It’s perfectly possible for him to have been in a state of self-deception with respect to the belief that he could come back and win, even though that belief ultimately was true. (Seven times!)

Let’s distinguish a few questions for the sake of precision.

Alpha: Was Lance in a state of self-deception in believing he could come back (and win)?

Beta: If he was in a state of self-deception, did that causally contribute to his success in coming back?

Gamma当前位置如果兰斯假设的自我欺骗确实促成了他后来的成功，那么我们应该允许自己经常自我欺骗，这是不是一个很好的榜样呢?

The first two questions are empirical and would best be answered after a lengthy personal interview with Lance himself. But the deeper ethical question is the third, Gamma, so I think it’s still a good idea to hazard some speculations about the first two with an eye to considering the third.

On Alpha, we need to distinguish between believing in theunusualand believing in theirrational; for it’s only the latter that is tantamount to self-deception. Lance believed in the unusual in believing he could come back, but it wasn’t irrational. Lance had already shown evidence of unusual abilities before his cancer; if he did overcome cancer, it would be not irrational to take prior success as evidence that he would still be capable of the unusual. Believing in your ability to achieve the unusual is only self-deceptive if you’re ausualperson. Lance Armstrong clearly isn’t. So I answer Alpha in the negative.

On Beta, my answer to Alpha makes the issue moot. But let’s imagine in general what effect self-deception might have on athletic performance. The tempting thought is that it can enhance performance by increasing confidence. But convincing yourself that you have an ability increases confidence in a helpful wayonly if you actually have that ability. In short, it’s only helpful to convince yourself in a confidence-building way if it’s not really self-deceptive to do so. Convincing myself I can jump the ditch is only helpful if I actually have it in my legs to jump it. It won’t help me jump the Grand Canyon. You might object that there are many situations where it’suncertainwhether you can actually do something but it can’t hurt to try, and in those situations it’s helpful to be self-deceived. I don’t think so, because being self-deceived coulddecrease你对需要做什么来增加你的机会的意识。我看过一部关于迈克尔·乔丹的纪录片，其中提到他最初被认为是一个平庸的后卫。后来，他获得了NBA年度最佳防守球员奖。I believe that only by being honest with himself--notself-deceived--could Michael Jordan zero in on exactly what work needed to be done to make him a top defender. Self-deceptive overestimation of your abilities can cause you to do less work, not more. In situations of uncertainty, determination and self-honesty are in the recipe for success; self-deception isn't.

It should be clear by now what I think the answer to Gamma is. But let me just say one thing.Even ifLance Armstrong was in a state of self-deception and was helped by that, that’s the exception among self-deceivers, not the rule. For every Lance, there are 1,000 drunk drivers who think they’re sober, 1,000 abused spouses in denial, 1,000 dropouts who won’t face up to reality, and 1,000 bad relationships in which people won’t face up to their problems. Having something good happen because of self-deception is like winning the lottery: very unlikely, and there are much better routes to success. I conclude that it is still best to cultivate the kind of mind that is as little susceptible as possible to self-deception.