SELF‐DECEPTION ABOUT EMOTION

In this paper, I address an ignored topic in the literature on self‐deception—instances in which one is self‐deceived about their emotions. Most discussions of emotion and self‐deception address either the contributory role of emotion to instances of self‐deception involving beliefs or assume what I argue is an outdated view of emotion according to which emotions just are beliefs or some other type of propositional attitude. In order to construct an account of self‐deception about emotion, I draw a distinction between two variants of self‐deception about emotion: cognitively motivated self‐deception and phenomenologically motivated self‐deception. After providing an account of each variant, I discuss the importance of the role that perception plays in cases of self‐deception about emotion. I conclude with a comment on the relevance of this discussion for contemporary debates in moral theory.     

SELF‐DECEPTION AND THE EXPERIENCE OF FICTION

Sartre's commentary on bad faith is the starting‐point for an exploration of self‐deception: what it is not, what it is, and whether it's always wrong. The proffered analysis of self‐deception parallels a certain theory of our experience of fiction. In essence, it is argued that the self‐deceiver creates a kind of fiction in which he is a character, a fiction that he nonetheless believes to be real.     

PREFERENTISM AND SELF‐SACRIFICE

According to the argument from self‐sacrifice, standard, unrestricted desire‐based theories of welfare fail because they have the absurd implication that self‐sacrifice is conceptually impossible. I attempt to show that, in fact, the simplest imaginable, completely unrestricted desire‐based theory of well‐being is perfectly compatible with the phenomenon of self‐sacrifice – so long as the theory takes the right form. I go on to consider a new argument from self‐sacrifice against this simple theory, which, I argue, also fails. I conclude that, contrary to popular opinion, considerations of self‐sacrifice do not pose a problem for preferentist theories of welfare.     

SELF‐FORGIVENESS AND FORGIVENESS

If the notion of a victim's forgiveness encounters scepticism in today's world, more so the notion of self‐forgiveness by the offender. However, a failure to forgive oneself, when self‐forgiveness is appropriate, may be detrimental to one's moral and psychological well‐being. Self‐forgiveness is called for when guilt, self‐hatred and shame reach high levels. Further, a third party's assurance that the offence is forgivable may contribute considerably to the completion of the self‐forgiveness process. This article explores the notion of forgiveness of self and compares it with the notion of forgiveness of others. In addition, guilt and shame, right and wrong, repentance and dealing with the consequences of harmful actions are examined in the context of self‐forgiveness.     

SELF‐KNOWLEDGE AND MORAL STUPIDITY

Most commonplace moral failure is not conditioned by evil intentions or the conscious desire to harm or humiliate others. It is more banal and ubiquitous – a form of moral stupidity that gives rise to rationalization, self‐deception, failures of due moral consideration, and the evasion of responsibility. A kind of crude, perception‐distorting self‐absorption, moral stupidity is the cause of many moral missteps; moral development demands the development of self‐knowledge as a way out of moral stupidity. Only once aware of the presence or absence of particular desires and beliefs can an agent have authority over them or exercise responsibility for their absence. But what is the connection between self‐knowledge and moral development? I argue that accounts (such as Kant's and Richard Moran's) which construe instances of self‐knowledge as like the verdicts of a judge cannot explain its potential role in moral development, and claim that it must be conceived of in a way that makes possible a process of self‐refinement and self‐regulation. Making use of Buddhist moral psychology, I argue that when self‐knowledge plays a role in moral development, it includes a quality of attention to one's experience best modeled as the work of the craftsperson, not as judge.     

DECREASING SELF‐INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR AND FADING SELF‐RESTRAINT IN A STUDENT WITH AUTISM AND TOURETTE SYNDROME

This clinical case study was conducted with a student diagnosed with autism and Tourette syndrome who displayed severe self‐injurious behavior (SIB). Behavioral assessments and observations suggested that the student demonstrated less SIB during a self‐restraint, where he wrapped his hands tightly in a large blanket. We used an ABAB design with fading to reduce the size of the blanket to keep rates of SIB low. In addition, we also used a fixed interval reinforcement schedule and extinction during the intervention/restraint phases. Results indicated that the student maintained near‐zero rates of SIB for 6 months after use of the blanket was eliminated. Results and implications for practice and future research are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

FIRST PERSON PLURAL: SELF‐UNITY AND SELF‐MULTIPLICITY IN THEOLOGY'S DIALOGUE WITH PSYCHOLOGY

In contradistinction to the contemporary human sciences, recent theological accounts of the individual‐in‐relation continue to defend the concept of the singular continuous self. Consequently, theological anthropology and the human sciences seem to offer widely divergent accounts of the sense of self‐fragmentation that many believe pervades the modern world. There has been little constructive interdisciplinary conversation in this area. In this essay I address the damaging implications of this oversight and establish the necessary conditions for future dialogue. I have three primary objectives. First, I show how the notion of personal continuity acquires philosophical theological significance through its close association with the concept of personal particularity. Second, through a discussion of contemporary accounts of self‐multiplicity, I clarify the extent of theological anthropology's disagreement with the human sciences. Third, I draw upon narrative accounts of identity to suggest an alternative means of understanding the experiential continuity of personhood that maintains the tension between self‐plurality, unity, and particularity and thereby reconnects philosophical theological concerns with human‐scientific analyses of the human condition. Narrative approaches to personhood are ideally suited to this purpose, and, I suggest, offer an intriguing solution to understanding and resolving the problem of self‐fragmentation that has caused recent theological anthropology so much consternation.     

SEMANTIC EXTERNALISM AND A PRIORI SELF‐KNOWLEDGE

The argument known as the ‘McKinsey Recipe’ tries to establish the incompatibility of semantic externalism (about natural kind concepts in particular) and a priori self‐knowledge about thoughts and concepts by deriving from the conjunction of these theses an absurd conclusion, such as that we could know a priori that water exists. One reply to this argument is to distinguish two different readings of ‘natural kind concept’: (i) a concept which in fact denotes a natural kind, and (ii) a concept which aims to denote a natural kind. Paul Boghossian has argued, using a Dry Earth scenario, that this response fails, claiming that the externalist cannot make sense of a concept aiming, but failing, to denote a natural kind. In this paper I argue that Boghossian’s argument is flawed. Borrowing machinery from two‐dimensional semantics, using the notion of ‘considering a possible world as actual’, I claim that we can give a determinate answer to Boghossian’s question: which concept would ‘water’ express on Dry Earth?¹     

ECO‐ANXIETY,TRAGEDY, AND HOPE: PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL DIMENSIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

This article addresses the problem of “eco‐anxiety” by integrating results from numerous fields of inquiry. Although climate change may cause direct psychological and existential impacts, vast numbers of people already experience indirect impacts in the form of depression, socio‐ethical paralysis, and loss of well‐being. This is not always evident, because people have developed psychological and social defenses in response, including “socially constructed silence.” I argue that this situation causes the need to frame climate change narratives as emphasizing hope in the midst of tragedy. Framing the situation simply as a threat or a possibility does not work. Religious communities and the use of methods which include spirituality have an important role in enabling people to process their deep emotions and existential questions. I draw also from my experiences from Finland in enabling cooperation between natural scientists and theologians in order to address climate issues.     

MONKEYS,MIRRORS, AND ME: GORDON GALLUP AND THE STUDY OF SELF‐RECOGNITION

This article explores the work of psychologist Gordon Gallup, Jr., during the 1960s and 1970s on mirror self‐recognition in animals. It shows how Gallup tried to integrate the mental “self‐concept” into an otherwise strictly behaviorist paradigm. By making an argument from material culture, the article demonstrates how Gallup's adoption of a self‐concept is best understood as a product of his sustained analysis of the workings of the mirror as a piece of experimental apparatus. In certain situations, the stimulus properties of the mirror changed dramatically, a shift that Gallup thought legitimated the positing of a self‐concept. For this reason, Gallup supposed he could use a mirror to provide an operationalized concept of the self, that is, produce a definition that was compatible with behaviorist experimental norms. The article argues that behaviorism was more supple and productive than is often assumed, and contained resources that could align it with the “cognitive revolution” to which it is most often opposed.     

DECEPTION AND AROUSAL

This study tested a physiologically based arousal theory of deceptive communication. The sympathetic activation (skin resistance) of three groups of communicators was monitored. Two of the groups, deceivers and unaroused truth tellers, paralleled the types of communicators used in earlier deception studies; and a third group, aroused truth tellers, was exposed to a noise stimulus to raise their sympathetic activation to a level comparable to deceivers. Comparison of the behavioral differences between comparably aroused deceivers and truth tellers made it possible to identify the cues unique to deception-induced arousal. Results confirmed that deceivers experienced significantly greater sympathetic activation than unaroused truth tellers. Six verbal and nonverbal behaviors reliably distinguished deceivers from unaroused truth tellers, and, most important, these same six behaviors reliably distinguished deceivers from aroused truth tellers.     

PLEASURE AS SELF‐DISCOVERY

This paper uses readings of two classic autobiographies, Edmund Gosse's Father & Son and John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, to develop a distinctive answer to an old and central question in value theory: What role is played by pleasure in the most successful human life? A first section defends my method. The main body of the paper then defines and rejects voluntarist, stoic, and developmental hedonist lessons to be taken from central crises in my two subjects' autobiographies, and argues for a fourth, diagnostic lesson: Gosse and Mill perceive their individual good through the medium of pleasure. Finally, I offer some speculative moral psychology of human development, as involving the waking, perception, management, and flowering of generic and individual capacities, which I suggest underlies Gosse and Mill's experiences. The acceptance of one's own unchosen nature, discovered by self‐perceptive pleasure in the operation of one's nascent capacities, is the beginning of a flourishing adulthood in which that nature is fully developed and expressed.