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Self Deception Essay

Self deception is the process or fact of misleading ourselves to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid. Self deception, in short, is a way we justify false beliefs to ourselves. There is no doubt that sometimes we are not realistic. Not all of our actions are rational or intentional. Sometimes we avoid reality, we deny the truth, and we fool ourselves. In some cases we may see the world the way we want to, and not the way it is.

Self deception raises basic questions about the nature of belief and the relation of belief to thought, desire, and will. Everything about the concept of self deception is controversial among philosophers and psychologists. When philosophers and psychologists discuss self deception, they usually focus on unconscious motivations and intentions. They also tend to think of self deception as a bad thing.

When it comes to explaining how self deception works they focus on self interest, prejudice, desire, insecurity, and other psychological factors unconsciously affecting in a negative way the will to believe. An example of this would be that of a parent who believes his/her child is telling the truth even though the objective evidence strongly supports the claim that the child is lying.

The parent therefore deceives him or herself into believing the child because the parent desires that the child tell the truth. Some believe that to deceive oneself the self perhaps can be divided into a deceiving and deceived part. Many believe that self deception is logically or psychologically impossible. Some claim that self deception refers to one or more of four restrictions on perception, none of which need to involve the paradox of simultaneously deceiving or being deceived.

First, ignorance resulting from necessarily limited capacity to respond to incoming information; second, the psychic numbing that constitutes a reflex response to prolong exposure to facts which would, if confronted each time be difficult to bear, an example of this would be when children shield themselves from fully responding to the violence they witness within the home or on television; third, mechanism of denial whereby we may end up deceived about information that would otherwise be painful to confront, even though we are not deceiving ourselves; and fourth, processes of more conscious avoidance such as procrastination, rationalization, and compartmentalization. I believe that self deception is possible.

I believe that individuals have the ability to deceive themselves. Take for example that Sid a college student is very fond of Rose, a college classmate with whom he often studies. Wanting it to be true that Rose loves him, he may interpret her refusing to date him and her reminding him that she has a steady boyfriend as an effort to “play hard to get” in order to encourage Sid to continue to pursue her and prove that his love for her approximates hers for him.

As Sid interprets Rose’s behavior, not only does it fail to count against the hypothesis that she loves him, but it is evidence for the truth of that hypothesis. Sid is self-deceived in believing certain things about Rose. If self deception is possible how can we control or avoid it. Many people believe that as long as they guard themselves against wishful thinking they are unlikely to deceive themselves. Wishful thinking is interpreting facts, reports, events, perceptions etc, according to what one would like to be the case rather than according to the actual evidence. Some believe that the main solution to self deception is to be honest and realistic with ourselves.

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