The Attribution of Responsibility to Self-Deceivers

This paper analyzes the moral implications of self-deception with reference to the issue of responsibility. favoring an intentional, though partly unconscious, account usually have no problem attributing responsibility to the agent for his irrationality and weakness of character. The special pressure which the agent is under and the non-wholly conscious nature of self-deception may occasionally call for extenuating circumstances in the assignment of blame. The issue of responsibility instead arises in the context of a non-intentional account, where the agent has no control over the production of self-deceptive beliefs. In that case it is not clear whether there is any agent involved, hence whether there is anyone to attach responsibility to. In general, supporters of the causal view solve the problem by singling out a moment in the self-deception process when the agent can be in control, and consequently responsibility can be attributed. An alternative way to the attribution of responsibility is adopted in this paper, by reference to a view of responsibility not focused on control as the key condition. Following this different view of responsibility, the author argues that it applies to cases of self-deception. The paper concludes by examining the possibility of prevention of self-deception by indirect strategies.