| OCR Text |
Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume II: A Kantian Conception 321 naturally described as a case of delusion, not self-deception. To identify it as a case of self-deception would be conceptually peculiar. The implications are two. First, although all self-deceivers are dogmatic pseudorationalizers, not all dogmatic pseudorationalizers are self-deceivers. The cult member has everything it takes to be a dogmatic pseudorationalizer, but lacks a certain feature conceptually necessary to being identified as a selfdeceiver. Second, therefore, self-deceivers are dogmatic pseudorationalizers of a certain kind: They are dogmatic pseudorationalizers with a personal investment in a certain kind of dogmatic theory, namely one with two mutually dependent parts: The first, explicit part is a dogmatic and provincial theory of their experience, of the sort already discussed. The second part, often left implicit, is their self-conception: the theory of who they are, how they behave, and how they relate socially to others. A self-conception in which an agent is personally invested therefore contains incorrigibly honorific and self-aggrandizing (if not self-congratulatory) components. It is the selfdeceiver's personal investment in this second part of the theory, a selfconception that is mutually interdependent with the provincial theory of his experience, that is the source of the vanity and false pride the cult member was shown to lack. This second part of the theory is not to be confused with the selfconsciousness property. The latter is merely the value-neutral concept of one's self as having one's experiences; the former is a substantive, honorific conception of the kind of self one is; for example, that one is a serious person, or is fair-minded and tolerant in one's judgments, or does only what is just and right. Any agent may have a self-conception, and not all self-conceptions function as does the dogmatist's. A dogmatic self-conception, the unstated second part of the self-deceiver's theory, is mutually interdependent with the first, in that the validity of the first is a necessary and sufficient condition, in the self-deceiver's eyes, of the validity of the second. This is because, typically, the first part, the dogmatic theory of his experience, includes in it honorific status for persons of the kind he conceives himself to be. On this analysis, then, a self-deceiver is a dogmatic pseudorationalizer who conceives of himself as a good and valuable person if and only if the dogmatic theory of his experience that he espouses is the correct one. Nazis, racists, misogynists, anti-Semites, and other elitists of various kinds are all obvious examples of individuals we might identify as (at the very least) selfdeceived according to these criteria. But there are many other dogmatic theories of one's experience that may function similarly to thus align one on the side of the angels, as it were, depending on one's social values. It may be that, held by the right agent, any such theory may, in that agent's eyes, confer © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
