Self-deception as an argument for the possibility of akrasia

I believe akrasia, weakness of will, is impossible. More precisely, I believe that no one knowingly does what is wrong. All evil actions are accidentally evil. This view fits nicely with my view that there is no free will, which also implies that all evil actions are accidentally evil. No one chooses the chisels that shape the marble block that is their character – chisels such as parents, genetics, social pressures, survival pressures, and so on. Those who have an evil character have one by happenstance. Those who make evil choices do so on the basis of the character they have by happenstance. All actions are accidents.

Here is an interesting rebuttal: Consider the case of self-deception. When someone deceives themselves, they know what's true but bury that knowledge because they lack the strength to accept the truth, or something like that.

I myself am guilty of self-deception. When I was getting my first college degree, I lied to myself that this is what I wanted. It wasn't. I felt pressured and felt like I had no other options. Had money been no object, I would have made radically different choices back then. Much, much better choices in terms of my well-being. I think this is true of virtually almost every person; survival pressures force us to choose against our nature. If your nature happens to conveniently line up with a lucrative field, then good for you.

Eventually it came to a head and I had to do the hard, painful thing and look within myself and admit that I had been lying to myself the whole time. I continued and finished the degree, but this time with a new sense of honesty: I am doing this not for its intrinsic reward, but for the benefits that will come later. While I knew it was tragic to major in something you hate purely for money, I hoped that the rewards would be worth it. They weren't, but that's another story.

So we might put it like this:

When you self-deceive, you know what's true but you bury the truth because, to put it simply, you can't handle the truth. There are obvious psychological stories we can tell to explain why a particular person cannot handle a particular truth, given enough information about that person. So we can imagine someone deceiving themselves into doing evil, and thus knowingly doing evil.

My response is that self-deception does not imply knowledge of what is true. Knowledge requires belief, and self-deception prevents belief in what is true. I failed to believe what was true about myself because of self-deception.

When someone can't handle the truth, they refuse to believe it, and make up whatever excuses needed to allow themselves to believe what they want. It's a mistake to attribute to this person a tiny spark of knowledge that they are burying; that spark isn't there. What might be there is a fear that they are wrong about something. But someone can worry that they are wrong without believing that they are. It's just a worry. Though, often, we aren't even honest about our worries, with some worries being much deeper than we let on.

Getting out of self-deception does not feel to me like the unburying of a known truth. Rather, it feels like the walls I had put up to protect myself have collapsed, and now I'm psychologically able to believe according to the evidence that had been there all along.

Counter argument: Deception is the act of deliberately causing someone to believe wrongly. In order to deceive, you must know what is right so that you can lead your target astray. So when you deceive yourself, there must be a part of you that knows what's right to lead the rest of yourself astray.

My response is that self-deception is not deception in the ordinary sense, but is a failure of self-honesty. The failure to be honest with oneself, much like the failure to be smart or brave, is not an intentional act but the result of the quality of one's character in that moment.

My free will skepticism is compatible with a variety of views on consciousness

I was worried for a second that because my view on free will involves making a sharp distinction between the self as a subject that chooses (or experiences the choices its brain makes) and the self as an organism or animal, that I commit myself to a very specific theory of mind. The problem then would be that I would feel compelled to defend that theory of mind not because I thought it was true, but because I need it to be true for my view on free will to make sense. I guess I hoped that it only commits me to aspect dualism, which is a hill I'm happy to die on anyway, because I cannot imagine dispensing with either mental or physical properties.

But now it seems to me that we can obviously distinguish between the self as mental and the self as physical on a variety of views. My free will skepticism is openly available.

Identity theory says that there are mental properties, but these properties reduce to physical ones. So we have the mental self, which is a special subset of the human organism's physical properties (brain properties), and we have the non-mental self, which is the set of the remaining physical properties. No one chooses their brain properties, and so no one chooses their mental properties. But all deeds done are done by brain properties. So all deeds done are traced to factors outside the person's control. You still have good and bad people, it's just that no one is responsible for their goodness or badness.

I'm pretty sure epiphenomenalism immediately entails free will skepticism anyway, so that one doesn't matter. (Identity theory probably does too, but whatever.) Epiphenomenalism says that there is no mental causation. So you don't cause anything; everything that you experience is caused by your brain interacting with your environment. Not only are you not responsible for your actions, but technically you don't have any actions to be responsible for. Your soul is a pure byproduct, a spectator.

I'm pretty sure behaviorism immediately entails free will skepticism too? If consciousness is just behavior, then the self is just behavior, and so there is no self that causes the behavior, and so there is no self to blame. Behaviorism is so easily refuted that it's a moot point anyway.

Functionalism is trickier. Can the self / qualia / subjectivity be analyzed in terms of function? If functionalism implies that philosophical zombies can be conscious, then that's a problem. But why couldn't we say qualia is a function? You certainly have a sharp break between the mind as a function and the material that gives rise to the mind. So there you have the two senses of "I" and "You" that I need for my free will skepticism. But functionalism might immediately lead to free will skepticism anyway because if the self is a function and functions are traced to factors beyond the control of the function, then traceability will apply to the functional self.

Now that I think about it, it's really hard to see how free will can fit on any theory of mind. It certainly doesn't fit on eliminativism.

That seems to leave only substance dualism and monistic idealism as refuges for free will. But again traceability concerns apply, not to mention all the arguments against these views.

I guess free will just really doesn't make sense to me at all.

Recently, getting into action theory, I wondered whether you could defend free will on the basis that if someone does something knowingly wrong, then surely the person who causes this action is morally responsible for it. But two things came to mind: one, I'm highly suspicious of the possibility of akrasia, the weakness of will needed for this kind of deliberate evil, and two, even if akrasia is possible, you could run into traceability problems there. People who have akrasia don't choose to have it, and we can trace their akrasia to their genetics, environment, etc. So even something as solid as the idea of deliberately doing wrong doesn't save free will.

Doxastic psychology and addiction

Doxastic psychology says we can explain human behavior, in part, through what humans believe. If someone believes that life is meaningless, then we can explain their depression-behavior (lack of motivation, excessive sleeping, inability to enjoy anything, etc.) by this belief.

One question for this idea is from addiction. If someone is addicted to smoking, and yet wants to quit, one option is to say that this person believes against their behavior but the addiction causes them to act contrary to their belief.

Another option is to say that their behavior is in line with their belief, because the addiction causes them to believe that smoking is all-things-considered worth it. If someone wishes they did not have the addiction, then their second-order belief is against their first-order belief. You can believe something but wish you didn't.

Hypocrisy is when you say one thing but do another, like telling your kids that you shouldn't smoke while being a smoker yourself. The smoker has an option: either I be consistent and say smoking is (at least in some cases, such as in my case) worth it, or be a hypocrite and say it's wrong. I'm morally obligated to say it's wrong (to protect my kids), so I'm morally obligated to be a hypocrite.

But is the smoker really a hypocrite here? They could believe that smoking is wrong, and the addiction causes the behavior against the belief. It's exactly because smoking causes you to act against what you know to be right that is one of the reasons why you shouldn't start.

And so belief in some cases does not help us predict or explain behavior. People can behave opposite their beliefs.

And yet, it sounds crazy that someone could perform a voluntary action, like smoking a cigarette, while at the same time not having some belief in the action. There is pleasure in the addictive act, and the pleasure explains the motive behind the act. But the agent has to believe that the act is in fact pleasurable to engage in it. People absolutely can and do have conflicted beliefs, but that doesn't mean one belief doesn't win out at the end of the day. I believe eating junk food is bad for you. I also believe it tastes good. Sometimes the "tastes good" belief is just strong enough to beat out the "is bad for you" belief. How can you tell which belief has won out? By the behavior.

So the smoker really is a hypocrite when they tell their kids not to smoke. You believe smoking is not worth it, hence warning your kids, and yet you believe it's worth it, hence your continued smoking.

But not so fast. The smoker does believe, if only barely, that smoking is worth it, hence the continued smoking. The parent warns their kids because the addiction causes the pleasure to rise to a level so strong that it's able to beat out, if only barely, the belief that you shouldn't smoke. Without the addiction, the irrational belief wouldn't be there, and the addiction behavior wouldn't be there either.

To have a second-order belief that runs against the first-order belief is to believe that the first-order belief is irrational, and yet cannot be shaken (by addiction, genetics, social conditioning, or what have you). Addiction is evil not because it causes you to behave against your first-order beliefs, but because it causes you to take on irrational first-order beliefs, such as the irrational belief that smoking is all-things-considered worth it. I know eating junk food is all-things-considered not worth it. Often I still eat it anyway because I hold an irrational belief, even if just for a moment, that it is worth it, caused by the sneaky chemicals in junk food. In the moment you are engaging in the addiction, your brain is saying "Yeah, this is worth it", even though you know it's not. This is why second-order beliefs (or second-order desires) can run against first-order beliefs (or first-order desires). (You could argue it's not the chemicals in junk food that causes the irrational belief that it's worth it, but our own akrasia, or weakness of will. Or it's just our own irrationality in general. But if that were true, then we wouldn't have a second-order desire that runs contrary to the first-order desire.)

So doxastic psychology is safe. When someone believes smoking is worth it, because of addiction, we can predict that this person will continue smoking. When someone believes smoking is worth it, and yet believes that this belief is irrational, then we can predict that they will warn others against smoking, or will try to quit. This person is not being hypocritical (hypocrisy is always wrong; there can never be a moral obligation to hypocrisy); when engaging in the addiction behavior, they are behaving according to their (irrational) first-order belief, and when giving their warning they are behaving according to their second-order belief.

This does place a limit on doxastic psychology: behavior reveals first-order beliefs, but not necessarily second-order beliefs. As Frankfurt argued (roughly), it's really the second-order beliefs (or desires) that reveal the moral qualities of the person.

If someone has a first-order desire to smoke, but a second-order desire to quit, then the second-order desire places pressure against the first-order desire. Eventually, this pressure may reach a critical mass where the irrationality of the addiction act is felt strongly enough by the agent to where the desire against it wins out, allowing them to break free from the addiction. But if someone has no such second-order desire, then there is no internal pressure against the behavior, and so the irrational behavior is more likely to be permanent. If the irrational belief were caused by addiction, that speaks less against the quality of the agent than if the irrational belief were caused by the agent's innate irrationality.

Whenever there is apparent hypocrisy, there might not be hypocrisy, but a mismatch between first- and second-order beliefs. The addict believes in the addiction act, but believes they shouldn't believe it.

But am I contradicting myself here? I'm saying that if a person truly believed against the addiction act, then they wouldn't engage in it. But if that's true, then wouldn't a person who truly believed against believing in the addiction act not believe in the addiction act? I said you can't act against belief, because act entails belief. But then how could someone believe against belief?

The addiction forces the irrational belief upon the addict. The act follows the belief. So the addiction indirectly forces the act. The act depends on belief(1) (first-order belief), and so the act entails belief(1). Belief(1) obviously entails belief(1), and in that sense you can't believe against belief. But belief(1) does not depend on belief(2) such that the former entails the latter. So you can believe(2) against belief(1). And you can act(2) against act(1), like warning someone to not smoke while smoking yourself.

First-order beliefs and second-order beliefs can come apart, exactly because of things like addiction. But addiction doesn't allow first-order and first-order beliefs to come apart, which is what believing(1) against an act would mean. So you can believe(2) against an act, but you can't believe(1) against an act.

It sounds like I'm saying there can be a clash of mixed-ordered beliefs, but not a clash of first-order beliefs. But then what is hypocrisy, or self-contradiction, if not a clash of first-order beliefs?

I'm not saying you can't have both belief and non-belief. Let's say someone believes that they should not phi. They phi. So they believe that they should not phi and that they should. Contradiction. But in the case of self-contradiction, there is no mismatch between first- and second-order beliefs. The hypocrite believes(1) that they should phi and not phi, and believes(2) that they should believe that they should phi and not phi. (Or at least doesn't believe that they should not believe that they should phi and not phi.)

Often, hypocrisy is not taken to just be self-contradiction. Rather, it's special pleading – when a person makes themselves an exception to a personal rule without good reason for doing so. Hypocrisy is not a failure to recognize contradiction in this case, but a failure to recognize that there is no relevant difference between your case and others' case. Though the contradiction reintroduces itself when the hypocrite would not accept the same special pleading from others. (Which then returns to a relevant difference case when the hypocrite doesn't see the special pleadings as the same. I guess this could go on forever.)

Other than addiction, I wonder if social conditioning could force irrational beliefs the way addiction can? Someone who is raised around extreme ableist language and attitudes might find themselves stuck with that way of looking at things, while believing that such attitudes are irrational.

Or someone raised in a very strict household is stuck with the belief that they should never cuss. But then later comes to the belief that this belief is irrational, and yet is still stuck with it.

Or someone who works a job that they hate might be forced by survival pressures to hold the belief that they ought to work the job, even though they believe that the belief that they ought to do the job is false. Actually, this example is a reverse, where the person desires(1) against the act of doing the job, but desires(2) to desire to do the job so that they would be less miserable (unless they approve of their hatred of the job). But hang on, how can someone do a job they don't believe in? Doesn't act entail belief? That's simple: they believe in the job for its extrinsic rewards, but they don't believe in the job per se.

Summary:

• Doxastic psychology says that because behavior is grounded in belief, we can psychoanalyze and understand someone's behavior in light of their beliefs.
• A challenge to doxastic psychology arises: there are cases, like addiction, where folks can hate their own behavior and believe against it, and yet find themselves falling into the behavior anyway. So behavior doesn't always entail belief, and so we cannot always explain someone's behavior in terms of what they believe. (Which, by the way, of course we cannot understand all human behavior in terms of belief. That would be a silly suggestion. Doxastic psychology is simply an additional tool in the psychoanalyst's toolbox.)
• Obsessive-compulsive behavior, hypocrisy, and self-contradiction are further candidates for when people behave in one way and either lack a belief in that behavior or even believe against it.
• But this challenge runs into its own challenge: how could it be possible for someone to will a voluntary action while simultaneously holding no belief in the action whatsoever? How could the action even be psychologically possible?
• Suggestion: Actions require belief. Some actions are conflicted, meaning that there are considerations pulling in opposite directions for the belief that grounds the action. When the agent acts, their action proves which belief won out in the end, even if it only just barely won out.
• Continuing the suggestion, the badness of addiction is found in, among other things, not the fact that it causes someone to act contrary to what they believe, but because it causes such pain in withdrawal, and such satisfaction in the addiction act, that it forces the person to believe, at least in the moment, that satisfying the addiction is worth it all-things-considered when engaging in the addiction behavior is decidedly not worth it. Therefore, addiction causes irrational beliefs. 
• An addict can recognize the irrationality of these beliefs caused by the addiction, leading to a higher order belief that they ought not believe what they do. The addict desires the object of their addiction, but desires to be rid of this desire. 
• This mismatch between first- and second-order desires (and beliefs) reveals a moral quality in some folks. The irrational behavior of the addict is grounded in the irrationality of the belief caused by the addiction and not caused by the irrationality of the addict per se. The fact that the addict can recognize the irrationality of their first-order beliefs goes a long way in 1) Showing that this person is sensitive to reasons, and 2) Generates internal reason-based pressure against the addiction behavior. This pressure shows potential for the individual to one day feel the pressure generated by this reason-sensitivity strongly enough to one day kick the habit.
• Contrast this with an addict whose second-order beliefs are in line with their first-order ones. This addict fails to display the same sensitivity to reasons, and fails to generate the same internal pressure against the irrational behavior, significantly reducing the chances of overcoming the addiction in the long term.
• But if you cannot act without believing in the act, then how could someone believe without believing in the belief? How could the belief be psychologically possible?
• The belief is psychologically possible for reasons mentioned: the satisfaction of the addiction act. The (reasons-sensitive) addict sees the reasons for abstaining from the addiction act, and sees how these reasons would win out if it weren't for the addiction causing the satisfaction from the addiction act to overpower the addict's sensitivity to reason.
• This irrationality is not subjective (the psychosomatic reasons are real) but objective (the reasons to abstain from the addiction act are real). You could say then that the irrationality is external, imposed by the addiction, and not internal, from the addict's innate capacities. In theory, the more rational someone is, the harder it is for their sensitivity to reasons to be defeated.
• So an addict genuinely believes that the addiction act is worth it, as otherwise engaging in the addiction behavior would not happen. And yet, the (reasons-sensitive) addict believes that the addiction behavior is not worth it (and will thereby warn against it). Is this self-contradiction, or hypocrisy?
• One option would be to say that this is a contradiction, and addiction causes the reasons-sensitive addict to self-contradict. But it's weird that reason-sensitivity would cause contradiction when it should do the opposite.
• Compare two addicts, one that is sensitive to reasons and one that is not. The one who is not does not contradict itself; its lower and higher order beliefs are in sync. The one who is does contradict themselves, because their rationality forces them to believe that the addiction behavior is not worth it, while the addiction behavior forces them to believe it is. So ironically, the more rational addict is the one that self-contradicts. This would suggest that there are cases where self-contradiction is more rational than not.
• Another option is to say that it's totally consistent to have a desire and yet to desire for yourself to not have that desire. You can believe P and yet wish you did not believe P, because you know P is objectively irrational, but subjectively rational because of addiction (i.e. addiction gives you reasons to engage in the addiction behavior. The irrationality of the addiction behavior is not grounded in the subjective irrationality of the behavior, but in the fact that the objective reasons are good reasons for abstaining from the behavior while the "it feels good" reasons are not good reasons for engaging in it, and are mere motivating reasons).
• But if one cannot act without belief and cannot believe without belief, then how is self-contradiction possible?
• Absolutely one can believe P and believe ~P, contradicting oneself. Because act entails belief, one could act, entailing belief in P, while internally holding ~P, generating the contradiction. The mistake is in thinking that acting entails a lack of counter-belief. I do not say this, only that acting entails the positive belief needed to ground the action.
• We might think of hypocrisy as different from simple self-contradiction, but an instance of special pleading where the hypocrite makes themselves an exception to a rule when there are no good reasons for doing so.