From the libertarian perspective, such self-deception is naturally understood as an expression of our freedom.
But some people, owing to ignorance, self-deception, or willful blindness, do not see that this is a task calling for cooperation of an unprecedented kind.
Their feeling of security was a self-deception, they were effacing an aspect of reality, a phenomenon which, in clinical psychiatry, is labelled denial.
This bit of deception, even if it was only self-deception, disturbed many of us, and we persuaded him to stop.
Various philosophers have pondered the question of how self-deception is possible.
Concealers who believe that their lies are morally less bad than those of falsifiers are indulging in self-deception.
The stir that this result created among generative linguists is evidence of remarkable self-deception on the part of many of them.
Their answer is that pride can motivate this choice and self-deception can maintain it in the face of unhappiness.
