• About- Legally Speaking
  • Back to Grimes Legal Inc.
Legally Speaking - Legal Recruiter Blog Legally Speaking - Legal Recruiter Blog
  • About- Legally Speaking
  • Back to Grimes Legal Inc.
онлайн займ на карту мгновенно

Are You Lying to Yourself?

Home Attorney Articles Are You Lying to Yourself?
Are You Lying to Yourself?

Are You Lying to Yourself?

Apr 18, 2018 | Posted by In the News | Attorney Articles, Attorney Ethics, Legal Employment, Legal Recruiter | 0 comments |

Are you lying to yourself?

FROM
Keith Frankish

Most of us have views on politics, current events, religion, society, morality, and sport, and we spend a lot of time expressing these views, whether in conversation or on social media. We argue for our positions, and get annoyed if they are challenged. Why do we do this? The obvious answer is that we believe the views we express (i.e., we think they are true), and we want to get others to believe them too, because they are true. We want the truth to prevail. That’s how it seems.

 

But do we really believe everything we say? Are you always trying to establish the truth when you argue, or might there be other motives at work?

These questions might seem strange, offensive even. Am I suggesting that you are insincere or hypocritical in your views? No — at least I’m not suggesting that you are consciously so. But you might be unconsciously influenced by concerns other than truth. Nowadays, most psychologists agree that rapid, unconscious mental processes (sometimes called “System 1” processes) play a huge role in guiding our behavior. These processes are not thought of as Freudian ones, involving repressed memories and desires, but as ordinary, everyday judgments, motives, and feelings that operate without conscious awareness, like a mental autopilot.

It seems plausible that such processes guide much of our speech. After all, we rarely give conscious thought to our reasons for saying what we do; the words just come to our lips. But if the motives behind our words are unconscious, then we must infer them from our behavior, and might be mistaken about what they are. Again, this isn’t a revolutionary idea; for centuries, dramatists and novelists have depicted people deceived about their own motives. (For more on the nature and limits of self-knowledge, see my earlier Aeonarticle.)

It’s easy to think of motives that might prompt us to express a view we don’t really believe. We might want it to be true, and feel reassurance when we argue for it (think of the parents who insist that their missing child is still alive, despite the lack of evidence). We might associate it with people we admire, and assert it so as to be like them (think of how people are influenced by the views of celebrities). We might think that it will get us attention, and make us seem interesting (think of teenagers who adopt provocative views). We might profess it to fit in and gain social acceptance (think of a university student from a conservative background). Or we might feel that we have a duty to defend it because of our commitment to some creed or ideology (we sometimes call this attitude faith — belief in the religious sense).

Such motives might also be reinforced by other factors. As a society, we tend to admire people who know their own minds and stick to their principles. So, once we have expressed a view, for whatever reason, we might feel (again, unconsciously) that we are now committed to it, and should stick with it as a matter of integrity. At the same time, we might develop an emotional attachment to the view, a bit like an attachment to a sports team. It is now our view, the one we have publicly endorsed, and we want it to win out over its rivals just because it is ours. In this way, we might come to have a strong personal commitment to a claim, even if we don’t really believe it.

I am not suggesting that we are never guided by concerns for truth and knowledge (what philosophers call epistemic concerns), but I suspect that these sorts of emotional and social factors play a much larger role than we like to think. How else can we explain the vehemence with which people defend their views, and the hurt they feel when their views are challenged?

Is it bad if we sometimes say things we don’t believe? It might seem not. The aims I’ve mentioned — seeking social acceptance, for example, or cultivating a self-image — are not necessarily bad ones, and since they are unconscious it is arguable that we shouldn’t be held responsible for them anyway. There are dangers, however. For in order to achieve these aims we must convince our audience that we genuinely believe what we say. If they thought we were saying something merely in order to create an impression on them, then we wouldn’t succeed in creating that impression. And when our aim is to make some impression on ourselves — like the parents who insist that their child is still alive — we must convince ourselves that we believe it too. As a consequence, we might need to back up our words with deeds, acting as if we believe what we say. If there were a glaring disparity between what we said and did, our insincerity would be obvious. In this way, unconscious desires for acceptance, approval, and reassurance can lead us to make choices on the basis of claims for which we have no good evidence, with obvious risks of frustration and failure.

Is there, then, any way of telling whether you really believe a claim? It might seem that conscious reflection would settle it. If you consciously entertain the claim, do you think it is true? Even this process might be unreliable, however. Many theorists hold that conscious thinking is simply talking to oneself in inner speech, in which case it can be guided by unconscious motives, just like outer speech. And, as I mentioned, unconscious desires can prompt us to deceive ourselves, telling ourselves that a claim is true even though we don’t really believe it.

Despite this, a thought experiment might help us detect what we genuinely believe to be true. In real life, there might be few contexts where truth really is our dominant concern: Maintaining a comforting view or upholding a cherished ideology or self-image might almost always be more important to us than truth. But suppose you were being questioned by the Truth Demon — a super-powerful being who knows the truth on every topic, and will punish you horribly if you give a wrong answer or fail to answer at all. If you continue to assert a claim when the Truth Demon asks you if it is true, then you do really believe it, really think it is true. But if you give a different answer when under threat of torture by the all-knowing demon, then you don’t really believe the claim. This gives us a practical test for belief: Imagine the situation just described as vividly as you can, and see what you would say about any of your views. But do be careful not to give too much conscious thought to the matter in case you start telling yourself what you want to hear.

READ MORE

Tags: Attorney articlesGLIGrimes Legal IncWednesday Wisdom
0 Comments
0
Share

About In the News

This author hasn't written their bio yet.
In the News has contributed 219 entries to our website, so far. View entries by In the News.

You also might be interested in

10 Mindsets That Will Radically Improve Your Business

Jan 30, 2015

Success is something all career-driven individuals desire yet it eludes[...]

You’ll Love This!!!  Hiring Partners Interview War Stories

You’ll Love This!!! Hiring Partners Interview War Stories

Aug 19, 2016

By: Leigh Jones After sitting through hundreds of interviews with twenty-somethings,[...]

Memorial Day

May 23, 2014

Our society is solely focused on running-and-gunning and always looking[...]

Leave a Reply

Your email is safe with us.
Cancel Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Count Down Your Year-End Goals

weeks
4
5
days
0
1
hours
0
9
minutes
4
2
seconds
5
1

Pages

  • About- Legally Speaking

Archives

  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • August 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008

Categories

  • 2018
  • 2019
  • Attorney Articles
  • Attorney Ethics
  • Attorney Jobs
  • attorney science
  • attorney testimony
  • Billionaire Lesson
  • Canadian Cannabis
  • Career Advice
  • Celebrate
  • Charity
  • Compensation
  • compliance and regulation
  • Days of Christmas
  • Don'ts
  • Finance
  • Flu
  • Fun
  • Generational
  • GLI
  • Global Legal Recruiting
  • Globalization
  • Goals
  • Gratitude
  • Grimes Legal
  • Grimes Legal Inc.
  • Halloween
  • happy attorney
  • Happy Halloween
  • Happy Holidays
  • Health Care
  • Healthy Success
  • Hello 2018
  • Helpers helping
  • Herstory
  • History
  • Holiday Traditions
  • Hurricane Relief
  • Immigration
  • immigration proposal
  • Immigration reform
  • Job Searches
  • Job Survey
  • Jobs
  • Lady Law
  • Lawsuit of the Day
  • Lawyer Articles
  • Lawyer Jobs
  • Legal Careers
  • Legal Employment
  • Legal Executive Recruiter
  • Legal Headhunter
  • Legal Humor
  • Legal Job Placement
  • Legal Job Search
  • Legal Jobs
  • Legal News
  • Legal Placement
  • Legal Practice
  • Legal Recruiter
  • Legal Recruiting
  • Legal Recruiting Firm
  • Legal Salaries
  • Legal Search Firm
  • Legal Staffing
  • legally speaking
  • legallyspeaking
  • Marijuana
  • mental health
  • Monday Musings
  • Morning Docket
  • Nancy Says
  • new bill
  • Olympics
  • Pro Con
  • Recipes
  • Retired Attorney
  • Retirement
  • sexism in the workplace
  • status
  • Success
  • Tax Reform
  • Technology
  • Thanksgiving
  • Top Recruitment
  • Travel Tips
  • trump
  • Uncategorized
  • workplace
  • World News
  • Young Attorney
  • Young Lawyer

Contact Us

We're currently offline. Send us an email and we'll get back to you, asap.

Send Message

© [2016] · Legally Speaking. Theme by HB-Themes.

  • About- Legally Speaking
  • Back to Grimes Legal Inc.
Prev Next