Political self-deception and epistemic vice
Galeotti argues that we can gain a better understanding of political decision making by drawing upon the notion of self-deception and offers a rich articulation of what self-deception is, and how and why it exerts influence upon political decision making, especially in high-stakes contexts where the...
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Taylor & Francis Group
2020-12-01
|
Series: | Ethics & Global Politics |
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16544951.2020.1853921 |
Summary: | Galeotti argues that we can gain a better understanding of political decision making by drawing upon the notion of self-deception and offers a rich articulation of what self-deception is, and how and why it exerts influence upon political decision making, especially in high-stakes contexts where the decision seems to be counter to rationality. But such contexts are also explicable from a different perspective, with different theoretical resources. In recent years the field of ‘virtue epistemology’ has discussed a wide range of epistemic vices – traits of character, and cognitive strategies, that stand in the way of gaining knowledge. This raises questions about how an explanation of political decision making in terms of self-deception relates to an explanation in terms of epistemic vice. Because the notion of epistemic vice applies to self-deception and to other cognitive deficiencies, it is argued that the broader notion of epistemic vice might be explanatorily richer, and more useful. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 1654-4951 1654-6369 |