Instantaneous self-deception

This paper offers an account of intending to self-deceive which opposes that provided by standard intentionalist accounts of self-deception. According to my account, self-deception is attained instantaneously: to intend to self-deceive that P is thereby to self-deceive that P. Relating this to the concepts of evidence, belief and self-awareness, I develop an account of self-deception which holds that self-deceivers misrepresent themselves as believing (so, do not believe) what they profess to believe. I argue that my account yields solutions to the central problems of self-deception - the static problem and the dynamic problem - while remaining faithful to the phenomena of self-deception.