On overrating oneself... And knowing it

Philosophical Studies 123 (1-2):115-124 (2005)
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Abstract

When it comes to evaluating our own abilities and prospects, most people are subject to a distorting bias. We think that we are better – friendlier, more well-liked, better leaders, and better drivers – than we really are. Once we learn about this bias, we should ratchet down our self-evaluations to correct for it. But we don’t. That leaves us with an uncomfortable tension in our beliefs: we knowingly allow our beliefs to differ from the ones that we think are supported by our evidence. We can mitigate the tension by waffling between two belief states: a reflective state that has been recalibrated to take into account our tendency to overrate ourselves, and a non-reflective state that has not.

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Adam Elga
Princeton University

Citations of this work

Epistemology of disagreement: The good news.David Christensen - 2007 - Philosophical Review 116 (2):187-217.
The Conflict of Evidence and Coherence.Alex Worsnip - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 96 (1):3-44.
What is (In)coherence?Alex Worsnip - 2018 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics 13:184-206.
Self-Deception as Pretense.Tamar Szabó Gendler - 2007 - Philosophical Perspectives 21 (1):231 - 258.

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References found in this work

A treatise of human nature.David Hume & D. G. C. Macnabb (eds.) - 1969 - Harmondsworth,: Penguin Books.
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40).David Hume - 1969 - Mineola, N.Y.: Oxford University Press. Edited by Ernest Campbell Mossner.
A Treatise of Human Nature.David Hume & A. D. Lindsay - 1958 - Philosophical Quarterly 8 (33):379-380.
An analysis of self-deception.Kent Bach - 1981 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 41 (March):351-370.

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