Confabulating Well: The ethics of confabulation

Murphy-Hollies, Kathleen ORCID: 0000-0001-5061-4674 (2024). Confabulating Well: The ethics of confabulation. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This PhD by papers is about the role of confabulation in our ethical and epistemic lives. Broadly, it is a defence of confabulation as much more than just irrationality, as a failure of human beings to accurately track evidence in identifying the reasons for their choices and behaviours. It is also a defence of confabulation as more than just a way of deceiving oneself about the true nature of one’s moral character.

It is commonly stipulated that virtuous behaviour ought to be ‘done for the right reason’, but in cases of confabulation we may posit these ‘right reasons’ after the behaviour takes place. This is done in a completely earnest fashion with no desire to deceive. In these cases, individuals seem to pay ethically and epistemically, in that their behaviour was not in fact done ‘for the right reason’, and they don’t become aware of that fact. However, this thesis argues that confabulation is not just an unwelcome blockage to enquiry in this way. In fact, it can be the beginning of enquiry, and it’s a good thing that agents are moved by social pressures to formulate and share justifications of their actions. Where agents go wrong is not in confabulating, but in having poor skills of social negotiation afterwards. This is because understanding ourselves and the reasons for our own behaviour isn’t actually an individual endeavour, but rather requires the input and appraisals of others. I describe the details of this in paper 1, and in paper 2 I describe the positive value of confabulations.

The remaining papers each apply this account of confabulation to a different context; political decision-making (paper 3), navigating upheaval and uncertainty (paper 4), conspiracist thinking (paper 5), and intimate relationships (paper 6). In essence, I argue that instead of agents trying somehow to never confabulate, they should aim to acquire certain prosocial skills and attitudes which will enable them to gain the benefits of confabulation, and therefore to confabulate well.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):