Evasive Self-Deception and Moral Responsibility

For Adorno, both philosopher and critic, the Holocaust is something that cannot be expressed in any language, even that of poetry. For numerous others both during and after the immeasurable tragedy, the Holocaust remains virtually unimaginable. Even more disconcerting, however, is the extreme number of German participants who simply “evaded acknowledging the fact that the Jews were being deported to their death while the Final Solution was being carried out” (Jones, 79). In the fourth chapter of his Moral Responsibility in the Holocaust, David Jones discusses the nature of self-deception as well as the moral blameworthiness inherent in the actions (or lack thereof) of a significant part of the German populace motivated by feelings of “guilt, shame and responsibility” to engage in “evasive self-deception” during the Holocaust (81). Jones’ discussion of “evasive self-deception” is of particular import in an assessment of moral responsibility among individual perpetrators in the Holocaust.

A logical but by no means obligatory component of moral responsibility, judgmental blame rests upon the simultaneous existence of five basic crit

Deceiving oneself is the evasion of full self-acknowledgment of some truth or of what one would view as truth if one were to confront an issue squarely. The truth or apparent truths may concern oneself, others, one’s immediate situation, or the world at large. The evasion may have a number of motives, although what is evaded will be perceived as unpleasant or onerous in some way. (81)

Activities of evasive self-deception utilized by akratic self-deceivers correspond to psychological phenomena-- namely one’s “sense of personal identity, a pervasively biased cognitive style, motivated excusing tactics, and self-deceptive tactics of self-presentation” (Jones, 88). In terms of personal identity, self-deceivers face a conundrum- the need to be superior is accompanied by the need to subvert the reality of their very failure to do so (Jones, 89). Another tactic, a biased cognitive style, exists as a vice in evasive self-deceivers. Selective memory and selective attention alongside biased judgments of others’ activities reinforce the self-deceiver’s sense of superiority. Next, the pervasiveness of excusing tactics in an akratic self-deceiver’s lifestyle is evidenced by the almost automatic tendency to supply an excuse for any situation. This activity is reinforced by another tactic similar in kind, the “self-presentation feedback loop” (Jones, 89). In the loop, self-deceivers persuade others of their own superiority, and once this fact is accepted, the feedback of others reinforces the self-deceivers original feelings of superiority (with the initial deception conveniently forgotten). These four tactics embed the vice of evasive self-deception in the character of the self-deceiver such that all the activities of self-deception reinforce one another and destroy the materials by which one maintains certain praiseworthy virtues (Jones, 90).

The debate over culpability in regards to the Holocaust often centers on the claim by many Germans that they were ignorant of the systematic killing of Jews as part of the Final Solution. While it would be unfair to make sweeping generalizations, the majority of historical evidence points to the exact opposite conclusion. Rather, it is precisely the prevalence of evasive

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