Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T18:02:02.260Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Can do” attitudes: Some positive illusions are not misbeliefs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2010

Owen Flanagan
Owen Flanagan
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0743. [email protected]://www.duke.edu/~ojf
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

McKay & Dennett (M&D) argue that positive illusions are a plausible candidate for a class of evolutionarily “selected for” misbeliefs. I argue (Flanagan 1991; 2007) that the class of alleged positive illusions is a hodge-podge, and that some of its members are best understood as positive attitudes, hopes, and the like, not as beliefs at all.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 6 , December 2009 , pp. 519 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aristotle, (1985) Nicomachean Ethics. trans. Irwin, T.. Hackett.Google Scholar
Flanagan, O. (1991) Varieties of moral personality: Ethics and psychological realism. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Flanagan, O. (2007) The really hard problem: Meaning and the material world. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Marcus, H. R. & Kitayama, S. (1999) Is there a universal need for positive self-regard? Psychological Review 106(4):766–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, S. E. & Brown, J. D. (1988) Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin 103(2):193–210.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed