Veritas Aequitas
Lie = to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
Generally a person cannot lie to oneself, but to nit-pick ..
There are many layers of selves within a human system.
Example, the empirical self, the intellectual self, the conscious self, the unconscious self, the rational self, intuitive self, the primal self.
Note the case of multiple personalities disorder where a person has many selves.
When the primal self triggers a fact of hunger, the intellectual and reason self can tell itself itself there is no real hunger. As such the intellectual/rational is lying to deceive the primal self so that one is not driven to eat obsessively to the dangerous level of obesity leading to the threat of death.
There are of such situation as above involving the interaction within the various selves within a person.
In the case of multiple personalities disorder, one personality can lie to another personality, thus overall, one is lying to oneself.
The idea that there is more than one self is intriguing. But most of these you mention, the rational self, the intuitive self and so on, are within the visible boundaries of self awareness. To be an empirical self, for example, there are not secrets here as all one has to do to summon forth this self is think empirically, observe the sensible world and consider it in one way or another. But this does not establish a difference awareness, only content. Hence, to think one's empirical self can lie to one's rational self begs the question: Wherein lies the capacity to make the lie work AS a lie?
But the unconscious and the conscious: these show the essential difference, but still, the most important assumption begs the most important question: what IS a self? Can a self be divided such that it remains a self, integrated so that lies to oneself can be lies, yet the self AS a self is not undone. If, after all, one has a truly divided self and no enduring unity is there to sustain, then one cannot lie to oneself, for the two are not the same and the basis for positing a single self is lost.
There must be an abiding self AND a division within that allows for a self deception. The answer, I believe, lies within the break in the single conscious event, as it must, for it is this singularity that the one must be two, and one of the two hidden.
Good luck with this. The only way this can work is if you argue for a concept of self that is divisible, a kind of fractal self: I am a husband, a teacher, a fisherman, a......whatever. This is actually a VERY defensible idea, much more so than some kind of abiding soul would be, for the evidence that rises out of analysis of the self does not "show" the presence of any unity. Indeed, the self itself looks to be a concept we have, as is the case in all things, and concepts are working ideas in our heads, to be pushed around in thought, in metaphor, in irony, in various
contextual ways; so if the self is a concept, it finds itself among concepts, and the principle of unity it is supposed to exhibit in actuality is just a way of presenting oneself AS a singularity with no genuine unity at all, then the scene is set for lying WITHIN because these fractal parts do not have to be at peace. Infact, they often are not, which leads to mental illnesses, like neurosis, which is literally a war within. This puts things in a different light altogether, for in neurosis it is not simply a cognitive affair. It is emotional, valuative, ethical, and these put up conditions of resistance and competition WITHIN.
You can guess the rest. One feeling toned thought occludes another, repression, conflict, and conscious states become compromised.
