Abstract
Our emotions and desires (passions) are important as representations or ‘intuitions’ of the moral and prudential good, and hence of our reasons for action. But they can be inappropriate/incorrect, and it is not easy to recognise when this is so. To secure the good life, we need to correct these passions, if possible. This form of self-improvement requires self-awareness – awareness of one’s passions and their meaning. However, social psychology, developmental psychology, and psychodynamic models of mind provide evidence that our passions are not transparent. I focus on the implications of the psychodynamic model and specifically the influence of defence mechanisms that distort our experience of the world and ourselves. I begin by identifying the weaknesses in Tiberius’s (2008) otherwise excellent account of self-awareness that result from her exclusive focus on the challenge from social psychology, and then develop a positive account of the requirements of self-awareness and, therefore, self-improvement.