Fake News, Conspiracy, and Intellectual Vice (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Development and Validation of the Epistemic Vice Scale
Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 2021
This paper presents two studies on the development and validation of a ten-item scale of epistemic vice and the relationship between epistemic vice and misinformation and fake news. Epistemic vices have been defined as character traits that interfere with acquiring, maintaining, and transmitting knowledge. Examples of epistemic vice are gullibility and indifference to knowledge. It has been hypothesized that epistemically vicious people are especially susceptible to misinformation and conspiracy theories. We conducted one exploratory and one confirmatory observational survey study on Amazon Mechanical Turk among people living in the United States (total N = 1737). We show that two psychological traits underlie the range of epistemic vices that we investigated: indifference to truth and rigidity. Indifference manifests itself in a lack of motivation to find the truth. Rigidity manifests itself in being insensitive to evidence. We develop a scale to measure epistemic vice with the subscales indifference and rigidity. The Epistemic Vice Scale is internally consistent; has good convergent, divergent, and discriminant validity; and is strongly associated with the endorsement of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Epistemic vice explains additional variance in the endorsement of misinformation and conspiracy theories over and above demographic and related psychological concepts and shows medium to large effect sizes across outcome measures. We demonstrate that epistemic vice differs from existing psychological constructs, and show that the scale can explain individual differences in dealing with misinformation and conspiracy theories. We conclude that epistemic vice might contribute to "postfactive" ways of thinking.
On the Nature of Intellectual Vice
Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2017
Vice epistemology, as Quassim Cassam understands it, is the study of the nature, identity, and significance of the epistemic vices. But what makes an intellectual vice a vice? Cassam calls his own view “Obstructivism” – intellectual vices are those traits, thinking styles, or attitudes that systematically obstruct the acquisition, retention, and transmission of knowledge. I shall argue that Cassam’s account is an improvement upon virtue-reliabilism, and that it fares better against what I call Montmarquet’s objection than its immediate rivals. Nevertheless, I contend that it does not go far enough — Montmarquet’s objection stands. I conclude that either the objection needs to be answered in some other way, or else proponents of Obstructivism need to explain why their account of the nature of the intellectual vices does not have the counterintuitive consequences it appears to have. Alternatively, another account of the nature of the intellectual vices needs to be sought.
Self ignorance and the Self elusive Nature of Intellectual Vices
The aim of this paper will be to deepen Cassam’s vice epistemology by making a case for the fundamental role of self-ignorance in intellectual character vices through an analysis of their self-disguising nature for epistemically conscientious agents. More precisely, I will show that intellectual character vices are thus rooted in, or maintain themselves through, the agent’s self-ignorance, and consequently that self-knowledge is key in identifying these vices of conscientious agents in order for them to change their vicious habits of thought and inquiry.
2022
Many assume that citizens who are more inclined to moralize the values of evidence-based and logical thinking are less likely to spread political hostility and conspiracy theories. On the basis of adaptationist approaches to morality and status-seeking, we in contrast argue that moralization of rationality can actually stimulate the spread of news hostile to political opponents. Across two large surveys (N = 3675) run on U.S. respondents (one exploratory and one pre-registered), we provide empirical evidence for this prediction and demonstrate that moralizing rationality can be used as a form of moral grandstanding by individuals inclined to status seeking and dominance to spread hostile information. In contrast to such grandstanding with respect to rationality, our studies find robust evidence that intellectual humility—i.e., the awareness that intuitions are fallible, and that trusting others is often desirable—may protect people from both sharing and believing hostile news. Those...
Vice Epistemology (Open Acess published version)
Vice epistemology is the philosophical study of the nature, identity, and epistemologi-cal significance of intellectual vices. Such vices include gullibility, dogmatism, prejudice, closed-mindedness, and negligence. These are intellectual character vices, that is, intellectual vices that are also character traits. I ask how the notion of an intellectual character vice should be understood, whether such vices exist, and how they might be epistemologically significant. The proposal is that intellectual character vices are intellectual character traits that impede effective and responsible inquiry. I argue that situa-tionist critiques of virtue epistemology pose no significant threat to this proposal. Studies by social psychologists of belief in conspiracy theories suggest that it is sometimes appropriate to explain questionable beliefs by reference to intellectual character vices. Neither 'regulative' nor 'analytic' epistemology has any good reason to question the epistemological significance of such vices.
The Monist, 2016
Vice epistemology is the philosophical study of the nature, identity, and epistemological significance of intellectual vices. Such vices include gullibility, dogmatism, prejudice, closed-mindedness, and negligence. These are intellectual character vices, that is, intellectual vices that are also character traits. I ask how the notion of an intellectual character vice should be understood, whether such vices exist, and how they might be epistemologically significant. The proposal is that intellectual character vices are intellectual character traits that impede effective and responsible inquiry. I argue that situationist critiques of virtue epistemology pose no significant threat to this proposal. Studies by social psychologists of belief in conspiracy theories suggest that it is sometimes appropriate to explain questionable beliefs by reference to intellectual character vices. Neither 'regulative' nor 'analytic' epistemology has any good reason to question the epistemological significance of such vices.
Intellectually Virtuous Education and Misinformation
Vices of the Mind: MIS/DISinformation and Other Epistemic Pathologies
The digital age has exacerbated the perennial epistemic problem posed by misinformation, as it now comes to us in a range of new guises and is amplified by social media. It is argued that at least part of the solution to this contemporary problem is at the individual level (with the other part of the solution being at the structural level). But what, exactly, is required of a good epistemic subject in dealing with misinformation? This problem is approached by considering how one would educate individuals to deal with misinformation in the digital age. It is argued that what is required is specifically educating for the integrated set of intellectual virtues that comprise virtuous intellectual character.
INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY: A SOCIETAL DEMISE
Over the past decades, a troubling trend has emerged in Sierra Leone; the use of intellectual arguments to present a one-dimensional analysis of complex issues in order to either generate support for or discredit certain political positions. It has become clear that many analysts and public intellectuals including media practioners are using their knowledge base and expertise in a spirit of intellectual dishonesty.
Vice epistemology is the philosophical study of the nature, identity, and epistemological significance of intellectual vices. Such vices include gullibility, dogmatism, prejudice, closedmindedness, and negligence. These are intellectual character vices, that is, intellectual vices that are also character traits. I ask how the notion of an intellectual character vice should be understood, whether such vices exist, and how they might be epistemologically significant.
Epistemic vice predicts acceptance of Covid-19 misinformation
Episteme, 2021
Why are mistaken beliefs about COVID-19 so prevalent? Political identity, education and other demographic variables explain only part of the differences between people in their susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation. This paper focuses on another explanation: epistemic vice. Epistemic vices are character traits that interfere with acquiring, maintaining, and transmitting knowledge. If the basic assumption of vice epistemology is right, then people with epistemic vices such as indifference to the truth or rigidity in their belief structures will tend to be more susceptible to believing COVID-19 misinformation. We carried out an observational study (US adult sample, n = 998) in which we measured the level of epistemic vice of participants using a novel Epistemic Vice Scale that captures features of the current competing analyses of epistemic vice in the literature. We also asked participants questions eliciting the extent to which they subscribe to myths and misinformation about COVID-19. We find overwhelming evidence to the effect that epistemic vice is associated with susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation. In fact, the association turns out to be stronger than with political identity, educational attainment, scores on the Cognitive Reflection Test, personality, dogmatism, and need for closure. We conclude that this offers evidence in favor of the empirical presuppositions of vice epistemology.