Lies, Damn Lies, and Conspiracy Theories

Course Description

Summary

QAnon, The Big Lie, “crisis actors,” The Great Replacement, climate change denialism, and vaccine skepticism. The epistemic landscape of the early 21st century is marked, perhaps more than any other time in recent memory, by fast-spreading misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. So much so that the newsmagazine Politico recently declared: We are living in a “Golden Age” of conspiracy theories. Given the prevalence of “bad beliefs,” how do we form “good beliefs”? What does it mean to be an ethical epistemic agent? How do we figure out what is reasonable to believe? What are our responsibilities as thinkers and believers? How do we address credibility gaps in who is believed? This course is interested in these and other questions about the ethics of belief. Why does it matter? This oft-cited paraphrase from Voltaire may provide an answer: “Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities” (Questions sur les miracles, 1765.)