Calling BS: Whom and What to Believe

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

We live in a fast-paced world where we are constantly bombarded with all sorts of information at any one point in time. Much of it, unfortunately, turns out to simply be BS. Just which of these information should we actually believe, then? “The one that is true, of course!” one might be quick to say. But assessing the truth of a belief or, indeed, even the reliability and trustworthiness of our sources of information is notoriously difficult, especially in light of so-called misinformation, disinformation, and “alternative facts” floating around. Knowing which sources to trust and what to believe, then, isn’t as straightforward as it might have initially seemed. What makes the matter worse is that it seems like in many instances, we are not only in the epistemic hook for believing the wrong things, but if the wrong things that we believe in happen to weigh in on a certain moral matter, we might become appropriate targets of moral blame as well. So, how can we avoid becoming both morally and epistemically blameworthy? In this seminar, we will read recent works on a broad range of contemporary social issues that are, at their core, epistemological in nature in the hope that these readings could inch us towards a satisfactory answer to the pressing question of what we should actually believe. We begin the seminar by examining the following two fundamental questions in traditional epistemology: (i) how should one respond to disagreement with people who seem to be just as smart and well-informed as they are, and (ii) whether factors that influence one’s beliefs without any regard for truth should have a debunking effect. We will then use these concepts to explore a whole host of topics in contemporary applied epistemology including (and among others) fake news, echo chambers, distrusting scientists, implicit bias, responsibility for one’s own and others’ ignorance, and gaslighting.