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What's Epistemically Wrong with Conspiracy Theorising?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2018

Keith Harris
Keith Harris*
Affiliation:
University of Missouri
*
krh396@mail.missouri.edu
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Abstract

Belief in conspiracy theories is often taken to be a paradigm of epistemic irrationality. Yet, as I argue in the first half of this paper, standard criticisms of conspiracy theorising fail to demonstrate that the practice is invariably irrational. Perhaps for this reason, many scholars have taken a relatively charitable attitude toward conspiracy theorists and conspiracy theorising in recent years. Still, it would be a mistake to conclude from the defence of conspiracy theorising offered here that belief in conspiracy theories is on an epistemic par with belief in other theories. I argue that a range of epistemic errors are pervasive among conspiracy theorists. First, the refusal of conspiracy theorists to accept the official account of some target event often seems to be due to the exercise of a probabilistic, and fallacious, extension of modus tollens. Additionally, conspiracy theorists tend to be inconsistent in their intellectual attention insofar as the effort they expend on uncovering the truth excludes attention to their own capacities for biased or otherwise erroneous reasoning. Finally, the scepticism with which conspiracy theorists tend to view common sources of information leaves little room for conspiracy theorists to attain positive warrant for their preferred explanations of target events.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 84: Harms and Wrongs in Epistemic Practice , November 2018 , pp. 235 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2018 

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References

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47 Feldman raises a similar objection to what she calls ‘counterfact conspiracy theories’ in her ‘Counterfact Conspiracy Theories’, 20.

48 I am deeply indebted to the participants of the 2017 Harms and Wrongs in Epistemic Practice conference for their invaluable feedback on an early version of this paper. I owe additional thanks to the conference organizers and an anonymous referee for their thoughtful comments on later versions.