1. Online epistemic bubbles and online echo chambers

Nguyen (Reference Nguyen2020) distinguishes between “epistemic bubbles” and “echo chambers,” arguing that these two concepts have often been conflated in the pertinent literature. According to Nguyen, epistemic bubbles are epistemic environments in which certain intellectual options or viewpoints have been excluded, whereas echo chambers as epistemic environments in which certain viewpoints or intellectual options have been actively discredited. Both types of social epistemic structure can reinforce existing beliefs and insulate individuals from different perspectives. However, their mechanics differ; while epistemic bubbles are characterized by simple ignorance of contrary intellectual options, echo chambers involve an active distrust of such options.Footnote ³

Epistemic bubbles and echo chambers can be physical (analogue) environments or virtual (online) environments. Possible examples of analogue epistemic bubbles include isolated tribal communities that have limited exposure to differing viewpoints, and friend groups with similar worldviews who do not seek out or engage with differing opinions. Possible examples of analogue echo chambers include cults and radical political groups that routinely delegitimize and demonize all opposing ideological perspectives. In fact, Nguyen compares the formation of echo chambers to the process of cult indoctrination, claiming that in both cases, in-group members become intellectually isolated from the rest of the world, at least surrounding some topic X, by being taught to distrust outsiders.Footnote ⁴ In this article, I focus on online echo chambers and online epistemic bubbles, although the basic conceptual analysis presented here generalizes and applies to analogue versions of these epistemic environments. The decision to focus on online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles instead of analogue ones is principally due to two reasons. First, since we are spending more of our lives online, it is increasingly in the context of online environments that we are forming beliefs and shaping our epistemic profiles. Second, online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles can exist on a far larger scale than their analogue counterparts, involving millions of users worldwide.Footnote ⁵ While online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles are commonly found on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, they are not restricted to such digital platforms. Any online space where information is shared has the potential to become an echo chamber or epistemic bubble. Examples include online forums (e.g., Reddit and Quora), news blogs, video-sharing platforms, online gaming communities, online marketplaces, and review sites.

Online epistemic bubbles can be algorithmically manufactured, self-manufactured via one's own digital actions, or a combination thereof. Starting with a case of pure self-generation: a Facebook user who only adds friends who share their political perspectives will gradually curate a politically biased newsfeed that takes the shape of an online epistemic bubble through their own intentional digital actions. Oftentimes though, online epistemic bubbles are externally (and passively) generated via algorithmic means. An online epistemic bubble that is created exclusively through algorithmic personalization is synonymous with Eli Pariser's (Reference Pariser2011) concept of a filter bubble. In describing filter bubbles, Pariser says, “They [i.e., the algorithms] are prediction engines, constantly creating and refining a theory of who you are and what you'll do and want next. Together, these engines create a unique universe of information for each of us – what I've come to call a filter bubble – which fundamentally alters the way we encounter information online” (Pariser Reference Pariser2011: 9). The emergence of filter bubbles is largely a consequence of what Zuboff (Reference Zuboff2019) calls surveillance capitalism, a new type of capitalism wherein tech companies harvest surplus behavioral data from digital users to produce personality profiles (or prediction models) that are sold to advertisers and data brokers as a medium of economic transaction.

The advertising business model upon which surveillance capitalism is founded motivates tech companies to capture consumer attention as a means of optimizing the data acquisition process (Lanier Reference Lanier2018). Notably, the notion of an “attention economy” is not novel. Ad-based business models trace back to at least the 1830s and have been utilized by newspapers, talk radio stations, and broadcast television programs for decades. What is new about the online attention economy is the advent of Big Data and the development of personalization algorithms via machine-learning techniques. Older forms of media like television and radio relied upon surveys and other forms of market research like Nielsen ratings to collect data about consumer preferences. These data-acquisition methods were relatively crude because they only permitted advertisers to target consumers on a group level by appealing to the shared interests among them. By contrast, contemporary algorithmic filtering mechanisms monitor users' online behavior via their digital footprint to generate increasingly customized content that aligns with their pre-established preferences. This algorithmic process of content customization on internet platforms gives rise to “filter bubbles” in Pariser's sense of the term. Put differently, in the process of delivering customized digital content that aligns with a subject's pre-established personality profile, personalization algorithms inevitably omit certain intellectual options from a subject's newsfeed or timeline, thereby creating an online epistemic bubble.

Unlike online epistemic bubbles, online echo chambers arguably cannot passively result from algorithmic filtering mechanisms. While online echo chambers are, strictly speaking, facilitated through technological and algorithmic mediation, Nguyen explains that the formation of echo chambers often, if not always, involves an element of active human manipulation. This is because echo chambers serve as potent instruments to wield power via control over knowledge, making it likely in Nguyen's opinion that they are intentionally established and sustained to achieve this end.Footnote ⁶ Notably, Nguyen's (and by extension my own) use of the term “echo chamber” differs from Cass Sunstein's (Reference Nguyen and Lackey2001) influential conception of the term. According to Sunstein, an echo chamber is any social network in which individuals are exclusively exposed to perspectives that confirm their existing values and beliefs. This conception of the term aligns more closely with Nguyen's concept of an “epistemic bubble” than his own concept of an “echo chamber,” according to which individuals with similar views are exposed to opposing perspectives, but these perspectives are marketed to them as ludicrous and untrustworthy.

Before introducing the virtue of open-mindedness and addressing Q1 and Q2, a few qualifications are in order. First, it is not a binary matter as to whether one is a member of an online echo chamber or epistemic bubble. Many digital users gradually fall into these online environments in the sense that their beliefs and cognitive character traits are warped by their mechanics over time. Second, this article primarily concerns the conceptual relationship between online epistemic bubbles, online echo chambers, and open-mindedness, not the empirical literature surrounding such online environments. I do not take a stand on how prevalent online echo chambers or epistemic bubbles are, or which type of online environment is the most common. However, as will be briefly discussed in the next section, recent empirical research suggests that there is little evidence to support the widespread existence of online epistemic bubbles.

2. Online epistemic bubbles as a risk to open-mindedness

To repeat, this article is an exercise in applied virtue epistemology; in particular, a subfield of applied virtue epistemology called the virtue epistemology of the internet (Heersmink Reference Heersmink2018). One of the primary aims of the virtue epistemology of the internet is to ask, with respect to any given intellectual virtue X, how does online environment Y affect the development and maintenance of X and what does the virtuous manifestation of X look like in the context of Y? This article focuses on these questions in relation to open-mindedness and its operation within online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Such questions can be represented as follows:

To begin to answer Q1 and Q2, it is necessary to provide a brief conceptual analysis of open-mindedness (OM for short). Numerous conceptual analyses of open-mindedness exist in the virtue epistemology literature (Baehr Reference Baehr2011b; Fantl Reference Fantl2018; Kwong Reference Kwong2016; Riggs Reference Riggs2010). Following Heather Battaly (Reference Battaly2018b), I will choose to understand the cognitive character trait of OM as a “disposition to engage seriously with relevant intellectual options” (266) and the trait of closed-mindedness (CM for short) as “an unwillingness or inability to engage seriously with relevant intellectual options” (268).Footnote ⁷

Some important points concerning this definition need to be unpacked. First, like other intellectual virtues, such as epistemic autonomy and perseverance, OM is a cognitive character trait acquired and developed via the habitual performance of skillful intellectual actions. One-off displays of OM are thus not sufficient for possessing the disposition of OM. Further, OM is not necessarily a general psychological disposition but can also be a domain-specific disposition, meaning that the trait may be limited to a particular cognitive domain. For example, a person may be open-minded with respect to certain truths, such as the reality of climate change, but closed-minded concerning other truths, such as the reality of systemic racism. The virtue of OM also includes relevancy restrictions on intellectual options, meaning that subjects are not closed-minded if they fail to entertain and engage seriously with irrelevant intellectual options. Which intellectual options count as “relevant” for a subject is a controversial epistemological matter and will become significant later on in the paper (see Sections 3 and 5). However, there are clear-cut examples of intellectual options that most would agree are “irrelevant” in the relevant sense. For instance, a person intuitively does not lack OM if they habitually dismiss the perspective of a Nazi who denies the existence of the Holocaust or that of a conspiracy theorist who alleges that the earth is flat. These intellectual options (i.e., “The earth is flat” and “The holocaust never happened”) are taken to be absurd by all reasonable people and so can be dismissed as irrelevant.Footnote ⁸ Finally, Battaly emphasizes that being open-minded with respect to topic X entails a willingness to revise one's beliefs about X (or formulate beliefs about X in the first place).Footnote ⁹ Part of what it means to engage seriously with relevant intellectual options is to consider these options based on their merits and to be willing to revise one's beliefs in the face of persuasive counterevidence.Footnote ¹⁰

I will address Q1 first, arguing that online epistemic bubbles and online echo chambers both threaten the trait of OM, albeit in different ways and to different degrees. The term “threaten” here can be understood in at least two ways. First, online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles may lead to the deterioration of the trait of OM that is already present in a digital user's character. Second, online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles may prevent a digital user from developing OM in the first place. This speaks to the difference between online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles threatening the retention of OM versus the development of OM.

Before proceeding, it is worth flagging that, like the trait of OM, online echo chambers and online epistemic bubbles also tend to be domain-specific, meaning that they are often oriented around a particular topic or set of topics. Moreover, these online environments need not be political in nature; online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles can form around practically any topic, such as cryptocurrency, anti-vaccination, and specific diets or exercise programs. Domain-specific online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles are poised to engender domain-specific closed-mindedness. For example, a Twitter user trapped in an anti-vaccination online echo chamber may be closed-minded regarding the topic of vaccination but open-minded about a range of other topics. Other online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles, however, may be more ideologically all-encompassing, in that they are formed around various loosely related cultural and political viewpoints and identities. Ideologically all-encompassing online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles like these may engender a more general psychological disposition of closed-mindedness.

Consider first Q1 from the perspective of online epistemic bubbles. Digital users in online epistemic bubbles fail to consider relevant intellectual options simply because they have not been exposed to them. At first pass, there is a sense in which such users may be considered closed-minded given that they are unable to engage seriously with certain intellectual options (due to a lack of access to these options).Footnote ¹¹ However, the fact that someone has not been exposed to relevant intellectual options does not suggest that they would be unwilling to engage seriously with these options if they were made aware of them. It is consistent to say that subject S is open-minded with respect to perspective X on topic Y even though S has never been exposed to X. This is because the character trait of OM is a disposition, meaning that it concerns how a subject would behave under specified conditions. Thus, Sally may be disposed to engage seriously with sustainability-based arguments for nuclear power even though she has never been exposed to these arguments before because she inhabits an online epistemic bubble that omits arguments in favor of nuclear power.

This being said, one can discern how online epistemic bubbles have the capacity to undermine OM through a process that Nguyen calls bootstrapped corroboration:

To summarize, digital users who are members of online epistemic bubbles can obtain the false impression that everyone agrees with them about topic X or at least that there is more consensus on topic X than exists, which can, in turn, lead them to unjustifiably increase their epistemic confidence in their beliefs about X. This unjustified increase in epistemic confidence, in turn, poses a prima facie threat to OM. The basic line of reasoning I have in mind is as follows:

The bootstrapped corroboration argument for how online epistemic bubbles threaten open-mindedness:

The basic idea behind this argument is that the epistemic vices of intellectual arrogance and closed-mindedness often go hand in hand or are correlated with one another. One prominent account of intellectual arrogance in the virtue epistemology literature based on the limitations-owning conception of intellectual humility holds that intellectual arrogance involves a disposition to underestimate one's intellectual limitations and overestimate one's intellectual strengths (Whitcomb et al. Reference Whitcomb, Battaly, Baehr and Howard-Snyder2017). Individuals with an overinflated sense of epistemic confidence tend to underestimate their intellectual limitations. Consequently, they are in danger of cultivating the vice of intellectual arrogance according to the limitations-owning account of intellectual humility. Intellectual arrogance and closed-mindedness often hang together because people who are overly confident that their views are true are, other things being equal, more likely to dismiss relevant counterevidence that suggests their beliefs are false. Put differently, intellectually arrogant people typically think that they do not need to engage seriously with counterarguments to their position because they are convinced that they already have all the correct answers on the subject under consideration.

To be clear, the above argument concerns the conceptual relationship between online epistemic bubbles and the virtue of OM and says nothing about the empirical data surrounding online epistemic bubbles. A prominent critique of the concept of online epistemic bubbles is that there is little evidence to support their widespread existence. Most empirical research in this area suggests that people are not only frequently exposed to contrary viewpoints online, but also often seek out and engage with relevant intellectual options that contradict their pre-existing beliefs (Bakshy et al. Reference Bakshy, Messing and Adamic2015; Beam and Kosicki Reference Beam and Kosicki2014; Fletcher et al. Reference Fletcher, Cornia and Nielsen2020). Of course, the fact that digital users engage with ideological opponents on social media does not mean they are displaying open-minded behavior. If virtuous open-minded engagement were the norm online, one would expect less political polarization and more social convergence on controversial topics. Precisely the opposite is occurring, however. Studies indicate that while digital users are frequently exposed to (and engage with) opposite viewpoints in the digital realm, they are nevertheless becoming more polarized and likely to double down on pre-existing beliefs (Flaxman et al. Reference Flaxman, Goel and Rao2016; Quattrociocchi et al. Reference Quattrociocchi, Scala and Sunstein2016). While the phenomenon of increasing political polarization is overdetermined, it seems that it can be partially (if only minimally) explained by the prevalence of online echo chambers.Footnote ¹² Digital users engrossed in online echo chambers frequently engage with contrary perspectives, albeit in a manner that does not qualify as open-minded. To see how this is the case, it will be helpful to examine Q1 as it applies to online echo chambers.

3. Online echo chambers as a risk to open-mindedness

The process by which online echo chambers threaten OM is distinct from the process by which online epistemic bubbles do so. Recall that one must be disposed to engage seriously with relevant intellectual options to be open-minded. Members of online echo chambers may frequently engage with opposing views (e.g., frequently getting into political arguments on Twitter), but they do not qualify as open-minded insofar as their mode of intellectual engagement is not serious. A person's mode of intellectual engagement with an opposing viewpoint is serious and not dismissive only if the person makes a genuine attempt to understand and grapple with the merits of the opposing viewpoint and is willing to revise their beliefs about the topic under consideration. Members of online echo chambers often only engage dismissively with opposing intellectual options because they are disposed to automatically discredit such opinions. The following line of reasoning illustrates how online echo chambers threaten the cultivation and maintenance of OM.

The epistemic discrediting argument for how online echo chambers threaten open-mindedness:

The basic reasoning behind this argument is relatively straightforward. P1 is just an expression of how echo chambers function, according to Nguyen (Reference Nguyen2020), whereas P3 is an expression of Battaly's (Reference Battaly2018b) conception of OM. P2 is the connector premise, the idea being that online echo chambers dispose its members to engage dismissively with contrary intellectual options via the epistemic discrediting mechanism that characterizes these online environments. It is this epistemic discrediting mechanism that serves as the primary threat to OM in online echo chambers, just as it is the bootstrapped corroboration mechanism that serves as a threat to OM in online epistemic bubbles.

Before proceeding to the analysis of Q2, three clarifications are in order. First, online echo chambers pose a more significant threat to OM than online epistemic bubbles, other things being equal. This is because the “epistemic discrediting mechanism” characteristic of echo chambers is more epistemically destructive than the “bootstrapped corroboration process” found in epistemic bubbles. It is conceivable that a full-fledged member of an online epistemic bubble might preserve their OM. Being epistemically warped by the bootstrapped corroboration process will likely inflate one's epistemic confidence on a given topic, which will in turn potentially lead to intellectual arrogance with respect to that topic but not necessarily to closed-mindedness. By contrast, someone who is heavily influenced by an echo chamber's discrediting mechanism seems significantly likely (if not determined) to become closed-minded. Indeed, it is arguably the case that part of what it means to be a full-fledged member of an echo chamber is to be closed-minded to outside perspectives (at least within a given domain of knowledge).

The second clarification regards the order of causation between being a member of these online environments and possessing the disposition of closed-mindedness. Sometimes individuals who are already closed-minded gravitate toward echo chambers and epistemic bubbles, meaning that their participation in these environments is a result of their existing disposition, not the other way around. For example, a politically radical digital user who possesses a disposition to engage dismissively with contrary ideological options might join an online echo chamber for this reason, or a digital user who displays an unwillingness to engage at all with contrary ideological options might construct an online epistemic bubble for themselves, so they do not have to ever encounter other perspectives.Footnote ¹³

Moving on to the third (and most important) clarification: the question of whether any given subject Y, who is trapped in an online echo chamber or epistemic bubble surrounding topic X, is closed-minded concerning topic X is complicated and contextually nuanced. Consider what Nguyen calls the escape responsibility question, which asks how responsible (or blameworthy) people are for becoming members of echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Nguyen professes that some people are undoubtedly responsible for their immersion in such environments, giving the example of a person who, despite growing up in an epistemic environment that contains a diverse and reliable array of informational sources and perspectives, nevertheless chooses to enter an echo chamber or epistemic bubble of their own volition, because they find a sense of community and emotional comfort in the echo chamber.Footnote ¹⁴ The escape responsibility question becomes more complicated, according to Nguyen, when one considers a person raised in an echo chamber who, through no fault of their own, adopts the beliefs and ideology of the in-group members. He asks us to imagine that “their earliest epistemic contacts – let's say their parents, relatives, and close family friends – are all firmly committed members of the echo chamber. Suppose that the child is either home-schooled by those echo chamber members or sent to a school that reinforces the beliefs of that particular echo chamber” (Nguyen Reference Nguyen2020: 154). Nguyen maintains that such a person is plausibly not responsible for their psychological disposition to discredit intellectual options that contradict the beliefs of their in-group ideology.Footnote ¹⁵

I submit that such a person is not necessarily closed-minded if epistemic internalism is true. Epistemic internalism versus epistemic externalism is a central distinction in contemporary analytic epistemology that concerns the nature and grounds of epistemic justification, which is typically seen as a necessary condition for knowledge.Footnote ¹⁶ However, the internalist/externalist distinction can also be used to delineate two differing views regarding relevancy restrictions on intellectual options. Recall that being open-minded involves engaging seriously with relevant intellectual options. Battaly (Reference Battaly2018b) asserts that an intellectual option X counts as relevant on epistemic internalism if a subject has good reason to believe that X is true (or at least plausible) and irrelevant if a subject has good reason to believe that X is false (or at least implausible). Call this the internalist condition on relevancy restrictions. In contrast, the externalist condition on relevancy restrictions claims that an intellectual option X counts as relevant if X is objectively likely to be true and irrelevant if X is objectively likely to be false (Battaly Reference Battaly2018b).

Now envision a person raised in an anti-climate change online echo chamber named Cindy who, due to her education and epistemic upbringing, is disposed to automatically discredit any intellectual options that speak in favor of climate change. Assume further for the sake of argument that Cindy stood no reasonable chance of not being indoctrinated into the anti-climate change echo chamber because she was born into it and intellectually shaped by it. Given the veracity of the internalist condition, pro-climate change intellectual options can be genuinely deemed irrelevant from Cindy's perspective. If this is the case, and CM consists in an unwillingness to engage seriously with relevant intellectual options, then Cindy's unwillingness to engage seriously with pro-climate change intellectual options does not render her closed-minded.

However, even if the internalist condition about relevancy restrictions is true, and Cindy's mode of engagement surrounding the topic of climate change does not count as viciously CM, she still does not possess the virtue of OM insofar as (i) virtue requires responsibility and (ii) virtue requires epistemic reliability. Regarding (i): if the theory of virtue responsibilism is true (Zagzebski Reference Zagzebski1996), then Cindy cannot be regarded as intellectually virtuous to the extent that she is not responsible for her beliefs and intellectual character traits.Footnote ¹⁷ Regarding (ii): if a cognitive trait must reliably produce good epistemic effects (i.e., be truth-conducive) to count as a virtue, as is the case according to virtue reliabilism (Sosa Reference Sosa2007) and some versions of virtue responsibilism (Zagzebski Reference Zagzebski1996), then Cindy's behavior cannot be regarded as intellectually virtuous to the extent that she reliably spreads falsehoods about climate change on the internet.

Notably, this third clarification concerning it being contextually nuanced whether a person's dismissive engagement with certain intellectual options counts as closed-minded holds true with respect to any view of relevancy restrictions and is not exclusive to the internalist condition. It is the case that Cindy's mode of dismissive engagement with pro-climate change intellectual options is closed-minded from the perspective of the externalist condition about relevancy restrictions. However, consider the following alternative example of a digital user named Michael who is raised in a pro-climate change online echo chamber. Such an online environment is an example of a truth-conducive echo chamber because it is permeated by largely true and reliable intellectual options. Suppose that being a member of this truth-conducive environment has disposed Michael to epistemically discredit (and engage dismissively with) any intellectual options that speak against climate change. Since CM consists in an unwillingness to engage seriously with relevant intellectual options, and anti-climate change intellectual options are genuinely irrelevant according to the externalist condition about relevancy restrictions given that they are objectively likely to be false, Michael's unwillingness to engage seriously with anti-climate change intellectual options does not render him closed-minded from the standpoint of the externalist condition (see Section 5 for more on the case of Michael).

To summarize my conceptual analysis in response to Q1: I presented and explained the bootstrapped corroboration argument and the epistemic discrediting argument, which illustrate how epistemic bubbles and echo chambers threaten OM by fostering a disposition to engage dismissively with contrary intellectual options. Then, I made three important clarifications. First, online echo chambers exhibit a higher propensity toward fostering CM compared to online epistemic bubbles. Second, while online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles can induce CM in their members, it is also possible that a digital user may join these online spaces due to pre-existing closed-mindedness. Third, the question of whether any given instance of dismissive intellectual engagement in an online echo chamber or epistemic bubble qualifies as closed-minded is contextually nuanced and highly dependent on one's viewpoint regarding relevancy restrictions on intellectual options.

4. Is it always virtuous to be open-minded in the context of online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles?

Thus far, this article has considered how online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles are poised to affect the cultivation and perseveration of a subject's open-mindedness. A different question that arises when contemplating the conceptual connection between these online environments and OM concerns how virtuous digital users should behave in the context of online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles:

Q2 is intriguing because it raises the possibility that open-mindedness is not always an intellectual virtue. The notion that a subject can possess a cognitive character trait like OM without that trait being a virtue represents an approach to virtue epistemology that Ian Kidd (Reference Kidd, Kidd, Cassam and Battaly2020) calls normative contextualism. Normative contextualism mandates thinking about cognitive character traits as epistemically neutral and then reflecting upon what is required to transform these traits into virtues. According to normative contextualism, a given cognitive character trait X can be both virtuous and vicious, depending on the context in which it is deployed.

The normative contextualist question of whether the character trait of OM is always a virtue is related to, but not necessarily synonymous with, the debate over whether OM is always truth-conducive (Carter and Gordon Reference Carter and Gordon2014; Kwong Reference Kwong2017; Madison Reference Madison2019). The theory of virtue-reliabilism says a cognitive character trait is virtuous only if it is truth-conducive. The reasoning in this section largely embodies a virtue-reliabilist perspective. As will be seen, Battaly (Reference Battaly, Hannon and de Ridder2021) frames her argument in reliabilist terms. While Nguyen (Reference Nguyen2020) does not take explicitly endorse any particular theory of virtue epistemology, his argument upholds that an excess of OM is truth-conducive for epistemically corrupted digital users trying to escape online echo chambers. Thus, this section effectively maintains that OM is not always a virtue because it is not always truth-conducive. Both CM and an excess of OM can also be truth-conducive in the context of online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles.

This section addresses Q2 specifically through the lens of epistemically hostile online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Epistemically hostile online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles are examples of what Battaly (Reference Battaly2018b) calls “epistemically hostile environments,” or environments that are “utterly saturated with intellectual options that are false, unreliable, or aimed at misdirection” (39). Echo chambers and epistemic bubbles are epistemically hostile environments if the actively discredited or omitted intellectual options are largely true and reliable. Online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles qualify as epistemically hostile if they are saturated with digital deception in the form of fake news articles, photoshopped images, computational propaganda, deepfake videos, etc. For example, the anti-climate change online echo chamber that Cindy inhabits is an epistemically hostile environment because it is permeated by fake (or at least misleading) news on the topic of climate change.

Not all online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles are epistemically hostile. As mentioned in the last section, it is possible for these epistemic environments to be truth-conducive in the sense that members of the online environment have largely true beliefs about the topic under consideration. This is seen in the case of Michael, who inhabits a pro-climate change online echo chamber in which the actively discredited voices are mainly false and unreliable (i.e., climate change deniers). In this section, I am solely concerned with epistemically hostile online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles rather than truth-conducive ones.Footnote ¹⁸

I propose that what intellectual virtue entails in the context of epistemically hostile online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles is contingent upon whether these online environments have epistemically corrupted the digital user in question (i.e., whether the digital user is a member of the online environment).Footnote ¹⁹ Battaly (Reference Battaly, Hannon and de Ridder2021) addresses Q2 from the perspective of a knowledge-possessing digital user who has not been epistemically corrupted by the online environment and is trying to navigate the polluted information space responsibly. Her argument pertains to a general epistemic predicament that she calls “polluted feed” (i.e., any social media feed that contains largely false and unreliable intellectual options), which includes both epistemically hostile online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles.

Drawing on the work of various epistemologists (Fantl Reference Fantl2018; Levy Reference Levy2018, Reference Levy2019; McIntyre Reference Mcintyre2018; Rini Reference Rini2017), Battaly's basic contention is that closed-mindedness functions as a reliabilist virtue (or what she calls an effects-virtue) for knowledge-possessing digital users because engaging closed-mindedly in epistemically hostile online environments is likely to produce better epistemic effects than engaging open-mindedly or failing to engage at all intellectually.Footnote ²⁰ Doing nothing, or simply letting fake news and information pollution spread online without any resistance or counter-engagement, is epistemically bad, according to Battaly, because it will lead to the inculcation of false beliefs among many digital users, or at the very least, will cause digital users to doubt their true beliefs, resulting in a loss of knowledge (McIntyre Reference Mcintyre2018). However, this does not mean that the intellectually virtuous action is to engage open-mindedly with purveyors of information pollution and fake news online. Battaly offers several reasons to support the idea that engaging open-mindedly in epistemically hostile environments will not lead to a preponderance of good epistemic effects or at least a minimization of epistemic harm.

First, engaging open-mindedly with purveyors of fake news arguably does an epistemic disservice to third-party observers of the online interaction who have not yet made up their minds about the topic. This is because such open-minded engagement involves attributing a credibility excess to purveyors of fake news by creating the false impression (to ignorant outsiders at least) that they (e.g., climate change deniers) are experts on the relevant topic that are worth being taken seriously (Levy Reference Levy2018, Reference Levy2019). Second, OM engagement can lead to poor epistemic outcomes for the knowledge-possessing digital user. At best, according to Battaly, the open-minded digital user will amass epistemic opportunity costs by wasting time engaging with purveyors of fake news and “crackpot conspiracy theorists” instead of pursuing more valuable intellectual pursuits. At worst, the open-minded digital user subjects themselves to epistemic corruption in the sense that they may begin to doubt their own true beliefs by engaging open-mindedly with peddlers of information pollution.

For these reasons, Battaly concludes that engaging close-mindedly in epistemically hostile online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles is intellectually virtuous behavior for knowledge-possessing digital users, where “closed-minded engagement” means dismissive (instead of “serious”) intellectual engagement.Footnote ²¹ There are two ways to pursue such virtuous closed-minded engagement, according to Battaly, both of which she claims are necessary to minimize the bad epistemic effects of online information pollution. First, digital users might engage dismissively with the epistemically hostile intellectual options themselves. An example of this direct kind of closed-minded engagement would be a social media user who publicly rejects a viral fake news story by commenting with a link that debunks it. Second, digital users might avoid engaging directly with the epistemically hostile intellectual options, and instead choose to engage with other elements of the epistemic environment in an effort to counteract such options. An example of this indirect kind of closed-minded engagement would be a social media user who reports a viral fake news story with the intention of getting it flagged as being misinformation. In both of these cases, the knowledge-possessing social media user is engaging closed-mindedly because they are making an effort to counteract the epistemically hostile intellectual options but are not considering the options on their merits and are unwilling to revise their beliefs.Footnote ²²

Now consider Nguyen's (Reference Nguyen2020) approach to Q2. Unlike Battaly, Nguyen addresses Q2 from the perspective of a digital user who has been epistemically corrupted by an epistemically hostile online echo chamber or epistemic bubble and needs to escape. He poses what he calls the escape route question, which asks how someone escapes echo chambers and epistemic bubbles once engrossed within them. Nguyen claims that escaping online epistemic bubbles is relatively easy: all one must do is be exposed to intellectual options excluded by the bubble. However, escaping online echo chambers is a more onerous task, according to Nguyen. Consider again an epistemically hostile online echo chamber centered around climate change denialism. Suppose that members of this echo chamber deny the reality of climate change (or at least that climate change is caused by human activity) and believe that academics and climate scientists only promote climate change for personal or political gain (e.g., receiving tenure or promoting one's leftwing agenda). Exposing a member of this online echo chamber to a paper published by a famous climate scientist will not help them break free of the echo chamber but will likely only confirm their pre-existing distrust in climate scientists and feed into the discrediting narrative surrounding climate change they have been sold. In other words, encountering a paper on climate change may induce a cognitive bias known as the backfire effect, which occurs when a person's pre-existing beliefs are reinforced rather than changed by receiving information that contradicts their beliefs.Footnote ²³

Ultimately, Nguyen avers that escaping an echo chamber likely requires a social epistemic reboot, which involves temporarily suspending all of one's credentialing beliefs or beliefs about which testimonial sources are credible and trustworthy. This kind of social epistemic reboot can be likened to a less radical version of Descartes' famous method of doubt because it only mandates suspending one's credentialing beliefs instead of all their beliefs about the external world. The scope of the social epistemic reboot that one must perform will depend on the scope of the echo chamber one is trapped within. If one is trapped in a domain-specific echo chamber surrounding the topic of vaccination, then performing a social epistemic reboot will only involve temporarily suspending one's credentialing beliefs as they relate to the topic of vaccination. By contrast, if one is trapped in a more ideologically all-encompassing echo chamber, the scope of credentialing beliefs that one must temporarily suspend to successfully perform the social epistemic reboot will be wider.

Engaging in a social epistemic reboot necessitates exhibiting an excess of open-mindedness. The idea is that members of online echo chambers can break free by being equally charitable to all sources of information, meaning that they should temporarily engage seriously with all the intellectual options they encounter. But to engage seriously with all (instead of just relevant) intellectual options is precisely to possess an excess of OM. Put differently, performing a social epistemic reboot means resetting one's trust levels of information sources, which entails treating all information sources (or at least surrounding some topic X) as relevant and worthy of serious engagement.Footnote ²⁴

Nguyen's response to Q2 thus contrasts sharply with Battaly's, which maintains that a deficiency of OM (i.e., CM) functions as an intellectual virtue in the context of epistemically hostile online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Of course, Nguyen's analysis is compatible with Battaly's analysis, given that Nguyen focuses on digital users that have been epistemically corrupted by hostile online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles, whereas Battaly is concerned with knowledge-possessing digital users attempting to virtuously navigate these pernicious epistemic structures. The juxtaposition of Nguyen's (Reference Nguyen2020) and Battaly's (Reference Battaly, Hannon and de Ridder2021) respective discussions of Q2 illustrates the veracity of normative contextualism and the importance of not assuming that a cognitive character trait such as open-mindedness is necessarily an intellectual virtue regardless of the context in which it is exhibited.

Furthermore, contrasting Nguyen's and Battaly's arguments underlines a crucial nuance of normative contextualism: the term “context” is dual-faceted. While Nguyen and Battaly's arguments both pertain to the same external environment (i.e., an epistemically hostile online echo chamber) their proposed normative approaches diverge due to differing assumptions about the internal constitution of the digital user involved. This illustrates that “context,” in the framing of normative contextualism, refers not only to the external epistemic environment in which an individual operates, but also to the internal cognitive disposition of the individual themselves (e.g., what beliefs or cognitive character traits they possess).

5. The bidirectional influence of the responses to Q1 and Q2