Abstract
Misinformation in various guises has become a significant concern in contemporary society and it has been implicated in several high-impact political events over the past years, including Brexit, the 2016 American elections, and bungled policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in some countries. In this paper, I draw on resources from contemporary social epistemology to clarify why and how misinformation is epistemically bad. I argue that its negative effects extend far beyond the obvious ones of duping individuals with false or misleading beliefs. Misinformation has systemic effects on our information environments, making all of us worse off, including the epistemically vigilant. This paper does not offer measures or policies to fight misinformation, but aims to contribute to the prior goal of better understanding what’s bad about misinformation. In doing so, it lays the groundwork for ameliorative projects.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2956-2978 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Inquiry (United Kingdom) |
| Volume | 67 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| Early online date | 16 Nov 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2024 |
Funding
Thanks to Ren\u00E9 van Woudenberg, Rik Peels, Chris Ranalli, Catarina Dutilh Novaes, Thirza Lagewaard, Coos Engelsma, Tamer Nawar, Michael Hannon, Katherine Dormandy, Christoph Jaeger, and audiences at the ILLC in Amsterdam, the Department of Philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, the 2017 DHEPCAT Workshop in Amsterdam, the 2017 OZSW Conference in Utrecht, and the 2017 Epistemic Justification workshop in Groningen for helpful questions and discussion about earlier versions of this paper. Special thanks to an anonymous reviewer of this journal for some very helpful and constructive comments. Research for the paper was made possible through a Vidi grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO, project 276-20-024).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| NWO | 276-20-024 |