Research on conspiracy theories has proliferated since 2016, in part due to the US election of President Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasingly threatening environmental conditions. In the rush to publication given these concerning social consequences, researchers have increasingly treated as definitive a 2016 paper by Michael Wood (Political Psychology, 37(5), 695–705, 2016) that concludes that the phrase “conspiracy theory” has no negative effect upon people’s willingness to endorse a claim. We revisit Wood’s findings and its (re)uptake in the recent (...) literature. Is the label “conspiracy theory” a pejorative? If so, does it sway or affect people’s belief in specific claims of conspiracy (i.e. particular conspiracy theories), or is the effect one that concerns claims of conspiracy more generally (i.e. all conspiracy theories)? Through an examination of the conceptual and methodological scope of Wood’s work and the results of our similar quasi-experimental design, we argue that it is premature to suggest the label “conspiracy theory” has no impact on the believability of a claim, or that it has no rhetorical power. (shrink)

Conspiracy theorizing can sometimes have regrettable features that speak for suppressing it. Yet, given that an adequately knowledgeable citizenry is a prerequisite of a healthy democracy, the public should be informed about politically important events, including political conspiracies. In this article, I focus on the relationship between informing citizens about political conspiracies and the kind of conspiracy theorizing that arguably should be suppressed. More precisely, I maintain that informing citizens about political conspiracies threatens to lead to the kind of conspiracy (...) theorizing there is reason to suppress, and I examine how the potential drawback ought to be dealt with. I propose that informing citizens about political conspiracies should both proceed in light of pertinent research on conspiracy theorizing and pay heed to adequate knowledge about the circumstances in which conspiracies are publicized. (shrink)

There has been much interest in conspiracy theories (CTs) amongst philosophers in recent years. The aim of this paper will be to apply some of the philosophical research to issues in political theory. I will first provide an overview of some of the philosophical discussions about CTs. While acknowledging that particularism is currently the dominant position in the literature, I will contend that the ‘undue scepticism problem’, a modified version of an argument put forward by Brian Keeley, is an important (...) general objection to many CTs. This in turn leads to some substantial conclusions for liberal political philosophy, as the undue scepticism problem sets up a strong argument against non-liberal alternatives to liberal thought. I shall argue that we are justified in having far more doubt about the reliability of official sources in non-liberal societies, and it is legitimate to be more sceptical about claims designed to bolster non-liberal politics. Moreover, because scepticism is often more warranted in non-liberal societies, this may provide the possibility for the state to be stable, even if it is highly tyrannical or ineffective. These considerations are not intended to be decisive, but raise unresolved questions about the viability of non-liberal politics. (shrink)

Conspiracy theories are frequently described as a threat to democracy and conspiracy theorists portrayed as epistemically or morally unreasonable. If these characterizations are correct, then it may be the case that reasons stemming from conspiracy theorizing threaten the legitimizing function of democratic deliberation. In this paper, I will argue the opposite. Despite the extraordinary epistemic and morally unreasonable claims made by some conspiracy theorists, belief in conspiracy theories is guided by internal epistemic norms inherent in believing. By utilizing the insights (...) of the Peircean epistemic defense formulated by Cheryl Misak and Robert Talisse, I take it that these epistemic norms implicitly commit the theorist to an open democratic society. (shrink)

A remarkable feature of the philosophical work on conspiracy theory theory has been that most philosophers agree there is nothing inherently problematic about conspiracy theories (AKA the thesis of particularism). Recent work, however, has challenged this consensus view, arguing that there really is something epistemically wrong with conspiracy theorising (AKA generalism). Are particularism and generalism incompatible? By looking at just how much particularists and generalists might have to give away to make their theoretical viewpoints compatible, I will argue that particularists (...) can accept many of the concerns that motivate generalism because generalism can never be about ‘all’ conspiracy theories without being either ahistorical or apolitical. In the end generalist critiques are best seen as useful guidelines or considerations for the appraising of particular conspiracy theories. (shrink)

Napolitano (2021) argues that the Minimalist Account of conspiracy theories—i.e., which defines conspiracy theories as explanations, or theories, about conspiracies—should be rejected. Instead, she proposes to define conspiracy theories as a certain kind of belief—i.e., an evidentially self-insulated belief in a conspiracy. Napolitano argues that her account should be favored over the Minimalist Account based on two considerations: ordinary language intuitions and theoretical fruitfulness. I show how Napolitano’s account fails its own purposes with respect to these two considerations and so (...) should not be favored over the Minimalist Account. Furthermore, I propose that the Minimalist Account is the best conception of ‘conspiracy theory’ if we share Napolitano’s goal of advancing the understanding of conspiracy theories. (shrink)

This paper develops a new kind of approach to conspiracy theories – a procedural approach. This approach promises to establish that belief in conspiracy theories is rationally criticisable in general. Unlike most philosophical approaches, a procedural approach does not purport to condemn conspiracy theorists directly on the basis of features of their theories. Instead, it focuses on the patterns of thought involved in forming and sustaining belief in such theories. Yet, unlike psychological approaches, a procedural approach provides a rational critique (...) of conspiracist thought patterns. In particular, it criticises these thought patterns for failing to conform to procedures prescribed by reason. The specific procedural approach that I develop takes its cue from the Kantian notion that reason must be used self-critically. I tentatively suggest that conspiracy theorists fail to engage in the relevant sort of self-critique in at least three ways: they do not critically examine their own motivations, they avoid looking at matters from the point of view of others, and they fail to reflect on the limits of human knowledge. (shrink)

In conspiracy theory philosophy the primary debate has been epistemic, but the concern is now also shifting to the ethical and political implications of taking conspiracy theories seriously. This shift is epitomized in the work of Quassim Cassam, whose focus has moved away from the epistemic faults of the theories and theorists to the political function of conspiracy theories. This function, he argues, is to ‘express and promote an ideology’, specifically, racist, antisemitic, and extremist ideology. In this essay, I will (...) challenge two of Cassam’s assumptions. First, I will disagree with his claim that racist conspiracy theories ought to be treated dismissively as a class. This is due in part to the difficulties in defining racist conspiracy theories and due in part to what I call the Conspiracy Theory Location Problem, which is the challenge of identifying what constitutes ‘the theory’. In response, I suggest we need to be even more particularistic about ‘instances’ of a theory. Second, I disagree that the only function of conspiracy theories is to promote racist ideology. Instead, I argue that there exists a class of antiracist conspiracy theories that resist white supremacy by uncovering racist conspiracies and challenging racist institutions, systems, and ideologies. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 9, Page 1226-1246, November 2022. In this study, we claim that political liberalism, despite harsh criticism, is still the best option available for providing a just and stable society. However, we maintain that political liberalism needs to be revised so as to be justifiable from the perspective of not only the “reasonable” in a Rawlsian sense but also the ones whom Rawls labels as “unreasonable.” To support our claim, going beyond Rawls’s original account, (...) we unpack the concept of unreasonableness and identify three different subsets that we label as the “partially reasonable,” the “non-reasonable,” and the “unreasonable.” We argue that both the “fully” reasonable and the “partially reasonable” would be included into the constituency of public justification; more specifically, we claim that the latter would support liberal institutions out of their reasons: we define these reasons as mutually intelligible reasons and claim that they allow to acknowledge the importance of a convergence approach to public justification. As for the “non-reasonable” and “unreasonable,” we claim that they cannot be included in the constituency of public justification, but they nonetheless could be compliant with liberal institutions if political liberalism offers them some reasons to comply: here, we claim that political liberalism should include them through engagement and propose reasoning from conjecture as an effecting way of offering reasons for compliance. In particular, we claim that through reasoning from conjecture, the “non-reasonable” could find conciliatory reasons to comply with liberal institutions on a stable base. With regard to the “unreasonable” in the strict sense, we claim that through reasoning from conjecture, their unreasonableness could be contained and they could find reasons—even if just self-interested—for complying with liberal institutions rather than defying them. In our discussion, we consider the different subsets not as “frozen” but as dynamic and open to change, and we aim to propose a more complex and multilayered approach to inclusion that would be able to include a wider set of people. To strengthen our argument, we show that the need for a wider public justification and for broader inclusion in liberal societies is grounded in respect for persons both as equal persons and as particular individuals. In particular, we claim that individuals’ values, ends, commitments, and affiliations activate demands of respect and can strengthen the commitment to the liberal–democratic order. Through a reformulation of the role of respect in liberal societies, we also show a kind of social and communitarian dimension that, we claim, is fully compatible with political liberalism and opens it up to “civic friendship” and “social solidarity,” which are constitutive elements for the development of a sense of justice and for the realization of a just and stable society. (shrink)