Over the last few years I feel as though I have seen an increase in the number of news outlets and reporters saying that we now live in a post-truth society. The argument is that truth and accuracy no longer matter to many people, and that we live in a world where people simply want to believe what they want to believe, regardless of the evidence. This argument is supported by documented instances of fake news, by a former US president who didn’t seem to care what the truth was, and by politicians and every day people professing beliefs that are clearly inaccurate as a type of loyalty test. This puts us in a position where it becomes difficult to communicate important information and create a coherent narrative based on accurate details surrounding the events of our lives.
Two concepts that Quassim Cassam discusses in his book Vices of the Mind can help us think about what it means to be in a post-truth society. Cassam writes, “one can be epistemically malevolent without being epistemically insouciant.” To me, it seems that a post-truth society depends on both malevolency and insouciance to exist. I find it helpful to see that there is a distinction in these two different postures toward knowledge.
To be epistemically malevolent means to intentionally and deliberately attempt to hinder and limit knowledge. Cassam uses the example of tobacco companies deliberately misleading the public on the dangers of smoking. Company executives intentionally made efforts to hide accurate scientific information and to mislead the public. In recent years we have seen epistemic malevolence in the form of fake-news, misinformation, and disinformation intended to harm political opponents and discourage voter turnout for opposing political parties.
Epistemic insouciance doesn’t necessarily have a malicious intent behind it. Instead, it is characterized by an indifference to the accuracy of information. You don’t need an intentional desire to spread false information in order to be epistemically insouciant. However, this careless attitude toward the accuracy of information is in some ways necessary for false information to take hold. Individuals who care whether their knowledge and statements are correct are less likely to be pulled in by the epistemically malevolent, and less likely to spread their messages. However, someone who favors what the epistemically malevolent have to say and is unwilling to be critical of the message are more likely to engage with such false messaging and to echo and spread malevolent lies. Even if an individual doesn’t want to be intentionally misleading, insouciance plays into malevolence.
This helps us see that our post-truth society will need to be addressed on two fronts. First, we need to understand why people are epistemically insouciant and find ways to encourage people to be more concerned with the accuracy and factuality of their statements and beliefs. External nudges, social pressures, and other feedback should be developed to promote factual statements and to hinder epistemic insouciance. This is crucial to getting people to both recognize and denounce epistemic malevolency. Once people care about the accuracy of their beliefs and statements, we can increase the costs of deliberately spreading false information. As things exist now, epistemic insouciance encourages epistemic malevolency. Combating epistemic malevolency will require that we address epistemic insouciance and then turn our attention to stopping the spread of deliberate falsehoods and fake news.
