An epistemic defense of news abstinence

Item Type

Language

English

Abstract

If we have reason to believe that by following the news, we acquire more false beliefs than true ones or we acquire true but irrelevant beliefs, then we may be justified in taking a newsbreak. We are propositionally justified in temporarily ignoring the news either in a domain or from a source if (i) we are in a fake news environment or are justified in believing that we are, and (ii) it is cognitively difficult or time consuming to discriminate genuine from fake news or to obtain genuine news. The defense of news abstinence rests either on reliabilism about justification or the defeasibility theory. When reliabilism is combined with epistemic consequentialism, news abstinence in a fake news environment is not only epistemically permitted but also epistemically required. © Sven Bernecker 2021.

Subject

Motivated ignorance
Blinding
Coverage reliability
Epistemic consequentialism
Epistemic value
Fake news environment

Publication Title

Publication Year

2021

Publication Date

2021

Source

Scopus

License

ISBN

978-0-19-886397-7

Physical Description

pp. 286-309

Citer cette ressource

An epistemic defense of news abstinence, dans Science & Ignorance, consulté le 21 Novembre 2024, https://ignorancestudies.inist.fr/s/science-ignorance/item/4765

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