Concluding Remarks
It is not clear that we possess any knowledge at all which is not in some way dependent on testimony. In social life, it is important to be able to make rational long-term plans and reasonable investments, and a precondition of these is that people can take a default stance that the social institutions we use in the acquisition of our beliefs are trustworthy.
Considered as a whole, conspiracy theories seem ethically problematic, as they form a threat to the presumption of trustworthiness, although there are no grounds for a general suspicion (totalitarian societies aside). Conspiracy theorists can be held collectively responsible for conspiracy theorizing. First, ordinary believers and disseminators share responsibility as they increase the risk that we fall into a society that suffers from the lack of trust — however inadvertently they act in their own networks. They share responsibility for outcome. Second, active conspiracy theorists that develop and publish conspiracy theories act jointly and get support from each other and share the attitude of distrust. Their joint action constitutes their collective responsibility. Third, active conspiracy theorists are collectively responsible for not taking action that could prevent harms that unmonitored conspiracy theorizing causes. They could prevent some harms together as a group, but they have chosen not to prevent them. In this sense they are clearly responsible collectively.I have assumed that conspiracy theories conflict with the views of the relevant epistemic authorities that we use in the formation of our beliefs. I have also assumed that we are justified in presuming trustworthiness, despite the fact that researchers can make serious mistakes and mainstream media is far from perfect, say, in terms of news coverage and reliability. We know about the failures of epistemic authorities mainly because they have produced information about the failures.
Given that the fact-gathering institutions work, generally speaking, tolerably well, conspiracy theories are implausible — although they need not be false.10 Of course, a person who would like to defend conspiracy theories can deny the distinction between conspiracy theories and conspiracy explanations, claiming that all the explanations that refer to conspiracies are “conspiracy theories,” including those supported by the epistemic authorities (Dentith 2016, 587). Such a move may have some grounds, but it would not do justice to the fact that most people do not call all the explanations that refer to conspiracies or plots “conspiracies theories.” If we want to describe conspiracy theories accurately, so that the concept reflects ordinary usage, we must distinguish between conspiracy theories and conspiracy explanations — the explanations that we know from history books and mainstream newspapers.As opposed to conspiracy explanations, conspiracy theories have a bad reputation (Husting and Orr 2007; Coady 2012, 122; Koerth-Baker 2013; Dentith 2016, 587) and deserve it, at least to some extent. Because of that, there are people who would like to deny the dissemination of the theories by law (Lavik 2016,75). Others think that the state should secretly intervene in groups that develop and publish those theories. Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule (2009, 219), for instance, have defended “a cognitive infiltration of extremist groups.” I do not think that anything as radical as these suggestions follow from the ethical problems of conspiracy theorizing. Conspiracy theories are a part of democratic civic discussion and, in principle, they can force epistemic authorities to improve and clarify the received explanations. In some cases, further investigations have started in part due to flourishing conspiracy theories and rumors. Of course, those who defend aggressive state action against conspiracy theorizing tend to claim that they are interested only in false conspiracy theories, but the problem is that it is hard to know for sure whether a particular conspiracy theory is false or not.
Although conspiracy theories are prima facie implausible, given the conflict with the relevant experts, single conspiracy theories should be evaluated on a case by case basis, by concentrating on evidence. For instance, the claim that authorities have illegally concealed some worrying information concerning vaccine research may be unlikely, but surely it deserves appropriate attention.It seems that conspiracy theories are bound to result almost any time there is a political event that shocks masses of people (cf. Olmsted 2009). But it also seems that in most cases multiagency research commissions are bound to result from such events. Their aim is to provide the official explanation and a credible alternative to conspiracy theories, although this task is seldom explicitly mentioned. An interesting question is who should be invited to participate as members of such commissions. The present practice is to leave out at least conspiracy theorists — an understandable decision indeed — but if the aim is to stop conspiracy theories and rumors, such a practice may not be the best possible.
Acknowledgments
I have benefited from the possibility of discussing the themes of this chapter with the audiences of the Philosophy Research Seminar at the University of Turku and the Philosophy Research Seminar at the University of Helsinki. I would like to thank Lee Basham, Julien Giry and Brian L. Keeley for their helpful comments. Special thanks to the editors of this volume.
Notes
1 Sometimes conspiracies get publicity surprisingly slowly even if they are revealed. Sue Curry Jansen and Brian Martin write that the NSA spying scandal (the Echelon spying system) was originally revealed many years ago, but got more publicity only in 2013: “People who study government surveillance have long been aware of Echelon and related programs, but most of the wider public was unaware until Edward Snowdens 2013 revelations” (Jansen and Martin 2015, 665).
2 The news about the Watergate conspiracy conflicted with the information provided by the Nixon administration, and the theory did not get support from any relevant epistemic authorities in the beginning.
However, as a “conspiracy theory” the Watergate theory was quite extraordinary, and there are many who would not call it with that name (at least, not any more). The developers of the theory were professionally responsible and they seem to have worked within the relevant epistemic authority (i.e. media) rather than outside and against it. In this sense, the Watergate theory brings to mind claims such as “Marco Polo never actually went to China, and he and the publisher of his book deceived people.” This claim is not commonly considered a “conspiracy theory,” although it refers to a conspiracy and conflicts or conflicted with the received anthropological view (that Polo went to China). The relevant epistemic authorities never find the conspiracy claim strikingly implausible. An example of a theory that most epistemic authorities have found strikingly implausible is a claim (supported by some biologists) that genetically modified food will soon kill millions of people, but the truth is kept secret. The question is of a conspiracy theory.3 Most of us trust in the testimony of the official investigators, but testimony leads to the acquisition of knowledge only under some circumstances — not all circumstances (cf. Lehrer 2006, 145; Foley 2001, 24). Conspiracy theorists encourage us to ask when testimony suffices for the acquisition of knowledge, and surely that is an important question. Presenting the question is not to deny that almost everything we know depends in some way or other on the testimony of others (Code 1987, 168; Coady 1992, 7; Adler 2002, 136; Fricker 2006, 225; Lackey 2011,71).
4 Conspiracy theories may resemble pseudoscience in another respect too. Some pseudoscientists (e.g. those who work for the tobacco industry) produce cultural ignorance deliberately — not merely because they are gullible and naive (cf. Hansson 2017). The same seems to be true of some conspiracy theorists. Although most conspiracy theorists are serious about their theories, it is likely that some conspiracy theories are on the market partly because of political reasons or because the responsible artists make good money by writing best-sellers about topics that are hot enough — topics such as the alleged fatal effects of genetically modified food (see e.g.
Smith 2004). At the same time the authors are able to induce doubt among people, as do some of the pseudoscientists who create fake controversies here and there.5 Of course, there are many reasons why people shun conspiracy theories and find the pejorative usage of “conspiracy theory” appropriate. One of the reasons is that conspiracy theories tend to question beliefs that are very important for people — beliefs that they want to be true. (If somebody tells you that the food you have eaten for years will probably kill you someday, you certainly hope that she is wrong, and this desire will undoubtedly help you to sustain your belief, and eventually conclude that the person who dares to question your belief must be on the wrong track.) In that sense, conspiracy theories are annoying and disturbing. (Cf. Raikka and Basham 2018.)
6 I argue that conspiracy theories undermine the reasonable and socially important presumption that the major institutions are trustworthy. But surely one of the reasons why conspiracy theories are popular in the first place is that people do not have sufficient trust in governments, the media, and academia. American culture has often been characterized as a “conspiracy culture” (Hofstadter 1966;Vankin 1991; Fenster 1991; Pipes 1997; Melley 2000; Knight 2002; Barkun 2003; Uscinski and Parent 2014), but that does not mean that trust in public institutions has totally collapsed. Of course, there are many who are worried about the present level of trust, and who also think that there may not be sufficient grounds for trust, especially when it comes to politics (see e.g. Ferguson 2017; Basham 2018). In politics, epi- stemic authorities have proven disastrously unreliable, and many have taken notice of recent history and understandably distrust the practice in which very few determine the beliefs of almost everyone else. Sheila Jasanoff (2017) writes about the “moral panics about the reliability of public knowledge.” An interesting thing is that the supporters of conspiracy theories who claim that epistemic authorities are untrustworthy seem to trust in the authorities when the authorities reveal conspiracies.
In these cases the authorities are considered perfectly trustworthy. (To say that epistemic authorities are not trustworthy corresponds to saying that institutions that are usually considered as epistemic authorities are not epi- stemic authorities.)7 My argument concerns the development, publishing, and dissemination of conspiracy theories rather than believing in them. Arguably, however, distrust (as an instance of not believing someone) can be morally problematic as such — if there is not a specific reason for it (cf. Baier 1986). As pointed out by J. L. Austin (1946), if A tells B that p and B does not believe her, A can justifiably feel insulted. Following Linda Zagzebski (2012, 124), we may want to add that A can justifiably feel insulted even “if B does believe what A tells him, but only because B possesses evidence that A is reliable” and speaks sincerely in this circumstance, and “would not have believed what A says otherwise.” (Cf. Adler 1997, 451; Hinchman 2005, 563; Moran 2006, 297; Owens 2006, 119.) Possibly, this observation gives us a further explanation why we find the distrust manifested in conspiracy theories morally problematic. We feel that usually there is no specific reason not to believe what the relevant epistemic authorities tell us, but people who believe in conspiracy theories still refuse to believe the authorities. Such distrust may look insulting, although mistrust a person differs from mistrust an institution.
8 Conspiracies are relatively common, judging from the amount of revealed conspiracies and the frequency of the revelations, but this does not imply that conspiracy theories are plausible. They are not. Conspiracy theorists rarely manage to show the existence of conspiracies that were initially denied by the epistemic authorities. Conspiracies are revealed despite conspiracy theories, not because of them. Since the relevant epistemic authorities have done their job well, and we have relied on their testimony and expertise, we know about conspiracies. Normal adult persons are generally aware that conspiracies happen and that conspiracies are as common as corruption, bribery, and nepotism.
9 A conspiracy theorist is not a person who encourages us to epistemic abstinence or agnosticism. She does not teach us not to choose our sides when the issue is unclear. On the contrary, a conspiracy theorist says that we should choose our side, namely, the side that goes against conventional wisdom and mainstream. Conspiracy theorists are not “just asking questions” and warn us, say, about the mainstream newspapers’ biased expressions and negligence of certain news items. They present positive theories. Conspiracy theorists are usually sincere — they report what they think — but often a conspiracy theorist gets motivation for conspiracy theorizing from her prejudices, say, about ethnic minorities, public health authorities, or intelligence agencies (Raikka 2009, 463).
10 Perhaps the representatives of the information-gathering institutions are sometimes insincere. According to Brian Martin (2010, 215), supporters of “dominant scientific theories sometimes attack competing, less favoured theories in ways that conflict with expectations of proper scientific behaviour.” Lee Basham (2018, 73) argues that “some conspiratorial scenarios, even if well evidenced, are too ‘toxic’ for our usual institutions of public information to disseminate to the public, or even investigate.” M. R. X. Dentith (2018, 17) thinks that “our society might look open in a way that it is not.”
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