Ethics and Conspiracy Theories

Why is conspiracy theorizing morally problematic? It is commonly known that conspiracy the­ories can produce and have produced socially undesirable consequences. As argued by Karen Douglas and others, when a conspiracy theory gets publicity, some people usually start to believe in it and that in turn can influence their behavior (Douglas and Sutton 2015).

However, it is important to notice that not all conspiracy theories “fuel violence” (Sunstein 2014, 32) or are otherwise immediately dangerous. Claims such as “Shakespeare was somebody else” and “the moon landing was faked” are formally speaking conspiracy theories, as they go against official narratives and refer to conspiracies, but they hardly make people kill each other. If there is something wrong in disseminating these claims as facts although the relevant epi­stemic authorities deny them, it is not their immediate fatal effects.⁵ It seems that the question is of sowing doubt.

It has often been said that conspiracy theories “undermine democratic debate” (Sunstein and Vermeule 2009, 226), impair confidence in the information system and fact-gathering agencies, and lessen general trust in “the behavior and motivations of other people and the social institutions they constitute” (Keeley 1999, 126). There is probably some truth in this claim, although the issue seems more complicated than is usually thought. Conspiracy theories belong to democratic debate. They may make the relevant epistemic authorities improve and clarify the “official” explanations of political events or, in any case, remind us of the grounds of the received explanations. Obviously, a single conspiracy theory does not undermine democ­racy or cause epistemic or social distrust. Brian L. Keeley (1999, 126; 2003, 105) has argued that accepting a conspiracy theory leads to the situation in which a conspiracy theorist must make “claims of larger and larger conspiracies” and is thus driven to “pervasive skepticism of people and public institutions” — at least when the evidence for a theory fails to obtain and the believer wants to hold onto the view. Keeley seems to exaggerate, however. Most conspiracy theories do not begin with global social skepticism nor do they end with it. Typical conspiracy theories concern a relatively small group of people, and the alleged conspirators are often even named. The “Everyone is involved!” move is very rare.

It is important to notice that hundreds of conspiracy theories have been around for decades, including theories that “the Pearl Harbor attack wasn’t a surprise” and “Kennedy’s murderer didn’t act alone.” Millions of people have believed and do believe in these and similar theories (Aaronovitch 2010). Still, until recently, the epistemic and social trust in major institutions (such as mainstream media, official bodies, and academia) has been at a reasonably high level for instance in the U.S. and Western Europe — in comparison to many badly corrupted countries where people find it completely irrelevant what major newspapers and national or local author­ities say about this and that (cf.

However, conspiracy theories can be problematic just because they move us closer to the society where people have cynical distrust in public institutions and authorities. In such societies people are unable to make rational long-term plans and reasonable investments, for example. The information problem in totalitarian and badly corrupted countries is not that the authorities and fact-gathering institutions always provide false information. The problem is that it is almost impossible to know whether the information provided is false or not, and people cannot take a default stance that information is trustworthy, that is, reliable and sincerely presented. Thus they cannot make the decisions concerning the proper course of action by presuming that the infor­mation provided is probably correct (cf Govier 1997; Ullmann-Margalit 2004; Welch 2013). Conspiracy theories are steps that actively further our way to a society where people do not trust. By manifesting distrust, conspiracy theories undermine the grounds of the default stance that institutions and information provided by them are trustworthy. A dissemination of a single conspiracy theory is of course only a small step, but it is a step. Taken together, conspiracy the­ories form a threat to the presumption of trustworthiness, although, in fact, there are no grounds for a general suspicion (as there are in totalitarian societies).⁷ Conspiracy theories are therefore morally problematic, whether or not some of them may turn out to be true — which is unlikely.⁸

In fact, conspiracy theories seem to be more problematic than other forms of sowing confusion and doubt. As opposed to science denialism or creationism, for instance, conspiracy theories tend to involve libels and false accusations that surely raise moral questions (Raikka 2014, 80). We could say that by conspiracy theorizing a bad thing is realized in a particularly bad way, that is, through libels and accusations against innocent people.⁹ Some conspiracy theories, such as the one that claims that “Nobody Died at Sandy Hook” school shooting tragedy, show no con­cern for the feelings of the victims’ family members (Fetzer and Palecek 2015).

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