Introduction

Political conspiracies are good examples of collective action. The plan to assassinate Roman Emperor Nero (The Pisonian Conspiracy), the 20 July plot against Adolf Hitler (Operation Valkyrie), and the plan to unleash terror attacks on the American people in order to justify a full-scale invasion of Cuba (Operation Northwoods) all included organized cooperation among the members of the plots.

As opposed to conspiracies, conspiracy theories need not be based on collective action. It would be misleading to claim that conspiracy theorizing is always a collective activity. In principle, an individual person can create and disseminate a conspiracy theory — for instance, a theory that concerns Pearl Harbor, John F. Kennedy’s murder, Princess Diana’s death, or 9/11. However, almost always conspiracy theories are closely tied to cooperation and joint action. Individual conspiracy theorists can get new ideas by listening to other conspiracy theorists. Sometimes conspiracy theorists work in groups (Olmsted 2011). When they do, conspiracy theorizing is a collective action that resembles, to some extent, actions of other groups whose members are epistemically dependent on each other and select their own members — groups as diverse as religious communities and scientific research groups. Believing in conspiracy theories should be distinguished from conspiracy theorizing. But even believing in an alleged conspiracy suggested by conspiracy theorists is social in the sense that we accept certain beliefs much more readily when we know that others have those beliefs (Fricker 2006, 225; Lackey 2011, 71).

In this chapter, I will ask why conspiracy theorists are collectively responsible for their activities. I will distinguish between (1) developers and publishers and (2) ordinary believers and disseminators of conspiracy theories. Developers and publishers are active conspiracy theorists, and their responsibility is different to that of the ordinary believers and disseminators. However, they both are “collectively” responsible, or so I argue. I will point to three different ways in which conspiracy theorists are “collectively” responsible. First, the ordinary believers and disseminators decrease the level of trust in major social institutions or, at least, increase the risk that the trust will lessen, and they share responsibility for that. Second, the active conspiracy theorists get support from each other and act in that sense jointly, sometimes even in groups. Third, the active conspiracy theorists fail to establish an organization that would guide its members along the lines of investigative journalists, or some other group that has its own principles — although they could establish such organization as a group.

However, let us start by considering briefly what conspiracy theories are and why conspiracy theorizing, taken as a whole, is morally problematic. I will concentrate mainly on political con­spiracy theories rather than theories that concern Elvis, the antichrist, or UFOs.

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