📺 Crash Course: Conspiracy Theories and Epistemic Responsibility
We typically assume that the concept of responsibility only applies to what we do and not so much to what we believe. So it’s not that controversial that we shouldn’t do things that might endanger others like drive under the influence of alcohol. We have a responsibility NOT to do things like this. On the other hand, it seems equally clear that what we believe is entirely up to us, that we even have a right to believe whatever we want which is legally protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. But our beliefs can easily affect the lives of others. For example, if we do not believe that vaccinating our kids is a good idea and we opt out of vaccinating them as some states permit on “philosophical grounds” — which basically means according to whatever beliefs we happen to hold about vaccines — we can be putting other people’s lives at risk. So cases like this bring up the question of whether we might have a moral responsibility to find out the truth about things based on the best evidence and to drop beliefs lacking such evidence. This is the idea that we might have an epistemic responsibility. John Green explores this notion here in another great Crash Course video.
It’s important to know what epistemic responsibility is because Hank makes a great case about how people can have beliefs about things without having sufficient evidence. Anti-vaxers is a fantastic example because the claims of children who get vaccinated, have a higher chance to develop autism. There is zero evidence that supports this claim. As well as some religions that disprove modern medicine. It’s epistemically and morally wrong. Also the definitions of the many “options” is something that we all subconsciously do without having any clear reason/definition as to why we do something.
Its so crazy that diseases that we wiped out generations ago are coming back becuase some people do not beleive in vaccines. There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism yet people still believe it and put their children at risk by not vaccinating them.
I agree because I’ve seen little to no evidence that when people are vaccinated it can cause autism, because I know so many people that are vaccinated and they don’t have autism. On the other hand I liked how this video broke down all the conspiracy theories with being vaccinated or not vaccinated. I also liked how he broke down what W.K Clifford’s views were and how they differed from William James’ views.
I agree, there is no proof to the harm of vaccines and eventually people who do not vaccinate their kids may get sick because of not being vaccinated.
The media plays a big role in how we perceive things today. It alters how we think about ourselves and others. There is a lot of beneficial content that has helped me learn a lot, but there are also bad things shown that can have bad effects on some people. There are two sides to the perception of vaccines, are they good or bad? There is a push for mandatory vaccines and in some countries, people are forced to get them. Others may not get a vaccine for their whole life.
I enjoyed learning about the criteria of beliefs. The live and dead, forced and unforced, momentous and trivial. and then hank proceeded to prove his point that “philosophy can’t just make all of the baseless beliefs in the world go away. but it can help you argue against those ideas intelligently” I thought that was a very smart summary of the video.
the right to freedom of free thinking is something that we all process and its something that should be protected. This thinking leads to great thing in the right people hands and conspiracies are more then just some bs people come up. most are well thought and are based off real science
I believe that we are epistemically responsible for at least some of our beliefs and and we should be held liable for failing to meet those responsibilities. Yes, there is the first amendment which protects our freedom of speech and opinion, however if you are putting other people’s lives in danger for a cause that has absolutely no scientific backing, then I believe this is an obvious problem and these people should be held liable. The narrator of the video does a great job explaining this concept by using anti-vaccination as an example. Furthermore, I think we could also use Nazi’s as a good example of this as well.