Misinformation, observational equivalence and the possibility of rationality
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21591760 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Maarten Van Doorn (0000-0002-6943-462X, Centre for Language Studies, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 8 |
| Pages | 3410-3440 |
| Publication date | 2025-11-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophical Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0951-5089 • E-ISSN: 1465-394X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09515089.2024.2358089 |
| OpenAlex | W4398249537 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 104 |
In vice epistemology, bad epistemic outcomes, such as maintaining false beliefs, are interpreted as indicators of blameworthy irrationality. Conversely, a growing trend in philosophical psychology advocates for environmentalist explanations, suggesting these outcomes emerge because rational cognitive processes of faultless individuals falter due to polluted environmental inputs. Building on concrete examples, I first offer a systematic analysis of the relative explanatory merits of that environmentalist project. I then use this analysis to advance the rationality debate, which has recently been identified as stagnating due to an observational equivalence between environmentalist and vice accounts. Although the conceptual imprecision of vice epistemology has frequently been critiqued, the framework developed here reveals that environmentalism is (also) unable to meet various theoretical desiderata. I show why this is so and argue that, to make progress, environmentalism needs a more substantive conception of epistemic rationality. To this end, I propose that a closer engagement with questions of cognitive agency – how rational creatures can “make up” their minds about what to believe – could enable the necessary progress
Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Computer security · Econometrics · Epistemology · Linguistics · Misinformation · Observational equivalence · Observational study · Rationality · Statistics · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Mathematics · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence · Philosophy · Psychology
Intellectual Trust in Oneself and Others
Not Born Yesterday
Reason Without Freedom
A Manifesto on Psychology as Idiographic Science
Having reasons
Not Just a Truthometer
Vice Epistemology
False Equivalence
The Influence of Prior Beliefs on Scientific Judgments of Evidence Quality
Fake News and Partisan Epistemology
Misconceptions, Misinformation, and the Logic of Identity-Protective Cognition
Biased Assimilation, Attitude Polarization, and Affect in Reactions to Stereotype-Relevant Scientific Information
Thinking is Believing
Why the backfire effect does not explain the durability of political misperceptions
Thinking clearly about causal inferences of politically motivated reasoning
Against Democracy
The Bias That Divides Us
The Sources of Normativity
Sharing responsibility for conspiracy beliefs
Hostile Epistemology
Epistemic Injustice and the Attention Economy
The skeptical import of motivated reasoning
When beliefs and evidence collide
Believing badly ain’t so bad
Bad beliefs
The (higher-order) evidential significance of attention and trust—comments on Levy’s Bad Beliefs
Nothing about collective irrationalities makes sense except in the light of cooperation
Refusing the Covid-19 vaccine
What is left of irrationality
Response to commentators
Bad beliefs
Believing to Belong
Skepticism Motivated
Advancing the debate on the consequences of misinformation
Plausibility matters
I’ll See It When I Believe It
Hierarchical Bayesian models of delusion
Priors in perception
Biased belief in the Bayesian brain
Cultural Cognition as a Conception of the Cultural Theory of Risk
Persuasion in Parallel
The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks
The Association of Knowledge with Concern About Global Warming
The evidence for motivated reasoning in climate change preference formation
Post-Truth
Motivated numeracy and enlightened self-government
Responsibility for believing
The case for partisan motivated reasoning
Motivated ignorance, rationality, and democratic politics
Bad social norms rather than bad believers
Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason
The attitude polarization phenomenon
The transparency of denial
Development of scientific reasoning biases
Do beliefs yield to evidence? Examining belief perseverance vs. change in response to congruent empirical findings
The Normativity of Rationality
How Partisanship Can Moderate the Influence of Communicated Information on the Beliefs of Agents Aiming to Form True Beliefs
Partisan Bias and the Bayesian Ideal in the Study of Public Opinion
When and How Different Motives Can Drive Motivated Political Reasoning
When Corrections Fail
Democratic Group Cognition
It’s Our Epistemic Environment, Not Our Attitude Toward Truth, That Matters
Misperceptions About Perceptual Bias
How Getting the Facts Right Can Fuel Partisan‐Motivated Reasoning
Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs
Motivated inference
Biased assimilation and attitude polarization
Motivated skepticism
Bad Beliefs
Cultural cognition of scientific consensus
Social Psychology and Science
Exposure to untrustworthy websites in the 2016 US election
Partisans' receptivity to persuasive messaging is undiminished by countervailing party leader cues
Politicization of Science in the Public Sphere
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |