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Oh look, it's my actual area of expertise! The crucial bit is where . @drvolts says (basically): they operate in a world of fantasy, and we want to say that they should have known better. But ... https://twitter.com/drvolts/status/1347653742963826688
3/ It seems to me that we do not need to say: we have a moral obligation to form true beliefs, and this obligation is one that we all fail to live up to.
I might say that -- there are obligations to do our best to live up to ideals that are practically impossible to achieve.
I might say that -- there are obligations to do our best to live up to ideals that are practically impossible to achieve.
4/ But we don't need to say that here, I think. Instead, we can say that much of the time, we should try in an ordinary way to get things right, but we can tolerate a degree of failure.
Sometimes, however, the stakes are just too high to tolerate that.
Sometimes, however, the stakes are just too high to tolerate that.
5/ Suppose I sincerely believed that . @drvolts was Satan, and that he was planning some mass atrocity which I could prevent only by killing him. If I am right, maybe killing him would be my duty. (Maybe not. I don't want to get into that now.)
6/ If I am thinking of killing someone, I HAD BETTER BE RIGHT. Ordinary tolerance for error is no longer acceptable.
7/ This means that I need to go back and examine my evidence. Why do I think that . @drvolts is Satan? Is my evidence solid? Are my inferences from that evidence sound?
8/ I can get the wrong kind of cereal because of some mistaken belief, and that's not a huge problem. But if I propose to kill someone, I need to be very, very, VERY sure.
Similarly, if I plan to storm the Capitol and try to get an election overturned. I had BETTER be right.
Similarly, if I plan to storm the Capitol and try to get an election overturned. I had BETTER be right.
9/ I imagine Osama bin Laden sincerely believed that flying planes into US buildings was somehow absolutely the right thing to do. Ditto Timothy McVeigh. But I don't think that either of them thought nearly hard enough about the question: am I right?
10/ And that's just damning.
No one has to be an epistemic saint. No one has to step outside their entire culture. But if you're planning to overthrow the government because of a stolen election, you need to seriously assess the evidence.
No one has to be an epistemic saint. No one has to step outside their entire culture. But if you're planning to overthrow the government because of a stolen election, you need to seriously assess the evidence.
11/ You need to read the legal briefs and decisions in the election cases, for starters. What do the President's lawyers actually allege when they're subject to sanctions for lying to the Court? What do the judges say in response?
12/ You need to consider whether recounts have been done, and what they found. You need to ask who would have to be in on the vast conspiracy to steal the election, and how likely it is that no one in such a vast conspiracy would talk.
Etc., etc., etc.
Etc., etc., etc.
13/ This is one of the things that baffles me about contemporary "conservatives": they disregard this basic epistemic principle all the time. Cases to which it seems obviously relevant include the reality of manmade climate change, whether Covid 19 is a hoax, etc.
14/ Why do they not think: if climate scientists are right, we are actually destroying our one and only planet; I guess I had better be VERY SURE before I say they're all lying?
15/ Beats me. But they do this -- ignoring the different epistemic standards appropriate to matters of different importance -- ALL THE TIME.
16/ Tl;dr: I have precisely zero problem with holding them accountable. And I don't think I need to say that everyone has to be epistemically perfect all the time in order to do so.
17/ I just think that when lives, the planet, our system of government, or something similarly important is at issue, you should be at least as careful about your facts as you would when e.g. buying a house or accepting a job.
