Political Understanding

Lepoutre, Maxime

doi:10.1017/s0007123422000023

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…But empathetic understanding isn't only directed at improving our political beliefs. Instead, it's primary goal is to more accurately represent the beliefs and intentions of others (Hannon, 2020: 606-607), a task which Lepoutre (2022) argues is potentially compatible with believing falsehoods. This reveals that empathetic understanding can have value even apart from its connection to truth.…”

Section: Empathetic Understandingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Epistemic Aims of Democracy

Siscoe

2023

Philosophy Compass

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Many political philosophers have held that democracy has epistemic benefits. Most commonly, this case is made by arguing that democracies are better able to track the truth than other political arrangements. Truth, however, is not the only epistemic good that is politically valuable. A number of other epistemic goods – goods including evidence, intellectual virtue, epistemic justice, and empathetic understanding – can also have political value, and in ways that go beyond the value of truth. In this paper, I will survey those who have argued that democracy can be valuable because of these other epistemic benefits, considering (1) the ways in which these epistemic goods can be of political value and (2) the challenges that democracies face in producing them.

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Section: Empathetic Understandingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Epistemic Aims of Democracy

Siscoe

2023

Philosophy Compass

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“…One influential account of political ignorance, stemming from the seminal work of 1 Of course, this is consistent with there being some disagreement concerning the extent of such ignorance. See Lepoutre (2022) for relevant discussion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political ignorance is both rational and radical

Gibbons

2023

Synthese

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It is commonly held that political ignorance is rational, a response to the high costs and low benefits of acquiring political information. But many recent critics of the claim that political ignorance is rational instead urge that it is a simple consequence of agents not concerning themselves with the acquisition of political information whatsoever. According to such critics, political ignorance is inadvertent radical ignorance rather than a rational response to the incentives faced by agents in democracies. And since political ignorance is not a response to incentives, these critics urge, it cannot be ameliorated by incentivizing the acquisition of political information. This paper has two goals. First, I show that these seemingly competing accounts of political ignorance are in fact complementary, together explaining much political ignorance. Indeed, there is a sense in which political ignorance can be both rational and radical at the same time. Second, I more closely examine the relationship between incentives, kinds of political ignorance, and the acquisition of political information. On the one hand, from the fact that political ignorance is rational it does not follow that it can be overcome by incentivizing the acquisition of information.On the other hand, from the fact that political ignorance is radical it does not follow that it cannot be overcome by incentivizing the acquisition of information. Lastly, the complexity of the information in question is more relevant to determining whether ignorance can be overcome than whether such ignorance is rational or radical.

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“…A user will find it easier to navigate the Underground using the map even if they are unaware of these geographical distortions. On this point, see Lepoutre (2022: 16).…”

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confidence: 96%

Narrative Counterspeech

Lepoutre

2022

Political Studies

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The proliferation of conspiracy theories poses a significant threat to democratic decision-making. To counter this threat, many political theorists advocate countering conspiracy theories with ‘more speech’ (or ‘counterspeech’). Yet conspiracy theories are notoriously resistant to counterspeech. This article aims to conceptualise and defend a novel form of counterspeech – narrative counterspeech – that is singularly well-placed to overcome this resistance. My argument proceeds in three steps. First, I argue that conspiracy theories pose a special problem for counterspeech for three interconnected reasons relating to salience, emotion and internal coherence. Drawing on recent work in social epistemology, philosophy of emotion and cognitive science, I then demonstrate that narrative forms of counterspeech constitute an apt response to this diagnosis. Finally, I forestall two objections: the first questions the likely effectiveness of narrative counterspeech; the second insists that, even if it were effective, it would remain unacceptably manipulative. Neither objection, I contend, is ultimately compelling.

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Political Understanding

Cited by 5 publications

References 49 publications

The Epistemic Aims of Democracy

The Epistemic Aims of Democracy

Political ignorance is both rational and radical

Narrative Counterspeech

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