Original
Preposterous Fake News, the Breach of Democratic Trust, and Intellectual Humility
Abstract
What normative relationship should citizens and political representatives establish with people voicing preposterous fake news, defying basic epistemic rules? To answer this pressing matter, we defend the view that the spread of preposterous fake information is best accounted for by an expressivist explanation, according to which agents have practical, rather than genuinely epistemic, reasons to share preposterous fake news as expressive of their commitment toward a specific narrative about social reality. Then, we investigate the worrying effects of these dynamics on the democratic fabric and on mutual trust among citizens. The pars construens of our argument consists of a strategy for mending the breach of democratic trust based on the virtue of reasonableness. We argue that to restore minimal trust between citizens and government, reasonable citizens ought to embrace intellectual humility, therefore approaching disagreement while showing respect for others, dispensing with a superior and dismissive attitude toward agents holding unreasonable beliefs.
中文
荒谬的假新闻、民主信任的破裂与智识谦逊
摘要
公民和政治代表应当与那些传播荒谬假新闻、无视基本认识论规则的人建立怎样的规范性关系？为回答这一紧迫问题，我们主张，对荒谬虚假信息的传播，最佳解释是表达主义解释：行动者分享荒谬假新闻具有实践理由而非真正认识论上的理由，以此表达他们对某种关于社会现实的特定叙事的承诺。随后，我们考察这些动态对民主结构以及公民之间相互信任所造成的令人担忧的影响。我们论证的建构性部分在于提出一种基于合理性德性来弥合民主信任裂痕的策略。我们认为，为恢复公民与政府之间的最低限度信任，合理的公民应当拥抱智识谦逊，从而在对待分歧时表现出对他人的尊重，放弃对持有不合理信念者采取优越且轻蔑的态度。
关键词
荒谬假新闻、民主信任、智识谦逊、表达主义、合理性、政治认识论、虚假信息