Epistemic virtues as a vaccine against fake news
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51359/2357-9986.2022.253896Keywords:
fake news, virtue epistemology, epistemic virtues, intellectual virtues, knowledge, educationAbstract
We live in a time where society is plagued, besides by the pandemic, also by what WHO called an infodemic and, relatedly, by constant threats to what remains of democracy. The proliferation of fake news, as some have pointed out, greatly influenced the course of the pandemic and, before it, the course of politics. Faced with this serious problem, we have the practical need for a vaccine against fake news. The present work is an effort to characterize and argue in favor of the cultivation of the epistemically virtuous character as part of a solution to the problem of fake news, a solution based upon virtue epistemology (by combining elements of Zagzebski’s and Sosa’s renderings thereof) and the systemic thinking (Morin). For this aim, after an analysis of the concept of fake news, we set forth elements of our reading of virtue epistemology. Then, we endeavor to sketch the role that epistemic (or intellectual) virtues can play in a decrease in the fake news curve, together with certain other measures that have already been adopted against this plague.
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