Queens' Arts Seminar is a fortnightly series of talks on a variety of
themes, held at Queens' College. This *Wednesday, October 30^th ,* we
will be hosting Dr Alfred Moore from the Conspiracy & Democracy Project
(http://www.conspiracyanddemocracy.org/) who will speak
*
On the Vices and Virtues of Conspiracy Theories*
Conspiracy theories are often regarded as vices, both at the individual
level as cognitive failings, and at the collective level as pathologies
of public reason. One of the major individual vices identified by
psychologists is the "confirmation bias", the tendency of people to seek
arguments in support of things they already believe and to discount or
reject arguments and information that undermine their existing beliefs.
Closely associated with this is one of the major collective pathologies,
namely group polarisation, in which like minded people seek each other
out and then unwittingly create for themselves an information
environment which skews in support of their prejudices and creates group
pressures that radicalise belief. In this paper I will argue that these
individual and collective vices can have positive collective effects. I
will draw on contemporary social science in developing this argument,
but its outline will be familiar from J. S. Mill's account of the
benefits of argumentative diversity. In short, there may be a collective
benefit to having groups of people who, partly due to their obsessive
attachment to unconventional and socially disapproved theories, are
motivated to closely scrutinize official narratives in a way that most
of us are not. I will conclude by considering what this means for
current research on conspiracy theories.
The talk will be held in the Erasmus room in Queens' College at 7:30 PM,
followed by questions and discussion over wine. All are welcome!
For more information about the series, join our Facebook group
(https://www.facebook.com/groups/43681642514/) or check out the
forthcoming talks at talks.cam (http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/index/17331).
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