2025/07/22 by D Zund Joseph · 2 voices
Neuroscience · Social Sciences · #Misinformation and Its Impacts #Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
paper · doi:10.1080/02691728.2025.2522414
openalex publication_date 2025/07/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Conspiracy theories have mainly been of interest to social epistemologists in terms of whether one can be warranted in believing them. In this literature, believing a conspiracy theory is often understood to mean endorsing some conspiratorial explanation of events. I argue that, in some cases, conspiracy belief is better understood as (dis)trusting sources of claims. To demonstrate this, I show that disputes over conspiracy theories possess a distinctive tendency (but not a necessity) to generate deep disagreement arising specifically from divergent attributions of trust in others. I explain this tendency in terms of agents’ desires to maintain consistency among their beliefs and avoid inquiring into their attributions of trust. Individuals who believe conspiracy theories often do not remain committed to the same conspiratorial explanations but do nonetheless remain firmly committed to attitudes of trust and distrust. By arguing that conspiracy belief often manifests as (dis)trust, I challenge a common assumption in the philosophy of conspiracy theories that conspiracy belief, understood as taking conspiracy explanations to be true, can always serve as an appropriate basis for asking when believing conspiracy theories is warranted.