Neil Levy, "Bad Beliefs: Why They Happen to Good People" (Oxford UP, 2021)
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What is the central problem of “bad beliefs” that the book addresses?
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Hello, and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figdor, professor of philosophy at the University of Iowa. I'm co-host of the channel along with Robert Talese, Sarah Tyson, and Malcolm Keating. Together, we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books in a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Neil Levy, professor of philosophy at Macquarie University and research fellow at the Oxford Uahiro Center for Practical Ethics. His new book, Bad Beliefs, Why They Happen to Good People, is just out from Oxford University Press and is accessible freely online. Misinformation, disinformation, fake news, alternative facts.
We are awash in a vast sea of epistemically questionable, not to mention false, testimony. How can we discern what is epistemically good to believe from what is not? And why are so many of us apparently vulnerable to believing what is epistemically bad? In his new book, Levy argues that we are, in fact, acting rationally, in accordance with how we have evolved to defer to our peers and authorities in our social networks. Levi argues that bad beliefs, which are beliefs that are unresponsive to reliable evidence, are more likely in epistemically polluted environments, and that our current epistemic environments are, in fact, epistemically polluted. Overall, the book takes a bold stand against traditional epistemological emphasis on the individual cognitive agent's responsibility for justifying their beliefs.
Let's turn to the interview. Hello, Neil Levy. Welcome to No Books on Philosophy. Thanks, Carrie. Thanks for the invitation. Um, so we're going to be talking about your new book, bad beliefs, why they happen to good people. Um, but let's talk about you first for a second. Um, you know, what's your philosophical background? How did you sort of get interested in philosophy and get interested in, uh, you know, the areas that you work in and you know, how did this particular book come about?
I don't know how I ended up in philosophy by accident, I guess. After a false start studying journalism, I enrolled in a degree in English literature. These were the days of high theory, and I gravitated towards theory, which was basically continental philosophy. Ended up doing a PhD on continental philosophy, but... as a cultural studies degree or a literary theory degree. Then I couldn't get a job, unsurprisingly, and did a second PhD, this time in philosophy on the metaphysics of free will. At some point, I've been doing applied ethics most of my career, largely because for entirely practical reasons, that's where the jobs were.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central problem of “bad beliefs” that the book addresses?
0:00–9:18
2
How does Neil Levy explain why good people end up holding epistemically bad beliefs?
9:18–18:39
3
What is Levy’s personal and academic background that led to his work on social epistemology?
18:39–25:58
4
How does the book define a “bad belief” and what are classic examples?
25:58–37:50
5
Why are our current epistemic environments considered “polluted” and how does that affect belief formation?
37:50–48:04
6
What role do trust networks and media play in spreading or correcting bad beliefs?
48:04–59:35
7
How does Levy defend the use of nudges to promote better belief formation?
59:35–1:07:52
8
What responsibilities do individuals have for their own epistemic agency in a polluted environment?
1:07:52–1:08:17
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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