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The Surprise of COVID Vaccine Hesitancy Among Health Care Professionals

The Surprise of COVID Vaccine Hesitancy Among Health Care Professionals

Posted on 26 July 2021 by

The COVID vaccines were the one big hope story for the dismal year of 2020. The first shipments arrived in December to a few high-income countries and rollout started immediately […]

CONSPIRACIES AND ‘COUNTERSPEECH’

CONSPIRACIES AND ‘COUNTERSPEECH’

Posted on 12 July 2021 by

‘The 2020 US election was stolen.’ ‘COVID-19 was intentionally developed as a biological weapon.’ ‘Climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese.’ The times have been good for conspiracy […]

Our warped geometry of attention and trust: The mutually exploitative relationship between anti-vaxxers and the far right is undermining public health

Our warped geometry of attention and trust: The mutually exploitative relationship between anti-vaxxers and the far right is undermining public health

Posted on 28 June 2021 by

Over the last half decade, I’ve been monitoring the discourse on Twitter about vaccines and immunization. For a while, this was one of the few polarized debates that wasn’t politically […]

Legal Character Evidence Prohibitions and the Opacity of Character

Legal Character Evidence Prohibitions and the Opacity of Character

Posted on 14 June 2021 by

We tend to think another person’s character helps explain why she acts as she does. When we observe patterns in how others act, we take this to be evidence of […]

“With the intent to defraud or mislead”: Opioids, corporate propaganda, and epistemic rights

“With the intent to defraud or mislead”: Opioids, corporate propaganda, and epistemic rights

Posted on 31 May 2021 by

In May 2007, Purdue Frederick Company Inc., an affiliate of Purdue Pharma, along with three of its top executives, were ordered to pay fines totalling $634 million after pleading guilty […]

Deepfakes, Fake Barns, and Problems of Safe Belief

Deepfakes, Fake Barns, and Problems of Safe Belief

Posted on 17 May 2021 by

Every year, Queen Elizabeth II speaks to the UK in her annual Christmas Address. In her 2020 Address, the Queen not only spoke highly of NHS nurses, doctors, and other […]

Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 3)

Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 3)

Posted on 3 May 2021 by

To recap: In Part One of this series we looked at how our impulse to reduce messy situations to nice clean epistemological facts can cause us to miss what is […]

Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 2)

Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 2)

Posted on 19 April 2021 by

To read Part 1 of this series, click here. Let’s start simple. ‘I’m hurt.’ Taken by itself, this tiny phrase has an obvious meaning. Without any context, however, it is […]

Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 1)

Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 1)

Posted on 5 April 2021 by

In an episode of The West Wing, a comment is made to the press that the fictional US President, Josiah Bartlett, is not particularly fond of green beans. On the […]

The Ethics of Belief: It’s not just Trump supporters who believe wrongly—it’s all of us

The Ethics of Belief: It’s not just Trump supporters who believe wrongly—it’s all of us

Posted on 22 March 2021 by

As the dust settles on the Trump presidency, we are left to reflect on its many themes. One of its most fundamental was this: believing without adequate evidence. Many aspects […]

Think Before You Push the “Share” Button

Think Before You Push the “Share” Button

Posted on 8 March 2021 by

You’ve just run across a hilarious satire on a comedic news site and can’t wait to re-post it so your friends can get a chuckle. Or you’ve found an over-the-top […]

Modeling Sex as a Joint Activity

Modeling Sex as a Joint Activity

Posted on 22 February 2021 by

There has been an ongoing philosophical discussion over the last three decades on consent and refusal of sex qua speech acts – that is, acts performed in the uttering of […]

Emotional Imperialism in Public Discourse

Posted on 8 February 2021 by ,

        Alfred Archer                                                  […]

Honesty and Radically Opposing Views: Flat-Earthers, Apocalyptic Preachers, and 2020 American Election-Deniers

Honesty and Radically Opposing Views: Flat-Earthers, Apocalyptic Preachers, and 2020 American Election-Deniers

Posted on 25 January 2021 by

One of the common labels used to condemn the other side is ‘dishonest.’ They are a bunch of liars. Or cheaters. Or deceivers. Don’t trust anything they say. We see […]

Why Twitter is (Epistemically) Better Than Facebook

Why Twitter is (Epistemically) Better Than Facebook

Posted on 11 January 2021 by

Online Environments Social media has the potential to expand our epistemic horizons, connecting us with a wider range of people and more information and analysis than ever before. But it […]

The Lies They Tell Us: Facing Up to the UK’s Ignorance of Racial Oppression

The Lies They Tell Us: Facing Up to the UK’s Ignorance of Racial Oppression

Posted on 28 December 2020 by

In May 2019, I travelled to UWE Bristol, to speak at the Critical Theory and Feminism Conference. Having arrived a day before I was scheduled to give my paper, I […]

Not so Ignorant After All: Metaknowledge Matters More than Knowledge

Not so Ignorant After All: Metaknowledge Matters More than Knowledge

Posted on 14 December 2020 by

In one way or another, democracies put political power in the hands of the people.  A perennial worry about democracy, voiced almost as soon as it was invented, is that […]

Is JK Rowling transphobic?

Is JK Rowling transphobic?

Posted on 30 November 2020 by

Is JK Rowling transphobic? According to many transgender activists and their supporters, including Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Eddie Redmayne she is. The LGBTQ+ organisation […]

III: Be kind

III: Be kind

Posted on 16 November 2020 by

I think there’s something rude and unkind, or can be depending on the pragmatics, in the assertion that you often hear, that “Trans women are men really.” It’s rude and […]

II: Bodily threats

II: Bodily threats

Posted on 8 November 2020 by

It is the bodily difference between males and females that explains most of the other differences in the roles of men and women in any given society—both in Homeric society […]