A. Buzzell

The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by an “infodemic” of misinformation and conspiracy theory. This article points to three explanatory factors: the challenge of forming accurate beliefs when overwhelmed with information, an implausibly individualistic conception of epistemic virtue, and an adversarial information environment that suborns epistemic dependence. Normally we cope with the problems of informational excess by relying on other people, including sociotechnical systems that mediate testimony and evidence. But when we attempt to engage in epistemic “superheroics” - withholding trust from others and trying to figure it all out for ourselves – these can malfunction in ways that make us vulnerable to forming irrational beliefs. Some epistemic systems are prone to coalescing audiences around false conspiracy theories. This analysis affords a new perspective on philosophical efforts to understand conspiracy theories and other epistemic projects prone to collective irrationality.

This dissertation concerns ethical and epistemic assessment of the use of state power to defend against information threats and hostile activities, especially in digital information environments, an activity which has been described as the pursuit of cognitive security. I have three main aims. Firstly, to motivate scholarly interest in what I call the ethics of cognitive security - an interdisciplinary effort to provide coordinated empirical, theoretical, and ethical input into this exercise of power, specifically by democratic states. To the extent that these are decide to develop offensive and defensive strategies for the conduct of information warfare, we can ask if there are empirical and ethical considerations that should inform this. I consider at length the literature on epistemic paternalism and the extent to which such efforts might be paternalist and thus objectionable or in need of special justification. Secondly, to articulate an ecological conception of our epistemic interdependence on the information environment that can help to describe the public interest in its responsible stewardship. This helps to generate less-securitized formulations of the aims and constraints of defensive operations that interface better with our ethical interests in the practice of cognitive security. I draw on the social epistemology literature, especially where it concerns testimony and epistemic dependence, and develop a conception of epistemic environmental dependence and trust. I connect this to environmental policy and philosophy scholarship that concerns the ethical relations that arise as a result of interdependencies, and the sorts of policy instruments that can be appropriate for protecting this kind of shared interest. Finally, I apply this conceptual framework to the specific cognitive security problem of hostile disinformation. Drawing on a conceptual analysis of epistemic pollution I argue that we should favour root cause analysis and remediation, even where it might seem to involve more substantial interference, rather than reactive efforts to filter and remove these, for reasons that include both empirical adequacy and respect for relevant ethical interests.