1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910522596103321

Autore

Levy Neil <1967->

Titolo

Bad beliefs : why they happen to good people / / Neil Levy [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Oxford : , : Oxford University Press, , 2021

ISBN

0-19-264851-9

0-19-191614-5

0-19-264850-0

Edizione

[First edition.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (211 pages)

Collana

Oxford scholarship online

Disciplina

121.3

Soggetti

Rationalism

Belief and doubt

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

This edition also issued in print: 2021.

"This is an open access publication, available online and distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial - No Derivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)"--Home page.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Preface: rational social animals go wild -- 1. What should we believe about belief? -- 2. Culturing belief -- 3. How our minds are made up -- 4. Dare to think? -- 5. Epistemic pollution -- 6. Nudging well -- Concluding thoughts: rational animals after all.

Sommario/riassunto

Bad beliefs - beliefs that blatantly conflict with easily available evidence - are common. Large minorities of people hold that vaccines are dangerous or accept bizarre conspiracy theories, for instance. The prevalence of bad beliefs may be politically and socially important, for instance blocking effective action on climate change. Explaining why people accept bad beliefs and what can be done to make them more responsive to evidence is therefore an important project. A common view is that bad beliefs are largely explained by widespread irrationality. This book argues that ordinary people are rational agents, and their beliefs are the result of their rational response to the evidence they're presented with.