ABSTRACT
As an antidote to the spreading of fake news and misinformation, it is often suggested that we all have an obligation to diversify our sources and avoid epistemic partiality toward the news coming from our political side. Against this wisdom, in this chapter I defend partisan epistemic partiality. Some scholars have argued that sharing values and principles with our fellow partisans gives us reason to trust them as sources of information. Instead, I argue that the basis of partisan epistemic partiality lies in the joint political commitment that we share with our fellow partisans as participants in political collective action.
After elucidating the nature of political commitment and the epistemic partiality that it justifies, I argue that partisan epistemic partiality can be seen as an other-regarding virtue, which benefits the democratic polity as a whole. If understood in this way, partisan epistemic partiality is not the simple liking of views and information that resound with one’s political beliefs. Rather, it is an active engagement with the public sphere as a member of a political collective agent. This implies two fundamental duties: on the side of partisans, the duty to verify that the information received is accredited by one’s party; on the side of the party, the duty to take responsibility for the partisan information thus validated. I argue that these duties of ethical partisanship, rather than the duty of epistemic impartiality, are useful antidotes against misinformation.
