ABSTRACT
I claim that the fake news is aided by partisanship, and also that partisanship is epistemically justified. Thus, the fake news is the result of conditions that render a sound epistemic strategy disastrous. I begin with the division of (political) epistemic labor: citizens must rely on epistemic authorities, such as experts, media outlets, or representatives. What happens if authorities disagree? I defend a principle labeled “the principle of partisan deference” (PPD): when epistemic authorities are politically divided, it is rational for laypersons, ceteris paribus, to defer to those whose political views they share. A hypothetical example in which physicists disagree on some theoretical matter, and are religiously divided, is presented. I claim that normally, it would be rational for laypersons to rely on the physicists whose religious outlook they share. This suggests that PPD is the result of relation between public policy and values. Therefore, trustworthy authorities on public policy are those that share our outlook. Partisanship is justified on epistemic grounds. Finally, it is claimed that a mistrust in traditional epistemic authorities creates ideal conditions for “fake authorities” who purport to share people’s outlook. Fake authorities can than utilize PPD to spread “fake news.”
