Bad beliefs : : why they happen to good people / / Neil Levy.

• Superior document: Oxford scholarship online
• VerfasserIn: Levy, Neil, 1967-
• Place / Publishing House: Oxford : : Oxford University Press,, 2022.; ©2022.
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Edition: First edition.
• Language: English
• Series: Oxford scholarship online.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (211 pages)
• Notes: 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.

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.

Table of Contents

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.