This is a bit of a definitions dispute, but I want to distinguish between someone whose values/interests/goals do not coincide with yours but who’s quite open about it on the one hand, and someone who wants to manipulate you without you realizing what’s going on on the other hand. I wouldn’t apply the expression “in bad faith” to the former case (that could be a “hostile agent”, but that’s a different thing), but I would to the latter case.
tries to push my beliefs away from the truth when convenient
So if someone thinks the truth is different from what you think it is and tries to “push your beliefs away”, is he acting in bad faith? Consider e.g. your standard sincere Christian missionaries.
If someone’s mistaken, and tries to push my beliefs towards what they mistakenly believe to be the truth by offering the evidence they believe to be the most material, that seems like a good-faith error. On the other hand, telling simplified Bible stories that elide the problem of evil, and only addressing it once people are attached to the idea of God, would not seem like it’s in good faith.
On the other hand, telling simplified Bible stories that elide the problem of evil, and only addressing it once people are attached to the idea of God, would not seem like it’s in good faith.
Let’s flip the political arrow.
How do you feel about sincere people telling simplified climate change stories that elide the uncertainties and only addressing them once people are attached to the idea of fighting global warming?
Pretty bad. My trust in the establishment’s ability or willingness to honestly try to inform me about global warming is fairly low as a result. I think that global warming is happening, caused in part by human action, and is going to be somewhat costly, so I’m mildly in favor of measures like a global carbon tax, but I wouldn’t be shocked if some important part of the official narrative turned out to be deeply wrong.
Right, but we are not talking about global warming, we’re are talking about bad faith. Would you say that the sincere we’re-all-gonna-die-unless… environmentalists (and there are a lot of them) are acting in bad faith?
There is no particular need to dig into the details, the point is whether you think of sincere missionaries as different (in the sense of being more or less prone to acting in bad faith) from sincere environmentalists. There’s a lot of heterogeneity all around :-)
I think a lot of environmentalist advocacy is well-described as a bad-faith process executed by people trying to do good, much like a lot of religious education. I’m unsure what the relative extent of each is.
This is a bit of a definitions dispute, but I want to distinguish between someone whose values/interests/goals do not coincide with yours but who’s quite open about it on the one hand, and someone who wants to manipulate you without you realizing what’s going on on the other hand. I wouldn’t apply the expression “in bad faith” to the former case (that could be a “hostile agent”, but that’s a different thing), but I would to the latter case.
So if someone thinks the truth is different from what you think it is and tries to “push your beliefs away”, is he acting in bad faith? Consider e.g. your standard sincere Christian missionaries.
If someone’s mistaken, and tries to push my beliefs towards what they mistakenly believe to be the truth by offering the evidence they believe to be the most material, that seems like a good-faith error. On the other hand, telling simplified Bible stories that elide the problem of evil, and only addressing it once people are attached to the idea of God, would not seem like it’s in good faith.
Let’s flip the political arrow.
How do you feel about sincere people telling simplified climate change stories that elide the uncertainties and only addressing them once people are attached to the idea of fighting global warming?
Pretty bad. My trust in the establishment’s ability or willingness to honestly try to inform me about global warming is fairly low as a result. I think that global warming is happening, caused in part by human action, and is going to be somewhat costly, so I’m mildly in favor of measures like a global carbon tax, but I wouldn’t be shocked if some important part of the official narrative turned out to be deeply wrong.
Right, but we are not talking about global warming, we’re are talking about bad faith. Would you say that the sincere we’re-all-gonna-die-unless… environmentalists (and there are a lot of them) are acting in bad faith?
I’d have to know more details about the case you’re thinking of. There’s lots of heterogeneity!
There is no particular need to dig into the details, the point is whether you think of sincere missionaries as different (in the sense of being more or less prone to acting in bad faith) from sincere environmentalists. There’s a lot of heterogeneity all around :-)
I think a lot of environmentalist advocacy is well-described as a bad-faith process executed by people trying to do good, much like a lot of religious education. I’m unsure what the relative extent of each is.
No one is evil in his own story.