Modern Ethics: Information, Media, and Social Justice

1. C. Thi Nguyen: Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles

Understanding Epistemic Bubbles

• Missing opposing views through omission.
• Caused by algorithms, selective exposure, and homogeneous friend networks.
• Effects: Poor informational coverage and inflated confidence.
• Solution: Adding missing information; exposure typically works.

The Nature of Echo Chambers

• Opposing views are actively discredited.
• Members hear outside information but reject it due to systemic distrust.
• Uses cult-like strategies: "outsiders = corrupt/evil"; "insiders = only trustworthy."
• Evidential pre-emption: Criticism is reframed as "proof" of a conspiracy.
• Much harder to escape; facts often backfire.

The Role of Trust

• Modern knowledge requires trusting experts, which creates inherent vulnerability.
• Echo chambers hijack trust by narrowing it exclusively to insiders.

The Path to Escape

• Requires a social-epistemic reboot (resetting the trust map).
• Often triggered by personal relationships with outsiders.
• Example: Derek Black leaving neo-Nazism through trust-building.

2. Douglas Campbell: The Duty to Quit Social Media

Platforms Are Not Morally Neutral Tools

• Tools are usually neutral (e.g., a knife or printing press), but social media is designed with specific values to maximize engagement.
• These platforms nudge users toward compulsive use, which harms overall well-being.

Social Media as Active Agents

• They "act on us" via nudges rather than direct coercion.
• Therefore, they cannot be considered morally neutral.

The Moral Duty to Quit

• Virtue-ethical argument: Quitting benefits personal flourishing and happiness.
• Additional duty: Users are test subjects for manipulative design; we should deprive companies of that power.
• Objection: "Some rely on social media." Campbell replies that alternatives will emerge once enough people quit.

3. Amy Berg: The Duty to Read the News

Rejected Justifications for News Consumption

1. Knowledge: Not all knowledge is morally required.
2. Consequences: Benefits are often uncertain while costs remain high.
3. Democratic citizenship: This doesn't explain why we must learn global news.
4. Self-improvement: Moral duties are not usually self-regarding.

The Duty of Respect for Strangers

• We have a positive duty of respect for strangers.
• Respect requires:
  • Seeing others as moral agents.
  • Understanding their conditions, experiences, and harms.
• Reading the news is often the only way to respect distant strangers whose lives we affect indirectly.

4. Sally Haslanger: Structural vs. Agent Oppression

Defining Oppression

• A systematic, unfair disadvantage imposed on specific groups.

Agent Oppression

• Caused by individuals or groups misusing power (e.g., rape, dictatorship, or lynching).

Structural Oppression

• No single agent is needed; it is maintained by institutions, norms, and practices.
• Key factor: A group’s identity non-accidentally correlates with systematic disadvantage (race, gender, class).
• Oppression can occur without hatred or malicious intent.

Racial Oppression

• Distinct when race is a causal or historical factor in the structure producing disadvantage.

5. Truth and Reconciliation Commission Principles

Defining Reconciliation

An ongoing process of repairing relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

The Ten Core Principles

1. UNDRIP is the framework for reconciliation.
2. Indigenous peoples are original, self-determining peoples with rights.
3. Truth-sharing, apology, and commemoration are necessary.
4. Must address colonial legacies (education, justice, health, welfare).
5. Aim for equity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.
6. All Canadians share this responsibility.
7. Elders’ knowledge is central to reconciliation.
8. Support cultural revitalization; include Indigenous laws and land relations.
9. Requires political will, resources, and accountability.
10. Requires sustained education and dialogue.

Historical Insight: Cultural Genocide

• Residential schools constituted cultural genocide (language bans, forced removal, destruction of institutions).
• Purpose: Assimilation to eliminate Indigenous identity and obligations under treaties.

6. Ann Cudd: Oppression by Choice

The Illusion of Choice in Oppressive Systems

• People may appear to "choose" oppressive outcomes, but choices are shaped by:
  • Social structures,
  • Economic coercion,
  • Limited alternatives.
• A "choice" does not eliminate the reality of oppression.

Understanding Adaptive Preferences

• Oppressed individuals often internalize preferences that are shaped by their limited options.

7. Amia Srinivasan: The Politics of Desire

Main Thesis on the Right to Sex

• No one has a moral right to be sexually desired or to have sex.
• However, sexual preferences are political, shaped by power, stereotypes, racism, and ableism.

Key Points on Social Conditioning

• "Who we desire" is socially conditioned rather than purely natural.
• Critiquing sexual norms is legitimate, even if no one "owes" sex to anyone else.