The whole point of having laws against defamation, whether libel (written defamation) or slander (spoken defamation), is to hold people to higher epistemic standards when they communicate very negative things about people or organizations
This might be true of some other country’s laws against defamation, but it is not true of defamation law in the US. Under US law, merely being wrong, sloppy, and bad at reasoning would not be sufficient to make something count as defamation; it only counts if the writer had actual knowledge that the claims were false, or was completely indifferent to whether they were true or false.
Jim—I didn’t claim that libel law solves all problems in holding people to higher epistemic standards.
Often, it can be helpful just to incentivize avoiding the most egregious forms of lying and bias—e.g. punishing situations when ‘the writer had actual knowledge that the claims were false, or was completely indifferent to whether they were true or false’.
Jim’s point here is compatible with “US libel laws are a force for good epistemics”, since a law can be aimed at lying+bullshitting and still disincentivize bad reasoning (to some degree) as a side-effect.
But I do think Jim’s point strongly suggests that we should have a norm against suing someone merely for reasoning poorly or getting the wrong answer. That would be moving from “lawsuits are good for norm enforcement” to “frivolous lawsuits are good for norm enforcement”, which is way less plausible.
This might be true of some other country’s laws against defamation, but it is not true of defamation law in the US. Under US law, merely being wrong, sloppy, and bad at reasoning would not be sufficient to make something count as defamation; it only counts if the writer had actual knowledge that the claims were false, or was completely indifferent to whether they were true or false.
Jim—I didn’t claim that libel law solves all problems in holding people to higher epistemic standards.
Often, it can be helpful just to incentivize avoiding the most egregious forms of lying and bias—e.g. punishing situations when ‘the writer had actual knowledge that the claims were false, or was completely indifferent to whether they were true or false’.
Jim’s point here is compatible with “US libel laws are a force for good epistemics”, since a law can be aimed at lying+bullshitting and still disincentivize bad reasoning (to some degree) as a side-effect.
But I do think Jim’s point strongly suggests that we should have a norm against suing someone merely for reasoning poorly or getting the wrong answer. That would be moving from “lawsuits are good for norm enforcement” to “frivolous lawsuits are good for norm enforcement”, which is way less plausible.