One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is
so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his
share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people
are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to
avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much
deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit
is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we
lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to
us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no
theory."
Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral
philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his
characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological
insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how
bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying.
He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their
audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false
claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at
all.
Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of
themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is
true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the
conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant.
Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent
forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the
practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does
not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By
virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of
the truth than lies are.
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