There is no shortage of social media quite literally making the news, whether as a topic of news coverage or as people’s sources of news information, despite being rife with misinformation. How (or if) scholars should be on social media is not a new question, but it has taken on new urgency in the rapidly evolving social media ecosystem. One study called “The Vibes Are Off: Did Elon Musk Push Academics Off Twitter” answers its query in the affirmative. Meanwhile, there has been some growth of “academic Bluesky” as one of various alternatives for researchers across disciplines, as well as journalists, activists, and organizations forming new social media communities and norms.

We’ve been interested in the approach taken by Nathan Nobis, Professor of Philosophy at Morehouse College, to social media as a forum for public philosophy. Rather than engaging in social media only to talk with other academics, Nobis often dives right into controversial feminist and bioethical topics with a wide range of interlocutors. Editors of the IJFAB Blog approached Nobis to share insight into this process and what we can learn from it for doing feminist bioethics online. Nobis generously shared the essay that follows, which is all the more essential as we see more moves from social media platforms to do away with fact checking and to defer to users for accountability. Nobis’s account of feminist philosophical fact-checking is a timely and worthwhile read!

Feminist Philosophical Fact-Checking

By Nathan Nobis

Things have been bad, for many people, and many beings, for a very long time: injustice, unfairness, wrongdoing, evil, callousness, and apathy are not new to this world. But, the world does especially seem to be falling apart lately! And it looks like it might get even worse, much, much worse!

What can just about any philosophical person who thinks of themselves as a feminist of any kind—or anyone who agrees with many goals that are often considered feminist—do in response to the problems of the world? Among many other things, they can do philosophy, online, on various social media platforms, to try to help steer the world in better directions, at least a little.

Now “doing philosophy” with these goals in mind can mean many different things to different people: there are many different ways to be engaged in “public philosophy.” Here though I’ll briefly describe some what I have been doing for at least a few years, which could be described as a type of “philosophical fact-checking” that basically amounts to this:

when people and organizations make importantly problematic claims about philosophical and ethical issues that one has expertise in, provide responses and resources that correct that misinformation.

So:

• when people make claims that are importantly ambiguous, or they say something that depends on overlooking important differences in the meanings of words, say so and explain why that’s important: for example, one person might be saying or hearing one claim on one meaning of the word—and that claim might be true, given that meaning—whereas someone else might be saying or hearing something different, since they have a different meaning in mind—and that claim might be false, given that meaning;
• when people say things that aren’t true, say that what they are saying isn’t true and why it’s not true; tell them what the truth is and why they should accept that instead;
• when people say something, or give arguments, that depend on false or dubious unstated assumptions, say what those assumptions are and why they are false; tell them what better assumptions are and why those assumptions are better: in other words, the skill of being able to see and state arguments in “standard form” is very useful:
• when people say things that they’ve got no good reason to believe, say that and explain why there’s no good reason to believe that; explain what is reasonable to believe and why;
• when people give arguments that simply assume their conclusion—question-begging or circular arguments—observe that and explain why these are always bad arguments;
• when people give false or otherwise bad explanations, observe that and give the better (overlooked, ignored) explanation(s), and explain why it’s a better explanation(s);
• when people give bad arguments, say so and why at least one of their premises or assumptions is false and/or why they don’t support their conclusion; tell them what better arguments are and why they are better.

These are all distinctly philosophical ways of engaging people in that the focus is on clear communication and understanding what’s said, what’s true and false, and what’s reasonable to believe, given a deeper understanding of the arguments on the issue. This is all quite different from common ways of engagement online about controversial issues, which too often involve responses like these:

name-calling, insults, responding with emojis and LOLs, boldly asserting claims without giving any reasons at all, asserting claims with demonstrably bad reasons, giving arguments that just beg the question or outright assume their view, unproductively accusing people of appealing to fallacies, gish galloping, asking bad rhetorical questions, appealing to mere soundbites, and using many other of forms of engagement that display intellectual and moral vice.

Now “philosophical fact checking” won’t solve the problems of the world—indeed, it can seem like it doesn’t make a drop in the bucket, in terms of broader impact. But it can, and likely will, make some positive difference for the broader world. And, people doing it will probably benefit from doing this too in various ways, and enjoy it. So it may be worth trying, and may be better than “doing nothing” or otherwise just keeping your head down, focusing on your own personal interests and/or seeking only more definitely-achievable narrow, local accomplishments.

How do I know this? Well, I have been doing this kind of thing for at least a few years with some success—maybe a lot of success, depending on how “impact” in public philosophy could be measured. I do this with a variety of topics that people discuss online, especially with bad arguments about euthanasia and assisted suicide, ethics and animals issues, and some debates about religious belief, but my focus has been abortion, since that’s an acute issue that maybe better widespread understanding could help with: I have long thought that if people had even a few good class sessions on the topic that could make a big difference for the better. 

My short backstory is this: in 2019, one thing led to another and my co-author, Kristina Grob, and I released an open-access introductory book on abortion and ethics, entitled Thinking Critically About Abortion: Why Most Abortions Aren’t Wrong and All Abortions Should be Legal, which is freely available for download at AbortionArguments.com, is reposted in many other spots online, and is available in paperback for $5.38. It is also available in Spanish, Italian, and French, all (except the French) freely available and in paperback; this happened because people found the book online, offering to translate it. While exact numbers of book downloads are impossible to track, the book’s web page recently hit 450,000 views: most days, the page has at least a few hundred views, sometimes thousands: for an academic-ish book on ethics, that’s likely quite good. 

This book led to articles on abortion and ethics at Salon, at (the now defunct) Areo magazine, and the American Journal of Bioethics blog, contributed to an Iranian animator making a neat video from my 1000-Word Philosophy article on abortion, and I’ve written a bunch of blog posts about the issues, made lots of videos for TikTok and YouTube, and much much more, all inspired by observations gained from engaging people online and observing their (mis)understandings of the issues. Most of the people and organizations I engage with would be considered “anti-abortion extremists” who, well, tend to have a poor understanding of the issues: they are passionate about the topics, of course, but pretty clearly have not learned about the issues in any systematic, comprehensive, and fair-and-balanced ways, which is bad. But in engaging them extensively, I have learned a lot about how they understand the issues and engage them.

In 2022, I published some observations and reflections on how they tend to understand the issues in an American Journal of Bioethics response article entitled “Yes, all bioethicists should engage abortion ethics, but who would be interested in what they have to say?” Here were my main observations: “. . both sides often offer “bumper sticker” slogans in favor of their position that are just question-begging assumptions of their own views. Beyond that, anti-abortion advocates:

• tend to accept a naive “scientism” that contributes to their thinking that the scientific facts that fetuses are biologically alive, biologically human, and biologically human organisms simply entails that abortion is wrong;
• tend to not realize, and actively deny, that people sometimes mean different things by [“human” and] “human beings” and “when life begins”;
• tend to be ignorant of the fact that what makes anyone (or anything) have moral rights, or be otherwise wrong to kill, is a hard, theoretical question, and the best candidates for better explanations here do not include simply that the being is biologically human or even that the being is a biologically human organism;
• tend to not think about whether or how the right to life could be a right to someone else’s body, and related issues.”

So, I have been making and sharing materials (blog posts, accessible articles, videos) that engage these types of misunderstanding: if I see something, I often say something, and I usually include a link that provides a fuller explanation of the mistake and/or better ways to think about the issue.

Believe it or not, anti-abortion advocates often don’t like this: they don’t like being told that they are misunderstanding something and being corrected in other ways! They also often don’t like that I usually do not provide each person I engage with with a detailed, custom, personalized explanation to them, since it would be extremely inefficient to “reinvent the wheel” every time a common error comes up. (Are these people also annoyed by books and articles, wondering why the author didn’t contact them to provide them a custom explanation?).

Is this “pro-choice activism”? Not really, since I’m critical of the pro-choice political movement for not engaging the ethics of abortion, arguing that was unwise and frequently observe that they too often appeal to bad arguments and misunderstandings, which can’t help anything. That same article also identified common errors in pro-choice engagement: “[again,] both sides [including pro-choice people and organizations] often offer ‘bumper sticker’ slogans in favor of their position that are just question-begging assumptions of their own views… and pro-choice advocates:

• often mistakenly assume that the case against abortion is merely religious: they do not know abortion foes often see abortion as a “human rights” violation, which is a misunderstanding that results, in part, from human rights advocates poorly stating their views;
• too often deny that fetuses are “alive” or “life” and “human” and so appear ignorant since fetuses clearly are that in a biological sense;
• often mistakenly assume that anyone’s lacking a (moral or legal) right to anyone else’s body simply settles the issue;
• often assume that abortion restrictions are motivated by the goal of controlling women and not motivated by the belief that abortion is murder: even if this is true, the ethical task of undercutting their arguments and giving better arguments might do more good than not.” 

I described my efforts as not any “pro-choice cheerleading” or any form of partisan hackery, unless it’s partisanship towards the cognitive values that philosophy prizes, such as seeking understanding, seeking truth, having reasons, engaging objections, seeking out the strongest versions of arguments, and so on.

So, why do any of this? Why engage often “challenging” people on controversial ethical and philosophical issues? Here are some likely benefits:

• you will learn more about what “ordinary people” really think and how they often engage issues. Academics are sometimes (often?) stuck in an “ivory tower” higher-level, abstract understanding of issues that differs from how ordinary people often see things. Interacting with ordinary people will help you gain that understanding that’s necessary to better meet people “where they are at,” so to speak, so you can then help them understand issues in deeper ways: this is especially important for effective teaching.
• on more positive notes, you can present better arguments on issues; you can model giving reasons for one’s views and carefully and concisely developing those reasons; you can inform people, teach people, about important things that have been said about topics: you have studied the issues—they generally have not—so they can learn from you, and some will;
• you can model better ways of engagement with a more “just the facts with a focus on what’s true, false, reasonable, unreasonable, etc.” approach and you at least try hard to reject the common name-calling and other forms of irresponsible and negative online engagement and model: you might not be perfect at that, but you can try!
• you will likely find both “fans” and friends from all over the globe who will appreciate your attempts at bringing a more “rational” approach to the issues. I want to mention someone I met online and befriended who runs this “Defending Feminism” page: she used to engage people in ways similar to what I do, and she developed her own online resources to do just that. Amusingly, an anti-abortion activist once Tweeted that she thought this person and I were the same person, since our efforts at educating people online were often similar;
• you can develop a stronger “spiritual practice” (I am serious!) of learning how to better engage with difficult people: if what they say bothers you, it’s fair and good to wonder if you really must be bothered, come to understand that you don’t have to be bothered—what’s it to you what some “rando” says?—and develop a more “zen” or “stoic” attitude about many things. And if and when that gets old, you can always “mute” or “block” someone if it seems that engaging with them is pointless or harmful;
• I suppose another “spiritual practice” involves developing a type of hope or faith that your efforts are making some positive difference, even if it’s unclear what that really is or will be. Anyone who is active in philosophical fact checking should not assume that their inability to change the minds of people who might be very committed to not learning about issues is having no positive impact: other people are likely quietly watching the interaction and hopefully benefiting from it: keep them in mind;
• finally, don’t be afraid to try, and to try new things and experiment. Nobody gets much training in how to address the problems of our world and make the world a better place. But few thoughtful and sincere efforts at doing that are genuine failures. So feel free to change and adapt to try to find what you find effective and satisfying and makes some of the impact you hope for: you can do it! Or, at least, you can try!  

I want to conclude (somewhat uncharacteristically for me) with some well-known quotes:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

―Margaret Mead

“You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it.”

—Pirkei Avot 2:16

Again, our world is in crisis in various ways, and it’s up to caring people to use their talents to do at least some of what they can to help make the world a better place. Insofar as many of the world’s problems are rooted in different philosophical perspectives, it behooves people with training and experience in helping people better understand and engage philosophical issues to do just that. We can do that by teaching classes, engaging in peer-level research, by engaging the general public online, and by attempting all sorts of educational outreach. All are needed, and all are good ways for each of us to do our part. 

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

―Howard Thurman