AAP 2026 CONFERENCE

Individuals and groups frequently resist well-evidenced claims while readily accepting others that are, on more objective examination, highly dubious or false. Philosophical analyses of this phenomenon tend to focus on right-wing or conservative predispositions, invoking mechanisms such as motivated reasoning, deference to unreliable authorities, and epistemic pollution by vested interests. These analyses rarely apply equivalent scrutiny to left-wing or progressive patterns of selective receptivity to evidence.

It appears, however, that the underlying mechanisms of belief formation and resistance to unwelcome truths operate symmetrically across the political spectrum. People evaluate evidence through filters shaped by their core values, social identities, prior commitments, and off-the-shelf worldviews or ideologies. Information that coheres with these feels intuitively vindicating and is readily assimilated, while dissonant information triggers suspicion, rationalization, rejection, or moral outrage.
Thus, conservatives and libertarians have often resisted well-established findings in climate science where they appeared to threaten commitments to free markets, technological optimism, and small government. But many self-identified liberals or progressives have been quick to endorse dubious claims – such as characterizations of Israel’s military operations in Gaza as “genocidal” – despite countervailing arguments and evidence.

This underscores the importance of epistemic humility, self-reflective scrutiny of one’s own priors, and efforts at detached objectivity.