Manipulation

This article argues that manipulation is negligent influence. Manipulation is negligent in the sense that manipulators do not chose their method of influence because for its potential to reveal reasons to their victims. Thus, manipulation is a lack of care, or negligence, exclusively understood exclusively in terms of how one influences. That makes the proposed account superior to the most influential alternative, which analyses manipulation disjunctively as violation of several distinct types of norms. The implication is a paradigm shift in (...) understanding manipulation in terms of what manipulators intend to do toward a focus on what they fail to do or intend. (shrink)

Abstract -/- Political advertising is a powerful tool that influences voter decision-making by shaping perception, emotion, and cognition. This paper examines the main psychological and communication strategies used to manipulate voters, including emotional conditioning, repetition, framing, micro-targeting, misinformation, and identity-based persuasion. It also provides a comprehensive guide to protecting voters from such manipulation. Finally, the paper integrates these techniques with Angelito Malicse’s Universal Formula, particularly the Law of Balance, Law of Karma (systems), Law of Feedback, and Interconnected Nodes, demonstrating how (...) these natural laws explain and counteract the mechanisms of political influence. -/- . (shrink)

Trash-talking holds a contested place in sport, sometimes celebrated for its entertainment value yet often condemned for undermining respect and sportsmanship. This chapter examines trash-talking through the lens of the ethics of influence, situating it between impermissible conduct such as cheating and unproblematic expression such as playful banter. The chapter first clarifies what counts as trash talk and gives examples of its diverse forms. Then it evaluates its moral status. Existing views are critically assessed. The chapter advances an alternative account (...) that frames trash-talking as a form of manipulation, morally troubling insofar as it is simply indifferent to the revealing of reasons. This perspective reveals the practice as ethically troubling and illustrative of the moral tensions at the heart of competitive sport. (shrink)

Ever-increasing numbers of human interactions with intelligent software agents, online and offline, and their increasing ability to influence humans have prompted a surge in attention toward the concept of (online) manipulation. Several scholars have argued that manipulative influence is always hidden. But manipulation is sometimes overt, and when this is acknowledged the distinction between manipulation and other forms of social influence becomes problematic. Therefore, we need a better conceptualisation of manipulation that allows it to be overt and yet clearly distinct (...) from related concepts of social influence. I argue that manipulation is careless influence, show how this account helps to alleviate the shortcomings of the hidden influence view of manipulation, and derive implications for digital ethics. (shrink)

Every day, millions of people use mobile phones, play video games and surf the Internet. It is thus important to determine how technologies like these change what people think and how they behave. This is a central issue in the study of persuasive technologies. ‘Persuasive technologies’—henceforth ‘PTs’—are digital technologies, such as mobile apps, video games and virtual reality systems, that are deployed for the explicit purpose of changing attitudes and/or behaviours, without using coercion, deception or extreme forms of psychological manipulation (...) (such as hypnosis or indoctrination), and without exerting a direct (not psychologically mediated) physical effect on the brain. Typically PTs employ strategies such as prompting, information provision and encouragement... (shrink)

According to a recent account of disinformation, disinformation is content that “generates ignorance” (Simion 2024a; 2024b). The view improves upon previous accounts that focused upon the potential for disinformation to induce false belief, overlooking its role in generating ignorance by inducing doubt. While this proposal gives us a broader understanding of what disinformation can be, it retains the idea that disinformation functions as evidence that incrementally confirms falsehoods. Thus, this approach implies (in line with previous views) that when disinformation is (...) used intentionally, the disinformant hopes to capture the attention of agents and induce these agents to process this content as evidence to change an agent's belief state in epistemically undesirable ways. Certainly, this is true of some disinformation tactics, but it won't give us an adequate definition. In some successful real-world disinformation campaigns, disinformants add to the available content to deter the audience from attending to and processing evidence. In some cases, evidence can incrementally confirm a falsehood while providing knowledge of its negation. I propose an alternative pragmatic view that explains this. On this view, disinformation can come in the form of misleading evidence, but it can also come in the form of content that makes it evident that the evidential resources the agent needs to advance inquiry have been corrupted. This content functions as disinformation because it rationalises decisions that can protect a disinformant’s interests instead of promoting the inquirer’s interests. Instead of thinking of disinformation in epistemic terms (e.g., evidence that’s misleading), we should see it as fundamentally pragmatic. In the special case where a disinformant wants to influence another agent's inquiries, disinformation is content that’s used to minimise the probability that the inquisitive agent successfully draws conclusions that threaten the disinformant's interests. This includes misleading first-order evidence that leads agents away from the truth (per Simion's account), but it also includes non-misleading higher-order evidence that accurately shows evidential resources are corrupted, functioning as a deterrent that rationalises withdrawing from dangerous lines of inquiry. (shrink)

Dogwhistles & Figleaves: How Manipulative Language Spreads Racism and Falsehood. By SaulJennifer Mather. (Oxford: OUP, 2024. Pp. xvi + 222. Price £ 25.99.).

Accounts of manipulation typically focus on whether an agent’s preferences have been altered in problematic ways or whether external forces have interfered with their decision-making. This paper argues that such approaches fail to identify the structural feature that distinguishes manipulation from ordinary influence. The distinction lies not in whether an agent’s motivations are affected, but in how they are affected. Influence operates through the agent’s integrative processes, allowing motivations to be incorporated into a coherent structure. Manipulation, by contrast, operates by (...) bypassing these processes, altering the role of motivations in action without making those alterations available for integration. On this account, agency is undermined not when outcomes are externally shaped, but when the mechanisms of integration are displaced. This reframing provides a unified structural criterion for distinguishing permissible influence from manipulative control. (shrink)

Manipulative speech is ubiquitous and pernicious. We encounter it continually in both private conversation and public discourse, and it is a core component of propaganda, whose wide-ranging insidious effects are well-known. Much recent work has been devoted to investigating particular forms of manipulative speech, but this work leaves the nature of manipulative speech itself intuitive or implicit, and so leaves us without a general account of what manipulative speech is or how it functions. In this paper I develop a theory (...) of manipulative speech. On my view, manipulative speech involves a deliberate, coordinated violation of the two core Gricean norms of conversation: Cooperativity and Publicity. A manipulative speaker violates Cooperativity to further her goals at the expense of the audience’s. But the manipulative speaker also violates Publicity in intending, and taking steps to ensure, that her speech _appears_ cooperative. Thus, in a slogan, manipulative speech is _covertly strategic speech_. I go on to show how this view unifies various forms of manipulative speech discussed in the literature and serves as the basis for a novel, attractive definition of propaganda. (shrink)

There is a certain obscurantist craft by which a speaker’s words, deep or profound as they may seem, are so unclear that they frustrate the interpreter’s hermeneutical efforts. In the end, the interpreter may come to doubt her hermeneutical competencies while inflating her perception of the obscurantist’s epistemic status. The interpreter epistemically subordinates herself, in this way, to the obscurantist. In this paper, I elucidate the nature of this ‘subordinative obscurantism’ and examine its epistemically manipulative applications. I also discuss how (...) subordinative obscurantist manipulation can be used in conjunction with another epistemic manipulation strategy rooted in the use of clear-seeming speech, thereby setting especially pernicious cognitive traps for victims. Finally, I discuss the epistemic status of the beliefs formed by victims of subordinative obscurantist manipulation. (shrink)

Rational manipulation is constituted by the following conditions: (i) A aims to persuade B of thesis X; (ii) A holds X to be true and rationally justifiable; (iii) A knows of the existence of evidence, argument or information Y. While Y is not itself misinformation (Y is factually correct), A suspects B might take Y as important evidence for not-X; (iv) A deliberately chooses not to mention Y to B, out of a concern that it could mislead B into believing (...) not-X; and, (v) B has no compelling reason to expect A will avoid mentioning Y in this way. A’s behavior is rational insofar as A aims to use reasons to persuade B to believe a thesis that A holds as true and justified. Yet it is manipulation because A deliberately avoids furnishing B with information that B might regard as relevant, to ensure B arrives at the correct belief. I argue that we have good reason to think that A’s action will be wrongly manipulative because it disrespects B’s consent, epistemic autonomy, and personal autonomy. That said, context is critical, and there are many times evidence is intentionally occluded that are not rational manipulation. Even so, ethical arguers should beware of ambiguous contexts, such as when there are conflicting expectations about argumentation roles and goals. (shrink)

Gaslighters make their targets feel defective for possessing mental states to which they are entitled. This kind of deceptive manipulation is universally condemned as wrongful and destructive by philosophers and psychologists, as it destroys its target’s epistemic agency and psychological well-being and can be epistemically unjust. But these issues apply to gaslighting that is downward-facing—where the powerful gaslight the vulnerable—and gaslighting is not always like this. When the traditional power dynamic is reversed and a vulnerable agent gaslights her powerful oppressor (...) to defend herself from being wronged, I call it gaslighting-up and argue that such behavior is morally permissible and epistemically valuable. It enables abuse victims to avoid harm and to resist the very epistemic domination that is caused by abusive gaslighting, enables marginalized agents to safely protest bigotry and avoid the kind of testimonial injustice that they would face from traditional epistemic gaslighting, and even epistemically benefits its dogmatic targets by giving them a healthy dose of epistemic humility. So, rather than condemning gaslighting as intrinsically, universally bad, we should take a nuanced view and consider it in the context of real-world power dynamics and the role it plays in reinforcing and destabilizing these. (shrink)

In conversation, speakers often felicitously underspecify the content of their speech acts, leaving audiences uncertain about what they mean. This article discusses how such underspecification and the resulting uncertainty can be used deliberately, and manipulatively, to achieve a range of noncommunicative conversational goals—including minimizing conversational conflict, manufacturing acceptance or perceived agreement, and gaining or bolstering status. The article argues that speakers who manipulatively underspecify their speech acts in this way engage in a mock speech act called pied piping. In pied (...) piping, a speaker leaves open a range of interpretations for a speech act while preserving both plausible deniability and plausible assertability; depending on how the audience responds, the speaker can retroactively commit to any of the interpretations left open, and so try to retroactively update the common ground. The article goes on to develop a model of how pied piping functions that incorporates game-theoretic elements into the more traditional common ground framework in order to capture the uncertainty of updating. (shrink)

An important question regarding the use of neurointerventions in criminal justice systems relates to the ethics of offering neurointerventions in exchange for a sentence reduction or as a condition of parole – what has been termed the neurocorrective offer. In this paper, we suggest that neurocorrective offers may sometimes involve manipulative pressure. That is, in some cases these offers will involve a pressure to comply with the manipulators’ (i.e., the state’s) bidding that does not rise to the level of coercion, (...) but which cannot be considered an instance of persuasion. We then suggest that offenders may fall victim to this pressure due to general facts about human psychology and their situational vulnerability. We end the paper by identifying three reasons for thinking it prima facie morally wrong for the state to make neurocorrective offers involving manipulative pressure even if such offers do not undermine offenders’ consent to the offer. Specifically, we suggest that such offers are plausibly pro tanto harmful to some offenders and that they sometimes disrespect their autonomy and rationality. (shrink)

This book is about forms of manipulation like gaslighting, flattery, misdirection, nagging, emotional blackmail, charm offensives, and playing on the emotions. It uses philosophical methodology to build and defend a theory of manipulation, called the Mistake Account. This theory says that manipulation is a kind of influence that works by introducing a mistake into the mental states or processes of the person being influenced. It then discusses the psychological processes by which manipulators get people to make these mistakes. It also (...) offers a moral analysis of manipulation, and it applies the Mistake Account to various influences, including priming, conditioning, nudges, advertising, sales, and online influences. (shrink)

This paper develops the concept of background exploitation to argue that artificial intelligence’s (AI) most profound manipulative power lies not in influencing current beliefs or emotions, but in intervening in the pre-reflective conditions that mediate immediate experience—our backgrounds. Drawing on phenomenology and Robert Musil’s notions of the “invisible” and the “nonexistent,” the paper reconceptualizes atmospheres as based on pre-reflective associations mediated by individual backgrounds. On this basis, two distinct modes of AI-driven background exploitation are distinguished: background hijacking, which exploits existing (...) backgrounds in situ, and background entrapment, which gradually recalibrates backgrounds over time. While current debates in AI ethics and affective computing primarily address the former, the paper argues that they fail to capture the latter—AI’s growing capacity to reshape the very conditions through which immediate experience is mediated. (shrink)

Philosophers typically argue that manipulation is wrong because it impairs our practical reasoning. Recently, Sophie Gibert has challenged this view, proposing instead a reductive account of the wrong of manipulation. Gibert’s account is reductive in that it dispenses with the idea that there is a distinctive non-moral feature of manipulation upon which its wrongness supervenes. Rather, the wrong of manipulation is nothing over and above the wrong of infringing other rights. In this paper, I raise a number of objections against (...) Gibert’s reductive account, arguing that it is both overinclusive and underinclusive. I then propose a novel formulation of the traditional view. I argue that, in addition to avoiding the sort of problems raised by Gibert, my reformulation of the view enables us to give a more nuanced treatment of central cases of manipulation, including some that are relevant to law and policymaking, such as the morality of nudging. My reformulation comes at a price. The view I offer rests on a fairly demanding picture of the kind of practical reasoning required to exercise our practical agency well. But since this picture is independently plausible, this is a price we should be happy to pay. (shrink)

Philosophers have been paying increasingly more attention to the notion of manipulation. Perhaps surprisingly, however, most of the recent literature has focused on the conceptual question of identifying the features that make certain behaviours instances of manipulation, rather than on the moral question of why manipulation is wrong. Even more surprisingly, philosophers who have addressed the moral question have rejected the traditional view that manipulation is wrong because it undermines our efforts to exercise our practical agency and respond to our (...) reasons for action (Buss, Gibert). In this paper, I offer a defence of the traditional view. In doing so, I vindicate a further idea that is routinely invoked in discussions of manipulation but whose articulation has proved elusive: The idea that one reason manipulation is wrong is that it involves using people as means. (shrink)

What we count as manipulation, and what means we regard as possible to achieve it, depends partly on our view of how agency and cognition work in the target of manipulation. Mainstream thinking about the mechanisms of manipulation tend to assume cognitive internalism, where cognition is performed by brains that relate to the world through sense and motor control. Here I review the two most common cognitive internalist approaches to thinking about manipulation, in expected utility theory and prospect theory. Then (...) I focus on manipulation of behaviour taking as a starting point the view that human cognition is extensively scaffolded. Cognition is scaffolded when it relies in significant ways on structure and resources external to the skull and skin. When cognition itself extends into the outside world, it can be manipulated by means of external interventions. This isn’t merely a speculative possibility. There are real examples of manipulating scaffolded human cognition. (shrink)

Large language models now possess human-level linguistic abilities in many contexts. This raises the concern that they can be used to deceive and manipulate on unprecedented scales, for instance spreading political misinformation on social media. In future, agentic AI systems might also deceive and manipulate humans for their own purposes. In this paper, first, I argue that AI-generated content should be subject to stricter standards against deception and manipulation than we ordinarily apply to humans. Second, I offer new characterizations of (...) AI deception and manipulation meant to support such standards, according to which a statement is deceptive (resp. manipulative) if it leads human addressees away from the beliefs (resp. choices) they would endorse under “semi-ideal” conditions. Third, I propose two measures to guard against AI deception and manipulation, inspired by this characterization: “extreme transparency” requirements for AI-generated content and “defensive systems” that, among other things, annotate AI-generated statements with contextualizing information. Finally, I consider to what extent these measures can protect against deceptive behavior in future, agentic AI systems. (shrink)

Purpose Recently, manipulative techniques, such as dark patterns, are widely applied. However, there is a need for clarification regarding these techniques and related phenomena. In particular, there is still no clarity about the terminology and conceptual basis of consumer manipulation. This paper aims to address this shortcoming by introducing a definition and classification of consumer manipulation. Design/methodology/approach This paper takes a conceptual approach, drawing on existing literature and established theories to comprehend the phenomenon of consumer manipulation. Findings The paper proposes (...) that consumer manipulation comprises three dimensions: limited transparency, perceived restriction of autonomy and the feeling of being tricked. This paper presents a classification of different types of consumer manipulation and demonstrates how these types can lead to varying outcomes based on the source of manipulation, changeability, reasons for perception and perception timing. Based on this classification, research propositions informed by established theories and concepts are presented. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this work represents a first attempt to address the concept of consumer manipulation through a clear definition and classification. It is relevant for academics, policymakers and practitioners since it facilitates informed discussions and analyses of this concept. It benefits companies by raising awareness of potentially overlooked consequences of manipulative tactics, while also benefiting consumers by reducing their exposure to manipulation. (shrink)

According to proponents of the extended mind, bio-external resources, such as a notebook or a smartphone, are candidate parts of the cognitive and mental machinery that realises cognitive states and processes. The present chapter discusses three areas of ethical concern associated with the extended mind, namely mental privacy, mental manipulation, and agency. We also examine the ethics of the extended mind from the standpoint of three general normative frameworks, namely, consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics.

Many philosophical accounts of manipulation are blind to the extent to which actual people fall short of the rational ideal, while prominent accounts in political science are under-inclusive. We offer necessary and sufficient conditions – Suitable Reason and Testimonial Honesty – distinguishing manipulative from non-manipulative influence; develop a ‘hypothetical disclosure test’ to measure the degree of manipulation; and provide further criteria to assess and compare the morality of manipulation across cases. We discuss multiple examples drawn from politics and from public (...) policy with particular attention to recent debates about the ethics and politics of nudge. (shrink)

What distinguishes deception from manipulation? Cohen (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 96, 483 and 2018) proposes a new answer and explores its ethical implications. Appealing to new cases of “non‐deceptive manipulation” that involve intentionally causing a false belief, he offers a new definition of deception in terms of communication that rules out these counterexamples to the traditional definition. And, he leverages this definition in support of the claim that deception “carries heavier moral weight” than manipulation. In this paper, I argue that (...) these cases of “non‐deceptive manipulation” are even more prevalent than Cohen suggests—especially in the digital world. Thus, if his moral claim were correct, a lot of what is happening on the internet these days would constitute moral improvement over old‐fashioned deception. Fortunately, we are not forced to accept this counterintuitive conclusion. Cohen's definition must be rejected because it incorrectly rules out clear instances of deception. In this paper, I defend a definition of deception in terms of evidence that does correctly distinguish between deception and non‐deceptive manipulation. Moreover, it does not support Cohen's claim that deception is morally worse than other forms of manipulation. (shrink)

As more decisions are made by automated algorithmic systems, the transparency of these systems has come under scrutiny. While such transparency is typically seen as beneficial, there is a also a critical, Foucauldian account of it. From this perspective, worries have recently been articulated that algorithmic transparency can be used for manipulation, as part of a disciplinary power structure. Klenk (Philosophy & Technology 36, 79, 2023) recently argued that such manipulation should not be understood as exploitation of vulnerable victims, but (...) rather as indifference to whether the information provided enhances decision-making by revealing reasons. This short commentary on Klenk uses Berlin’s (1958) two concepts of liberty to further illuminate the concept of transparency as manipulation, finding alignment between positive liberty and the critical account. (shrink)

Franke, in Philosophy & Technology, 37(1), 1–6, (2024), connects the recent debate about manipulative algorithmic transparency with the concerns about problematic pursuits of positive liberty. I argue that the indifference view of manipulative transparency is not aligned with positive liberty, contrary to Franke’s claim, and even if it is, it is not aligned with the risk that many have attributed to pursuits of positive liberty. Moreover, I suggest that Franke’s worry may generalise beyond the manipulative transparency debate to AI ethics (...) in general. (shrink)

Generative AI enables automated, effective manipulation at scale. Despite the growing general ethical discussion around generative AI, the specific manipulation risks remain inadequately investigated. This article outlines essential inquiries encompassing conceptual, empirical, and design dimensions of manipulation, pivotal for comprehending and curbing manipulation risks. By highlighting these questions, the article underscores the necessity of an appropriate conceptualisation of manipulation to ensure the responsible development of Generative AI technologies.

This paper rejects an argument defending the view that the boundary between deception and manipulation is such that some manipulations intended to cause false beliefs count as non-deceptive. On the strongest version of this argument, if a specific behaviour involves compromising the victim’s reasoning, then the behaviour is manipulative but not deceptive, and if it involves exposing the victim to misleading evidence that justifies her false belief, then it is deceptive but not manipulative. This argument has been consistently used as (...) a reason to reject the traditional analysis of human deception, according to which intentionally causing someone to acquire a false belief is sufficient for deception. And because the traditional analysis is also consistent with our most basic intuitions about deception, it does matter whether this argument succeeds. (shrink)

Deceptionism about lying is the view that all lies are intended to deceive. This view sits uneasily with some cases that seem to involve lies not intended to deceive. We call these lies bald-faced because the liar lies while believing that the hearer knows that they are lying. The most recent deceptionist argument put forward by Rudnicki and Odrowąż-Sypniewska (this journal) defends the view that all genuine bald-faced lies are intended to deceive some of their hearers. I argue that this (...) argument is interesting but problematic: its premises do not support the view that all bald-faced lies are intended to deceive but rather only that some people who bald-faced lie to institutions or large audiences intend to deceive someone. Also, genuine bald-faced lies addressed at institutions are intended to (non-deceptively) manipulate institutions rather than deceive anyone. (shrink)

Cathy Mason (2020) argues – against my position in Phelan (2019) – that significant norm-manipulation is unnecessary for friendship. Instead, she holds that norm manipulation is a, perhaps omnipresent, causal result of the very feature I deny as necessary to friendship: mutual caring or love. Mason’s counter-examples allow for further explication of the norm-manipulation view of friendship. However, they do not constitute a compelling challenge to that view, because they do not seem to involve collaborative norm manipulation at all. Instead, (...) they are better described as cases in which people come to be subject to established cultural norms they were not previously subject to, because they voluntarily come to fall under a distinctive relationship relative to one another. (shrink)

Much discussion of the ethics of algorithms has focused on harms to autonomy—especially harms stemming from manipulation. Nonetheless, although manipulation can often be harmful, we suggest that in certain contexts it may not impair autonomy. To fully assess the impact of algorithm design on autonomy, we argue for a need to move beyond a focus on manipulation towards a multidimensional account of autonomy itself. Drawing on the autonomy literature and recent data ethics, we propose a novel account which takes autonomy (...) to supervene on three distinct but related elements: agency, authenticity and individual control over decision-making. By distinguishing autonomy from control, the account can explain the variable effects of manipulation on user autonomy within algorithm-driven systems. In particular, it can explain why improving user control may improve autonomy in some contexts, while in other contexts—such as in some kinds of newsfeeds—certain algorithm designs that instead _reduce_ user control may nevertheless improve autonomy. As a result, the account can accommodate the sometimes convoluted interplay between control, autonomy, manipulation, and commercial versus prosocial design goals. (shrink)

In this chapter, I explore the role that figleaves and dogwhistles play in the spread of falsehood and wildly implausible conspiracy theories. I begin from the Norm of Truthfulness, a woolly norm that is widely accepted, which functions in a manner similar to the Norm of Racial Equality. I show how dogwhistles and figleaves are used to provide deniability for violations of this norm. This allows blatantly false claims to remain circulation, and provides cover for political figures who might otherwise (...) see their careers ended by their support for wild falsehoods. (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview of flawed understandings of racism that are common among White Americans. In particular, it draws on Tali Mendelberg’s work on racial discourse in politics, Jane Hill’s White Folk Theory of Racism, and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s theory of Color-Blind Racism. In particular, it emphasizes the way that racists are widely understood to be monstrous yet rare and easily recognized individuals; and the way that this understanding allows for concerns about other manifestations of racism to be set aside. (...) Together, these elements provide fertile ground for devices of deniability that can help White people not to acknowledge their own racism or that of those they wish to support. (shrink)

This chapter takes up the question of what to do about dogwhistles and figleaves, which I have argued are so effective in spreading blatantly racist and false discourse. It canvasses a variety of possible solutions, arguing both against the simplistic solution of simply pointing out the norm violation; and against the simplistic solution of simply ignoring it. It shows that dogwhistles and figleaves pose important additional challenges for existing interventions like social media moderation and accuracy nudges. Instead, it argues that (...) we need to institute a program of inoculation—but that this must be based in good empirical evidence about what will work, evidence that we don’t (yet) have. At this point the best we can do is to raise awareness and begin research on how to intervene most effectively. And we must do so with the awareness that this is only a small part of a much larger battle. (shrink)

This chapter tackles the widespread sense that something has recently gone badly wrong with respect to truth and falsehood in our political discourse. It rejects the idea of a post-truth era, but it also rejects the idea that there is nothing new in our current era with respect to falsehood. Turning to conspiracy theories, it again rejects the idea that there is nothing new, but also rejects various existing analyses of what _is_ new. In the end, the chapter argues that (...) our era is characterized by a new mainstreaming of obvious falsehoods (recognized as such by the mainstream media) in political discourse; and by a new ability for politicians to endorse such falsehoods and still survive professionally. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that political discourse in recent years has become more openly racist and more filled with wildly implausible conspiracy theories. Dogwhistles and Figleaves explores certain ways in which such changes—both of which defied previously settled norms of political speech—have been brought about. Jennifer Saul shows that two linguistic devices, dogwhistles and figleaves, have played a crucial role. Some dogwhistles (such as “88,” used by Nazis online to mean “Heil Hitler”) serve to disguise messages that would otherwise be (...) rejected as unacceptable, allowing them to be transmitted surreptitiously. Other dogwhistles (like the 1988 “Willie Horton” ad) work by influencing people in ways that they are not aware of, and which they would likely reject were they aware. Figleaves (such as “just asking questions”) take messages that could easily be recognized as unacceptable, and provide just enough cover that people become more willing to accept them. Importantly, these work against the background of a divided public. They are particularly effective in influencing people who are conflicted yet malleable—those who don’t want to be racist, for example, but are willing to be convinced that something which seems racist really isn’t. Saul shows how these dogwhistles and figleaves have both exploited and widened existing divisions in society, and normalized racist and conspiracist speech. (shrink)

This chapter explains how racist dogwhistles allow politicians to play on voters’ racial resentments in a stealthy manner, which is necessitated by widespread acceptance of the rather woolly Norm of Racial Equality. Overt Code dogwhistles function like a secret code, transmitting a norm-violating message to a group that is happy to receive this message and a norm-compliant cover message to the group that would be alienated by norm violation (e.g. neo-Nazis using “88” as code for “Heil Hitler”). Covert Effect dogwhistles (...) play on their target audience’s racial resentments without their awareness, affecting them unconsciously (e.g. the term “government spending” is known to activate White Americans’ racial attitudes outside their awareness). The chapter also takes up further issues, such as unintentional dogwhistles, and dogwhistles that have become widely known. It argues that dogwhistles play an important role not just in transmitting racist messages, but also in magnifying division and distrust between groups. (shrink)

This chapter takes up an important puzzle: _some_ of the most prominent false utterances in current political discourse are _not_ couched in rhetoric to lend them deniability. Indeed, the _undeniable_ falsehood of some of the utterances made by figures like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson is often remarked on. Nonetheless those making these utterances maintain devoted and apparently trusting followers. How can this be? This chapter explores the use of such bald-faced lies and bullshit as an authoritarian tactic. Once more, (...) carefully distinguishing the perspectives of various audiences will be crucial to fully understanding the phenomenon. This will involve explorations of echo chambers, epistemic bubbles, and the ways that lies are used to exert and demonstrate power. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the main research question of the book: how have blatant racism and wildly implausible conspiracy theories been mainstreamed in our political culture? The chapter acknowledges that racism and political lies are far from new. Yet it argues that there _is_ something new in the prevalence of _blatant_ racism and _obvious_ lies in our current political discourse. Moreover, it argues that this is dangerous in ways that should motivate us to seek a fuller understanding. This introduction sets out (...) the basic elements of the response that the book will make, including (1) a focus on divisions among the public; (2) particular attention to manipulable groups; (3) the linguistic devices of dogwhistles and figleaves; (4) and the rise of authoritarianism. It also offers a chapter-by-chapter overview of the book. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the idea of racial figleaves, which are typically additional material that raises some doubt about whether an otherwise racist-seeming utterance really is racist. It argues that racial figleaves play an important and dangerous role in shifting the way that important norms (such as norms against racism) are understood. The chapter discusses many kinds of racial figleaf—including non-linguistic figleaves (such as visual or human figleaves), figleaves for other people’s utterances, and figleaves for actions. It addresses the tricky issue (...) of determining when an utterance is a figleaf, and the question of whether a figleaf must _actually_ be covering for racism. Finally, the chapter shows the importance of figleaves both for mainstreaming explicitly racist discourse and for fomenting division among groups. (shrink)

Advances in science and technology have added to our insights into the vulnerabilities of human agency as well as to the methods of exploiting them. This has raised the stakes for efforts to clarify the concept and ethics of manipulation. Among these efforts, Robert Noggle’s influencer-centered account of manipulation has been most significant. He defines manipulative acts as those whereby an agent intentionally influences a recipient’s attitudes so that they do not conform as closely as they otherwise would to the (...) pertinent norms and ideals endorsed by the influencer. This provides a relatively simple and in many ways clear definition of manipulation. It sidesteps thorny debates about autonomy, freedom, or practical rationality. It also promises to reveal a conceptual parallel between manipulating and lying, and thus to explain why manipulation is pro tanto wrong. In one respect, however, the account remains ambiguous: It remains unclear whether, and to what extent, it requires that influencers’ beliefs about what is ideal for their recipients to be grounded in some effort on the part of the influencer to identify with or take on the role of her recipient. This paper explains this ambiguity. It argues that influencer-centrism cannot remain indifferent to the validity of an agent’s beliefs about the ideal state of the recipient and provide an identification requirement that would render the whole account plausible and sufficiently determinate. (shrink)

Moral reflection and deliberation on both deception and manipulation is hindered by lack of agreement on the precise meanings of these concepts. Specifically, there is disagreement on how to understand their relation vis-à-vis each other. Curiously, according to one prominent view, all deceptions are instances of manipulations, while according to another, all manipulations are instances of deceptions. This paper makes that implicit disagreement explicit, and argues that both views are untenable. It concludes that deception and manipulation partially overlap, and takes (...) further steps in delineating the border between these concepts. The paper ends with the conclusion that moral judgments regarding either manipulation or deception cannot be transferred wholesale from the one concept to the other just by virtue of the relations between the concepts. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 51, Issue 4, Page 333-372, Fall 2023.

Existing analyses of disinformation tend to embrace the view that disinformation is intended or otherwise functions to mislead its audience, that is, to produce false beliefs. I argue that this view is doubly mistaken. First, while paradigmatic disinformation campaigns aim to produce false beliefs in an audience, disinformation may in some cases be intended only to prevent its audience from forming true beliefs. Second, purveyors of disinformation need not intend to have any effect at all on their audience’s beliefs, aiming (...) instead to manipulate an audience’s behavior through alteration of sub-doxastic states. Ultimately, I argue that attention to such non-paradigmatic forms of disinformation is essential to understanding the threat disinformation poses and why this threat is so difficult to counter. (shrink)

The increasing diffusion of novel digital and online sociotechnical systems for arational behavioral influence based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as social media, microtargeting advertising, and personalized search algorithms, has brought about new ways of engaging with users, collecting their data and potentially influencing their behavior. However, these technologies and techniques have also raised concerns about the potential for manipulation, as they offer unprecedented capabilities for targeting and influencing individuals on a large scale and in a more subtle, automated and (...) pervasive manner than ever before. This paper, provides a narrative review of the existing literature on manipulation, with a particular focus on the role of AI and associated digital technologies. Furthermore, it outlines an account of manipulation based of four key requirements: intentionality, asymmetry of outcome, non-transparency and violation of autonomy. I argue that while manipulation is not a new phenomenon, the pervasiveness, automaticity, and opacity of certain digital technologies may raise a new type of manipulation, called “digital manipulation”. I call “digital manipulation” any influence exerted through the use of digital technology that is intentionally designed to bypass reason and to produce an asymmetry of outcome between the data processor (or a third party that benefits thereof) and the data subject. Drawing on insights from psychology, sociology, and computer science, I identify key factors that can make manipulation more or less effective, and highlight the potential risks and benefits of these technologies for individuals and society. I conclude that manipulation through AI and associated digital technologies is not qualitatively different from manipulation through human–human interaction in the physical world. However, some functional characteristics make it potentially more likely of evading the subject’s cognitive defenses. This could increase the probability and severity of manipulation. Furthermore, it could violate some fundamental principles of freedom or entitlement related to a person’s brain and mind domain, hence called neurorights. To this end, an account of digital manipulation as a violation of the neuroright to cognitive liberty is presented. (shrink)

A series of recent papers raises worries about the manipulative potential of algorithmic transparency (to wit, making visible the factors that influence an algorithm’s output). But while the concern is apt and relevant, it is based on a fraught understanding of manipulation. Therefore, this paper draws attention to the ‘indifference view’ of manipulation, which explains better than the ‘vulnerability view’ why algorithmic transparency has manipulative potential. The paper also raises pertinent research questions for future studies of manipulation in the context (...) of algorithmic transparency. (shrink)