4 - Truth Will Not Set You Free: Is There a Right to It Anyway?

Summary

We first explore how damaging untruth can be, especially in digital lifeworlds. In digital lifeworlds information spreads at a pace and volume unheard of in analog contexts. But misinformation and disinformation spread the same way, which enhances how individuals can tell stories about themselves or have them substantiated in echo chambers in the company of likeminded people. These considerations provide support for a right to truth. However, next we see that untruth plays a significant role as an enabler of valued psychological and social dynamics. The considerations that pull into the opposite direction notwithstanding, there can therefore be no comprehensive right to truth. Contrary to a well-known Bible verse, for most people it is anyway not the truth that sets them free. It is acceptance of worldviews in likeminded company that does so (worldviews that tend to contain plenty of untruths), in any event if being set free means having an orientation in the world. But that there can be no such comprehensive right is consistent with there being a right to truth in specific contexts. Still, the moral concern behind truthfulness is in this context not best captured in terms of an actual right to truth.