Toxic Online Environments are what Makes Rational Persuasion Become Wrongful

Abstract

Suppose you wanted to switch to a healthier diet and searched for ideas online. You will unavoidably find some posts and videos where various influencers weigh in on this topic on social media platforms. Going down the rabbit hole of online searches, you see that the most vocal debate occurrs between two camps: the high fat versus the high carbohydrates. In these debates, a key argument is what counts as a blood marker for health assessment. Some say it is the LDL cholesterol, while others say that it is the triglycerides/HDL ratio. You are no medical expert (otherwise, you would not be searching for this online), so both technical debates are equally unfamiliar to you. Both sides can cite scientific studies showing that LDL and triglycerides/HDL are important health markers and that one is more relevant. If you were to side with any of the two camps, you would make a rational choice, given that both sides have factual and scientific arguments to support their claims. But depending on which side you are persuaded by, your diet will change radically, which will have long-term effects and possibly disastrous consequences for your health.

In deciding which side you take, the scale is not tipped by the strength of the reasons—since you cannot decide that—but on minor circumstances such as which side gets to present their reasons to you first. If it changes your attitude towards a healthy diet, this presentation of reasons will count as rational persuasion, following the schema provided by Mitchell and Douglas (2024).