“Calling Bullshit”: A Model of Social Intuitionist Reasoning

Introduction

Princeton University’s Philosophy Professor Harry G. Frankfurt (2005) began his book, On Bullshit, with this simple observation: “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this” (p. 1). This simple statement implies that bullshit is something in the world, that we can refer to it, it is quantifiable, pervasive, something that large numbers of people have observed and know about, and it is significant in our lives. We can say, “that is bullshit” or “that’s a lot of bullshit” and people presumably understand what we are referring to and specifying as “a lot.” They would at least understand our stance on what we are calling bullshit. If we think it is bullshit, we do not approve of it. Frankfurt went on to ponder just how to define ‘bullshit,’ and focused on a distinction between lying and bullshitting. He identified characteristics or attributes that constitute bullshit. These include the bullshitter’s lack of interest in or concern for the truth of what they say, an indifference to how things really are, the bullshitter’s mindless state of mind, the bullshitter’s intentions or what he/she is up to, the attempt to get away with something, a failure to try to get things right, hot air, fake but not necessarily false. A number of scholars have expanded on Frankfurt’s inquiry into the concept of ‘bullshit,’ also attempting an armchair definition of the term, offering their own list of attributes of bullshit or offering their own version of the process of bullshitting (Fredal, 2011; Hardcastle & Reisch, 2006). Others have commented on the amount and significance of bullshit in our culture (Mooney & Kirshenbaum, 2009; Penny, 2005; Peters, 2015, Postman, 1969). However, few empirical studies have been done on the actual experiencing of ‘bullshit’ or the decision to call something bullshit or the process of “calling bullshit.” Little if any empirical research has studied how we come to the determination “that’s bullshit,” especially our ability to decide that something is bullshit so quickly. By focusing on “calling bullshit” as a judgment or conclusion reached, bullshit is conceptualized not as something out there or in the other but rather as an interpretation, a decision we come to, an evaluation. This study will review some theoretical positions taken and will reframe the phenomenon of “calling bullshit” as a special case of reasoning or what some scholars refer to as intuition (Haidt, 2001; Mercier & Sperber, 2017; Peregrin, 2017). In other words, we are asking, what is going on in a person’s mind when deciding that something is bullshit?