Ethics, Deliberate Untruths & Responsibility

Despite the fact that we can't ask politicians to never ever be wrong about certain things - we’re all human after
all -, we do expect that they try to be right, and certainly, we should expect politicians to not deliberately lie.

However, in our fake news world, this has become increasingly difficult since some people, and not only
politicians, seem to believe that telling the truth doesn’t matter.

In pairs, take 25 minutes to:

1. Choose a controversial issue (climate change, gender violence, immigration, Brexit, NATO, Covid…)
and do some research on what politicians (in general, locally, nationally, internationally…) are saying
about the issue. This is the knowledge they’re intending on disseminating and have their constituents
believe.

CLIMATE CHANGE

2. Do you think these politicians are providing accurate information? How can you know?

As we said the other day many politicians such as Donald Trump believe that climate changes it’s some sort of
invention created by people in order to control them, I thinks that climate change it’s just a fallacy more people
are starting to believe since they don’t really see any physical consequences of climate change in our every-day
lives, this bad information comes from the lack of knowledge some politicians like in this case Donald Trump
have about the topic and their unwillingness to actually research about the topic and learn more about it.

3. Do you think politicians themselves have accurate knowledge? How can you know?

We believe that politicians do rely on data and sources that they consult to talk about such relevant issues as
climate change. It is true that there are many sources on the internet, and not all of them are reliable. In fact,
some sources are based on data from other sources, and if one is wrong, all the others are wrong. A politician is
never going to know as much about climate change as a person who is dedicated to it, that is, geologists.
Although these can also be wrong.

4. What kinds of forces work on politicians to cause them to provide misleading information to the public on
this, or other political issues?

In addition, we also have to take into account that this misinformation offered by politicians comes from the need
to act immediately without time to obtain good information, due to the interest in the immediate response of the
population. People acquire explanations from experts the second a dilemma comes into the table, and
occasionally politicians need to act immediately, hence spreading misinformation that people believe without a
second doubt simply because they need a justification. Politicians aren’t gods, they don’t know about everything
that is happening and there are times when they believe information that isn't true and share it with the
population. This is also a problem because they aren’t aware of the lies that they are transmitting.

5. What can you, as an individual living in your society, do to ensure that your knowledge both of the issue
and of what the politicians are doing about the issue is accurate?

As an individual you need to question everything and not take anything for granted. People tend to believe
everything they see online because they assume that the internet is written by experts and therefore they must
be correct in everything they say, when in reality this is completely false. People need to understand this in order
to start thinking for themselves and develop critical thinking skills.

6. To which extent is that your responsibility? What about politicians? Is it their responsibility to make sure
what they’re claiming is accurate? If so, where does this responsibility arise from?
I believe that both politicians and we have to be aware of what the politician is acclaiming. It is important that the
politician has enough data to affirm or comment on something, but we must also know and consult sources to be
able to know with certainty if what the politician affirms is true or not. Even so, it may be that both the politician's
data and ours are wrong.

It is important that politicians have enough evidence to affirm something in public, since many people consider
that what the politician says is accurate. But if it turns out that he doesn't have enough evidence to make a claim
then he is causing a lot of people to get the wrong idea about climate change, which could have negative effects.