What is Indoctrination and when is it wrong?
What is indoctrination? Many theorists treat indoctrination as prima facie wrongful, but it is unclear how its ethics relates to its nature. I argue that indoctrination is neither a matter of teaching certain views (e.g., teaching ‘controversial views’), nor only a matter of how views are taught (e.g., by ‘bypassing’ the recipient’s evaluation).
Instead, whether instruction is indoctrinatory depends on both the attitudinal consequences of the instruction as well as on how the alternatives to the instructed views are presented. This view of indoctrination helps us to understand when and why indoctrination is wrongful. Even ‘accurate indoctrination’ disrespects learners in their capacity as epistemic agents, because it directs them to adopt the instruction without trusting them to open-mindedly evaluate the alternatives for themselves. I argue that while indoctrination is a kind of epistemically paternalistic influence, and wrongful, this doesn’t mean that all epistemically paternalistic interference is wrongful.
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