By Quassim Cassam

Another school shooting, another conspiracy theory. In 2012 it was the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that sparked a wave of conspiracy theories. This time it’s the brutal killing of 17 people at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. A theory doing the rounds on social media is that some of the people representing themselves as students who survived the shooting are paid actors being used by advocates of gun control to promote their agenda.

Why are such absurd theories propagated and why are some people apparently prepared to believe them? No fancy philosophical or psychological theories are needed to understand the spread of some conspiracy theories, including the one about the Florida shooting. It’s helpful to distinguish between producers and consumers of conspiracy theories. If one is concerned that a high school massacre will strengthen the case for gun control then the promotion of conspiracy theories about the massacre is an obvious, albeit nefarious, strategy for deflecting attention from the real problem. In such cases, the devising and spreading of conspiracy theories is a political act, and it’s not necessary to assume that the individuals doing the devising and spreading believe what they say.

It’s also worth remembering that conspiracy theories are big business. There are what Cass Sunstein calls ‘conspiracy entrepreneurs’ who literally make a living by peddling conspiracy theories. They have websites to promote, talk shows to produce, and merchandise to sell. Do they believe their own theories? Who knows, but they certainly have a strong economic interest in promoting them. So the promotion of conspiracy theories isn’t just a political act, though it is sometimes that as well: it’s also a good way to make money.

However ludicrous some conspiracy theories might be, conspiracy theories aren’t necessarily false or unjustified. There are justified and correct conspiracy theories and conspiracy theories that are unjustified and false. In any given case one can ask: which is it? The answer isn’t especially exciting: unjustified conspiracy theories lack adequate evidential support and are otherwise implausible. They posit conspiracies in order to explain what can be much more plausibly and economically explained in other ways.