The role of morality and democracy in the spread of knowledge
Knowledge is Social and Requires a Moral System How much do we know? And how do we know it is true? The things that we know about turn out to be the things we are most familiar with: the state of our bodies, our families, our living arrangements, our friends, our pastimes, our communities, and so on. It’s obvious that no one person knows everything. Since no one individual knows everything, every person depends on many others to get to know more than what they themselves are familiar with. In getting to know, we observe, practice, ask around, take classes, read books, consult Wikipedia, etc. Every way we come to know outside our own observations and practice involves other people doing the learning or passing on the knowledge to others, who pass it on to others. Knowledge, therefore, is like a continually developing awareness of reality that expands outward through human social networks. Perhaps the mo...