While I appreciate posts like this, which speak about the importance of epistemic integrity, it seems to miss the fact that applauding someone for not lying is great but not if the belief they’re holding is bad.
It is suggestive that you describe the belief as “bad” rather than “wrong”,”incorrect” or “false”.
It’s fine to criticise people for (i) holding beliefs that are wrong, or for (ii) expressing beliefs that are probably best not expressed in a given context (whether they are true or false).
But it’s important to separate, as best we can, claims about (a) whether a particular belief is true from claims about (b) whether holding that belief has good consequences, or (c) correlates with good moral character.
This post would be better if it made this distinction more clearly.
It is suggestive that you describe the belief as “bad” rather than “wrong”,”incorrect” or “false”.
It’s fine to criticise people for (i) holding beliefs that are wrong, or for (ii) expressing beliefs that are probably best not expressed in a given context (whether they are true or false).
But it’s important to separate, as best we can, claims about (a) whether a particular belief is true from claims about (b) whether holding that belief has good consequences, or (c) correlates with good moral character.
This post would be better if it made this distinction more clearly.
I think Bostrom 1996 deserves criticism for (ii).
He may deserve criticism for (i) as well.