Difficulty: What the hell
In the last several posts, I’ve been refining a definition of bullshit, defending it against objections, exploring its moral and epistemic implications, and defining and analyzing a species I call “presumptuous or exploitative bullshit.” Here I want to address a worry: overgeneration. My definitions risk labeling the speech or conduct of young children and mentally incapacitated people as bullshit. I think that problem can be fixed by adding an aptness condition.
On aptness and toddler bullshit
Now, we’re going to take a look at what bullshit is not, and I’m going to attempt to justify my stance while tacking on the aptness condition to the definitions of bullshit I’ve proposed.
My central argument: although my definitions of bullshit are susceptible to overgeneration–running the risk of labeling the speech or deed of young children and the mentally incapacitated as “bullshit”–this issue is fixable with an additional aptness condition:
to be aptly called a bullshitter, the bullshitter must be appropriately answerable to the norms in a relevant way.
I know that’s rather vague. So to clarify, let’s start with the risk of overgeneration. Recall my definition of classic representational bullshit:
Bullshit is (a) speech or deed that simulates adherence to standards of reasoning or truth without a genuine concern to get things right, or (b) speech or deed that displays indifference to any relevant standards of representational correctness.
A child or mentally incapacitated individual may at times say or do things that simulate an adherence to standards of reasoning or truth without a genuine concern to get things right. And sometimes, they are indifferent to any relevant standards of representational correctness. But very often, the speech and conduct of children and mentally incapacitated people cannot be aptly labeled as “bullshit.”
Case in point: my three-year-old son wore a t-shirt emblazoned with an image of a Parasaurolophus (a type of dinosaur). When his grandma asked him how to pronounce that word, he said, earnestly, “This dinosaur is called ‘Tyrannosaur-twat-twat-sus’.” At least at first glance, my son’s speech simulated adherence to standards of reasoning or truth–his assertion that the dinosaur is called “Tyrannosaur-twat-twat-sus” resembles truth-directed discourse. And that simulation lacked a genuine concern to get things right. To be genuinely concerned to get things right, he must be properly guided by the standards that must be respected, given the practice in which he is engaged. In this case, the standards are of pronunciation and communication. And he was not properly guided. But most of us would be loath to say that he uttered bullshit.
I argue that my own reluctance to call my son a bullshitter does not stem from the fact that he’s only three, or that it would be mean to associate an earnest toddler with excrement. To be sure, these are good reasons for parenting, but they are too surface-level to be philosophically significant.
The reason my son’s mispronunciation was not bullshit is that a young child is generally not appropriately answerable to the norms in a relevant way. In other words, because he’s not yet conversationally fluent in English and doesn’t know how to read, he is not yet appropriately answerable to the relevant norms of pronunciation in the way the charge of “bullshit” presupposes.
Now if, on the other hand, his mother told him to put on his shoes, and he explained that he doesn’t need shoes because he’s a brave T-Rex, then we may be much closer to toddler bullshit. In that case, he is not merely mispronouncing or misunderstanding. He is offering a pseudo-justification in a context where he is already beginning to grasp the relevant practical norms, even if only in a rudimentary way.
Important considerations
The aptness condition is philosophically important because it mitigates overgeneration. Without this condition, the definition risks misclassifying cases in which the structural resemblance to bullshit is present, but the ordinary charge is inapt because the speaker is not appropriately answerable to the relevant norms.
It would also be wrong–not because children are innocent, or because the mentally incapacitated deserve our compassion (of course they do), but because it would cast a demeaning blanket over people who, in virtue of their cognitive state, do not deserve the belittlement and scorn.
The point, then, is not that children can never say bullshit-like things. It is that the ordinary charge of “bullshit” presupposes a kind of normative answerability that small children often do not yet possess. My definitions therefore need an aptness condition—not because children are cute, but because a theory of bullshit should not confuse structural resemblance with full-fledged bullshitting.
Philosophy without Bullshit 