Episode Details

You have seen it a thousand times. Someone says something with complete confidence. The election was stolen. The vaccine is killing people. Obama is not American. They say it like it is a fact. Like they are absolutely certain.

Then you push back. You ask for evidence. You ask them to explain. And they disappear.

“I’m just asking questions.”

“Who knows.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“I’m not saying it’s true. I’m just saying it’s interesting.”

Five seconds ago they were certain. Now they are hiding behind curiosity they never had.

If you watched the video, you already know what philosopher Jonathan Ichikawa calls this. Epistemic cowardice. This Substack goes deeper into the research, the real-world examples, and why this one behavior is the engine that drives the entire MAGA information ecosystem.

What Is Epistemic Cowardice?

Jonathan Ichikawa is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. He received his PhD from Rutgers University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. His research focuses on the nature of knowledge, the ethics of belief, and feminist philosophy.

In 2024, Ichikawa published “Epistemic Courage” through Oxford University Press. The book won the Canadian Philosophy Association Book Prize in 2026. In it, Ichikawa argues that most of our culture’s focus on belief is negative. We spend enormous energy telling people what not to believe: do not believe without evidence, do not jump to conclusions, do not be gullible. These are what Ichikawa calls negative epistemic norms. Do not believe things you should not believe.

But Ichikawa argues there is an equally important and almost entirely ignored opposite mistake: failing to believe things you should believe. Refusing to commit to a position when the evidence is clear. Suspending judgment when you should take a stand.

He calls this failure epistemic cowardice.

Epistemic cowardice is not confusion. It is not genuine uncertainty. It is the deliberate retreat from a belief you already hold because defending that belief feels dangerous. Suspending judgment feels safe. It means you do not have to be held accountable. You do not have to defend anything. You do not have to face the consequences of being wrong.

This is not a minor academic distinction. Ichikawa argues that epistemic cowardice is connected to a conservative bias that reinforces the status quo. When people refuse to believe what the evidence shows, especially about injustice, inequality, or institutional failure, the result is that nothing changes. The refusal to commit becomes a form of complicity.

“Just Asking Questions”

The behavioral expression of epistemic cowardice has a name in rhetorical analysis. Researchers call it JAQing, short for “just asking questions.” Social psychologist Jovan Byford at the Open University published research in 2014 identifying this as a specific strategy used by conspiracy theorists to promote false claims while maintaining respectability.

The technique works in three steps. First, state the conspiracy as a question. “Why did Building 7 collapse?” “Why are so many athletes dying suddenly?” “What is really in the vaccine?” Second, let the implication do the work. The audience fills in the answer the question implies without the speaker ever having to commit to it. Third, when challenged, retreat into the question itself. “I’m not saying anything. I’m just asking.”

Byford found that this strategy opens up space for conspiracy thinking while allowing the person to avoid accountability. They get the rhetorical benefit of making the claim without the intellectual responsibility of defending it.

Communication researchers Matthew Jolley and Karen Douglas expanded on this in 2014, finding that even framing conspiracy theories as questions rather than statements was enough to increase conspiracy belie