"In 399 BC, Socrates went on trial for corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens, and for impiety." [0]

I dunno, that sounds like the sort of thing that might be considered bad faith. I suppose the exact charge might not have survived translation. How do we think about heretics who corrupt people in good faith?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates#Trial_of_Socrates

You can read the Apology yourself (in the original Greek, even), and see that is has nothing to do with “bad faith” in the way we understand contemporarily: “corrupting the youth of Athens” refers specifically to encouraging their atheism and lack of deference.

To his eternal credit, Socrates does not argue very well in his defense. But this does not amount to bad faith on his part.

You tell us right now what it means to "participate in bad faith" or you quit talking about censoring "bad faith" speakers.

Bad faith is characterized by inauthenticity, meaning: acting or arguing in discordance with one's true beliefs or intentions.

Edit: bad faith is additionally characterized by its intentional stance, meaning that it shouldn't be confused with a state of ego dystonicity (wherein the actor acts compulsively against their self-perceived "true" nature).

To the best of my knowledge, there is no serious interpretation of Socrates in which his recorded expressions are considered to be in bad faith. The absolute closest stretch would be arguing that the Socratic method is in some sense "faithless," which is distinct from the negative nature of bad faith.

No, that would be heretical, which is a different concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith

Socrates claimed that he was not, in fact, corrupting the youth. Given that a group of Athenians then found him guilty of that to the point where he felt obliged to kill himself it seems fairly likely that his peers suspected him of arguing in bad faith.

A bad-faith heretic! Double the crimes that I initially thought. Maybe we do need to keep his dangerous ilk out of universities, he would no doubt have been harshly judged on HN at the time if they'd had HN back in the good old days.

More seriously, the academics have perfectly fine standards - to be an academic you need to have studied something deeply and make logical arguments. To speak on campus you need to be sponsored by an academic. That really is all that is needed and they're reasonably objective bars to meet. None of this "oh no he's got bad faith!" stuff that is trotted out for politics. Argue about the outcomes of policies, not the unobservable mental state of the people putting the policies.

> None of this "oh no he's got bad faith!" stuff that is trotted out for politics. Argue about the outcomes of policies, not the unobservable mental state of the people putting the policies.

I don't think you understand the difference in these two concepts. You can "corrupt the youth" without resorting to bad faith arguments. This quote of yours makes no sense.

I think that’s the point. Who are examples of obviously bad faith actors who _everyone_ would agree are bad faith?

shrug. I'd rather people discuss whether claims are made in good faith and create standards of debate rather than try to prove that they're correct. Because ironically the latter just breeds bad faith rhetoric.

The worst pattern off rhetoric that is absolutely dominating public discourse is "You've been accused of doing X"; "Well yeah but my opponent did something vaguely similar, ergo it's ok"