ABSTRACTExperts use their superior skills and understanding to mediate between evidence in some domain and non-experts. But how should we understand the proper relationship between experts and non-experts? In this paper, I present two ways of conceiving experts’ mediating role from the perspective of non-experts: the Authority View and the Advisor View. Jennifer Lackey has criticized the Authority View and defended the Advisor View. I defend an account of epistemic authority that avoids her criticisms while arguing the Advisor View lacks (...) the advantages she claims. Ultimately, I present a hybrid approach according to which whether we should treat experts as authorities or advisors varies depending upon the presence of certain epistemic and moral concerns. (shrink)

This paper develops a moderate pessimist account of moral deference. I argue that while some pessimist explanations of the puzzle of moral deference have been misguided in matters of detail, they nevertheless share an important insight, namely that there is a justified moral agency ideal grounded in pro tanto reasons against moral deference. This thought is unpacked in terms of a set of values associated with the practice of morality. I conclude by suggesting that the solution to the puzzle of (...) moral deference developed here gives us a plausible recipe for generalizing to certain cases of nonmoral deference as well. (shrink)

Pessimists about trust in the normative domain believe that forming normative beliefs on the basis of trusting others is problematic, forming normative beliefs in other ways is not so problematic and forming non-normative beliefs on the basis of trust is not so problematic. Whilst there is substantial disagreement over the best way of accounting for pessimist ideas about trust, it is widely accepted that the intuitively problematic character of forming normative beliefs on the basis of trust cannot be explained in (...) terms of the idea that trust cannot be a source of normative knowledge. This paper argues that the dismissal of scepticism about trust as a source of normative knowledge is unwarranted. It does so by developing a sceptical explanation of pessimist ideas, arguing that the obvious arguments against the sceptical explanation fail and arguing that the sceptical explanation has the resources to resolve the considerations that present problems for existing explanations. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 3, Page 297-319, July 2022.

I argue that reliance on political testimony conflicts with two democratic values: the value of mutual justifiability and the value of equality of opportunity for political influence. Reliance on political testimony is characterized by a reliance on the assertions of others directly on a political question the citizen is asked to answer as part of a formal democratic decision procedure. Reliance on expert testimony generally, even in the context of political decision-making, does not similarly conflict with democratic values. As a (...) consequence of the argument, citizens have a pro tanto reason to rely on their own political judgment when determining their vote, and democratic societies have a reason to only ask citizens questions they are able to answer without reliance on political testimony. (shrink)

Testimony of oppression is testimony that something constitutes or contributes to a form of oppression, such as, for example, “The stranger’s comment was sexist.” Testimony of oppression that is given by members of the relevant oppressed group has the potential to play an important role in fostering a shared understanding of oppression. Yet, it is frequently dismissed out of hand. Against the background of a recent debate on moral testimony, this paper discusses the following question: How should privileged hearers approach (...) testimony of oppression if they aim to do so in an ethically and epistemically sound way? Should they defer or try to understand? Both strategies constitute ways of learning from testimony of oppression. However, they differ in important respects and exclude each other. Because testimony of oppression is often based on personal experience, empathizing with the speaker can play an important role in trying to understand testimony of oppression. While the fact that empathy can change your mind and the advantages of understanding over knowledge support trying to understand as the right approach to testimony of oppression, considerations of the “limits of empathy” and the value of deference support deferring. I argue that, on balance, these contrasting arguments allow for a limited defense of the role of empathy in learning from testimony of oppression. We should try to understand testimony of oppression by empathizing with the speaker, but not treat our ability to understand as a condition on accepting a speaker’s claim. (shrink)

An epistemologist tells you that knowledge is more than justified true belief. You trust them and thus come to believe this on the basis of their testimony. Did you thereby come to know that this view is correct? Intuitively, there is something intellectually wrong with forming philosophical beliefs on the basis of testimony, and yet it's hard to see why philosophy should be significantly epistemically different from other areas of inquiry in a way that would fully prohibit belief by testimony. (...) This, I argue, is the puzzle of philosophical testimony. In this paper, I explore the puzzle of philosophical testimony and its ramifications. In particular, I examine the case for pessimism about philosophical testimony—the thesis that philosophical belief on the basis of testimony is impossible or is in some way illegitimate—and I argue that it lacks adequate support. I then consider whether the source of the apparent intellectual wrongness of testimonial‐based philosophical belief is grounded in non‐epistemic norms and goals of philosophical practice itself and argue that such norms are implausible, don't conflict with testimonial‐based philosophical belief, or else are mere disciplinary norms, lacking substantial normative force that would make it wrong to form testimonial‐based philosophical belief. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that there exist distinctive obstacles to relying on moral testimony. In this paper, I criticize previous attempts to identify these obstacles and offer a new theory. I argue that the problems associated with moral deference can't be explained in terms of the value of moral understanding, nor in terms of aretaic considerations related to subjective integration. Instead, our uneasiness with moral testimony is best explained by our attachment to an ideal of authenticity that places special demands on (...) our moral beliefs. (shrink)

People may disagree about moral issues because they have fundamentally different intuitions. I argue that we ought to suspend judgement in such cases. Since we trust our own moral intuitions without positive evidence of their reliability, we must necessarily extend this trust to the moral intuitions of others: a fundamental self-other asymmetry in moral epistemology is untenable. This ensures that disagreements in moral intuition are defeating. In addition, I argue that brute conflicts in moral intuition require suspension of judgement only (...) if we are required to exhibit this kind of default trust with respect to the moral intuitions of others. (shrink)

In this paper I defend dependence on moral testimony. I show how going defenses of dependence on moral testimony have portrayed it as second-best by centering on how and why it is an important means to overcoming our defects. I argue that once we consider the pervasiveness of moral testimony in the context of intimate relationships, we can see that the value of dependence on moral testimony goes beyond this: it is not only our flaws and limitations that justify our (...) dependence on moral testimony, but also the importance of such dependence for the flourishing of our intimate relationships. On my view, dependence on moral testimony is not simply for those who cannot realize the ideals of moral agency; it is among those ideals. (shrink)

Philosophers think that there is something fishy about moral deference. The most common explanation of this fishiness is that moral deference doesn’t yield the epistemic states necessary for certain moral achievements. First, I argue that this explanation overgeneralizes. It entails that using many intuitively kosher belief-formation methods should be off-putting. Second, I argue that moral deference is sometimes superior to these other methods because it puts one in a better position to gain the relevant moral achievements.

In this paper, I offer a novel defense of moderate pessimism about moral deference, i.e., the view that we have pro tanto reason to avoid moral deference. I argue that moral deference fails to give us the epistemic credentials to satisfy plausible norms of moral assertion. I then argue that moral assertions made solely on the basis of deferential moral beliefs violate a plausible epistemic and moral norm against withholding information that one knows, has evidence, or ought to believe will (...) importantly affect another person’s deliberation. Finally, I argue that not only does moral deference fail to put the audience in a good epistemic position it also puts the audience in a bad epistemic and moral position. First, there is a tight connection between outright believing something and being disposed to assert it and so deferential moral beliefs often motivate people to assert something that they don’t have the epistemic credentials to properly assertion. Second, there will often be moral reasons to make assertions—even based on deferential moral beliefs. These assertions, while all-things-considered permissible, will be epistemic impermissible and involve violating a moral norm. (shrink)

Pessimists think that there is something wrong with relying on deference for one’s moral beliefs—at least if one is morally mature. Call this no deference. They also tend to think that what explains our aversion to cases of moral deference is the fact that they involve deference about moral claims. Call this moral explanation. Recently, both no deference and moral explanation have come under attack. Against no deference, some philosophers offer purported counterexamples involving moral advice. I argue that proponents of (...) this objection face a trilemma depending on how they spell out the details of their counterexamples. Against moral explanation, some philosophers offer debunking explanations of our aversion to moral deference. They present cases of non-moral deference that are troubling and argue that the feature that explains our aversion to this non-moral deference also explains our aversion to moral deference. I argue that none of these explanations (nor their conjunction) can explain all troubling cases of moral deference and that they face objections of their own. I conclude that we should be optimistic about the prospects of moral deference pessimism. (shrink)

In this essay, I oppose the ‘Asymmetry Thesis’ according to which moral matters are simply different in kind from non-moral matters when it comes to testimony because moral matters require understanding in a way in which non-moral matters do not. I argue that the requirement of understanding is not unique to morality and also deny that there is a genuine requirement of understanding after all. Instead, cases of moral and non-moral testimony are often troubling for the same reason, namely the (...) violation of the requirement of using one’s own cognitive faculties when it is both possible and feasible. I will argue for this account in two stages: Firstly, I will present particular examples of testimony which aim to render this proposal initially plausible via inductive reasoning. Secondly, I will present a transcendental argument from the social function of testimony and explain why such a requirement in fact holds. (shrink)

So-called optimists about moral testimony argue, against pessimists, that, ceteris paribus, we ought to accept and act in accordance with trustworthy, pure moral testimony. I argue that even if we grant this, we need to explain why moral testimony cannot make us more virtuous. I offer an explanation that appeals to the fact that we cannot share inferential abilities via testimony. This explanation is compatible with the core commitments of optimism, but it also allows us to see what is right (...) about pessimism. (shrink)

The status of moral testimony has recently been challenged, for both epistemic and non‐epistemic reasons. This paper distinguishes two methods of teaching: transmission, “classic” learning from testimony, that results in second hand knowledge, and propagation which results in first hand knowledge and understanding. Moral propagation avoids most of the epistemic and non‐epistemic problems of transmission. Moreover, moral propagation can develop and refine non‐cognitive attitudes too. Therefore moral testimony should (and normally does) take the form of moral propagation, not transmission.

1. If you tell me that it’s raining outside, I would, presumably, be justified in acquiring the belief that it is raining on the basis of your say-so.1 But if you tell me that some war is unjust or...

This paper argues that ethical propositions can legitimately be used as evidence for and against empirical conclusions. Specifically, I argue that this thesis is entailed by several uncontroversial assumptions about ethical metaphysics and epistemology. I also outline several examples of ethical-to-empirical inferences where it is extremely plausible that one can rationally rely upon their ethical evidence in order to gain a justified belief in an empirical conclusion. The main upshot is that ethical propositions can, under perfectly standard conditions, play both (...) direct and indirect evidential roles in (social) scientific inquiry. (shrink)

Healthcare practitioners have access to a range of ethical guidance. However, the normative role of this guidance in ethical decision-making is underexplored. This paper considers two ways that healthcare practitioners could approach ethics guidance. We first outline the idea of deference to ethics guidance, showing how an attitude of deference raises three key problems: moral value; moral understanding; and moral error. Drawing on philosophical literature, we then advocate an alternative framing of ethics guidance as a form of moral testimony by (...) colleagues and suggest that a more promising attitude to ethics guidance is to approach it in the spirit of ‘critical engagement’ rather than deference. (shrink)

Why is there a felt asymmetry between cases in which agents defer to testifiers for certain moral beliefs, and cases in which agents defer on many other matters? One explanation influential in the literature is that having understanding of a proposition is both in tension with acquiring belief in the proposition by deferring to another's testimony and distinctively important when it comes to moral propositions, as compared with what we might think of as many ‘garden variety’ facts. My project in (...) this paper is to offer a new and more defensible version of this explanation. This will involve re-conceiving understanding as a richer state than it is commonly thought to be, requiring affective and motivational engagement with reasons as well as cognitive facility. I also offer a new explanation of the tension between understanding and deference to testimony. (shrink)

Many philosophers have claimed that relying on the testimony of others in normative questions is in some way problematic. In this paper, I consider whether we should be troubled by deference in democratic politics. I argue that deference is less problematic in impure cases of political deference, and most non-ideal cases of political deference are impure. To establish the second point, I rely on empirical research from political psychology. I also outline two principled reasons why we should expect political deference (...) to be untroubling: political problems are difficult and require a division of epistemic labour; furthermore, there is value in exercising epistemic solidarity with those one shares an identity or interests with. (shrink)

Moral realism and some of its constitutive theses, e.g., cognitivism, face the following challenge. If they are true, then it seems that we should predict that deference to moral testimony is appropriate under the same conditions as deference to non-moral testimony. Yet, many philosophers intuit that deference to moral testimony is not appropriate, even in otherwise ordinary conditions. In this paper I show that the challenge is cogent only if the appropriateness in question is disambiguated in a particular way. To (...) count against realism and its constitutive theses, moral deference must fail to be appropriate in specifically the way that the theses predict it is appropriate. I argue that this is not the case. In brief, I argue that realism and allied theses predict only that deference to moral testimony is epistemically appropriate, but that the intuitive data plausibly show only that it is not morally appropriate. If I am right, then there is reason to doubt the metaethical relevance of much of the skepticism regarding moral deference in recent literature. (shrink)

If a reliable testifier tells you that a song is beautiful or that an act is wrong, do you thereby have a reason to approve of the painting and disapprove of the agent's action? Many insist that we don’t: normative testimony does not give us reasons for affective attitudes like approval. This answer is often treated as a datum in the literatures on moral and aesthetic testimony. I argue that once we correct for a common methodological mistake in these literatures, (...) the answer must be Yes. I then show why this matters for the broader discussion of the puzzle(s) posed by deference to moral and aesthetic testimony. (shrink)