Epistemic Authority A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief

In this book Zagzebski gives an extended argument that the self-reflective person is committed to belief on authority. Epistemic authority is compatible with autonomy, but epistemic self-reliance is incoherent. She argues that epistemic and emotional self-trust are rational and inescapable, that consistent self-trust commits us to trust in others, that among those we are committed to trusting are some whom we ought to treat as epistemic authorities -- modeled on the well-known principles of authority of Joseph Raz -- and some of these authorities can be in the moral and religious domains. We must ask: why have people for thousands of years accepted epistemic authority in religious communities? A religious community's justification for authority is typically based on beliefs unique to that community; within that community, those claims are accepted and insulated from the outside; from the outside, the epistemic authority seems unjustified. Both views are undesirable. As Zagzebski's argument shows, an individual's acceptance of authority in her community can be justified by principles that outsiders accept, and the particular beliefs justified by that authority are not immune to external critiques. Zagzebski investigates the way the problem of disagreement between communities or between the self and others is a conflict within self-trust, and describes the justification for any change in belief-by the conscientious judgment that the change will survive future conscientious self-reflection. Her book is partially based on the Wilde Lectures delivered at Oxford in the spring of 2010.

Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski is Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion & Ethics and George Lynn Cross Research Professor at the University of Oklahoma. Her work focuses on epistemology, philosophy of religion, virtue ethics, and the metaphysics of fatalism. She is the author of many books including On Epistemology (2008), On Philosophy of Religion: An Historical Introduction (2007), Divine Motivation Theory (2004),Virtues of the Mind (1996), The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge (1991).