Authoritative truths Flashcards
Don’t think by yourself but do think for yourself, not because you are wiser or smarter than other people but because ultimately that’s what you have to do.
No one can make up your mind for you, unless you make up your mind to let them.
If we care about the truth, we can neither reject nor too enthusiastically embrace the authorities who appear to guide us toward it. Rather, we have to take care as to whom we grant authority and on what basis.
The core problem of truth by authority is that we need to defer to experts but not everyone who claims to be an expert is. Inevitably our choice of experts is at bottom based on our own judgement, even though we know that it is not fully informed. We accept the authority of our own judgement in order to decide whose authority of judgement to accept. There is no way out of this. Reason’s dirty secret is that we have to rely on our own judgement without being able to rationally justify it completely. We should not kid ourselves that we can rely solely on logically following the facts.
Scientists don’t have authority to give the last word on the ethics of their science because their expertise is scientific rather than ethical.
Every culture accepts some people as authorities. Truth becomes a victim of this only when such authority is either unwarranted or exceeds its scope. It is unwarranted when there are no truths to be had or someone is in no position to claim special knowledge of them. It exceeds its scope when people are taken as authorities on matters outside of their expertise.
Epistemological Triage: 3 step process requiring different judgments at every stage (step)
1 - Is this a domain in which anyone can speak the truth? Skepticism about any authority is secondary to skepticism about what the authority speaks of. If you don’t believe there is any truth to be found within a domain, then all authorities within that domain are useless.
2 - if we believe there are truths to be found within a domain, we ask what kind of expert is a trustworthy source of truth within that domain.
3 - then and only then can we ask ourself if a particular expert is to be trusted within this domain.
Divine Authority is something that many people believe in - believers go through the same 3 step triage to define their divine authorities.
