Epistemic deferral, gnoseology, and intellectual ethics

Abstract

Sosa (2021) has recently presented a dichotomy between, as he puts it, the humanistic domain, in which we seek first-hand understanding of why-questions of value and normativity through our own intuitive insight, and the practical domain in which we defer to epistemic authorities for information that correctly answers utilitarian questions. However, this neat picture is too simplistic. To use Sosa’s terminology, whereas gnoseology also applies in the humanistic domain, intellectual ethics is very much equally about the practical domain. Moreover, the distinction between first- and second-hand knowledge does not coincide with any such distinction between domains of inquiry. In this paper, we first develop a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic deferral, which displays Sosa’s (2021) triple-A and triple-S structures, and reflects his different levels of telic assessment. We then show how this account not only pertains to both domains, but also explains why there is no real tension between conducting our epistemic inquiries autonomously and deferring to the epistemic authorities for knowledge that we are incapable of acquiring ourselves.