Abstract

This chapter gives an account of epistemic trust. It argues that trust in general is a matter of declining to take precautions against the trustee’s failing to come through, and that this amounts in the epistemic case to declining to rely on evidence for the testified proposition, instead relying solely on the testifier. But if this is so, how can trust play a positive role in securing knowledge? The key, it is argued, lies in recognizing that trust is preemptive: Trusting someone entails believing that she is trustworthy, and this belief preempts other evidence about whether she will come through. In other words, this belief gives the truster himself a good reason to desist from relying on evidence other than the trustee’s word. But if trust is preemptive, how is it compatible with epistemic responsibility, which seems to involve relying on your own evidence? Because, it is claimed, preempting your own evidence in favor of the testifier’s say-so enables your belief to be supported by her evidence – which, we may assume, is superior to your own. Far from forfeiting epistemic responsibility, then, epistemic trust on the preemptive account gives you justificatory access to a swathe of evidence that you would not otherwise have had.