Expert Authority and Its Assessment

Experts are paradigmatic examples of people ascribed epistemic authority. But can laypersons reliably tell when experts have such authority? This paper argues that this question differs from widely discussed questions about laypersons’ ability to identify and assess experts. This is because epistemic authority and expertise are not coextensive concepts and because we can rely on experts without believing them on their authority. Assuming a preemptionist account of epistemic authority, I examine how the question regarding laypersons’ ability to reliably identify authoritative expert judgments differs from that regarding laypersons’ ability to identify expertise. One additional challenge laypersons face in identifying authorities emerges from differences between the fine-grained scope of authority and the coarse-grained scope of expertise: whether a person has authority on a particular question depends, in ways that her expertise does not, on the well-foundedness of her belief regarding this particular question. Another additional challenge stems from the tension between using evidence to identify epistemic authorities and believing them on their authority. This paper addresses these two challenges and highlights differences in the resources laypersons can use to tackle these challenges, both in terms of the evidence available to laypersons and the division of labor between experts and laypersons.