In defence of gullibility: the epistemology of testimony and the psychology of deception detection

Abstract

Research in the psychology of deception detection implies that Fricker, in making her case for reductionism in the epistemology of testimony, overestimates both the epistemic demerits of the antireductionist policy of trusting speakers blindly and the epistemic merits of the reductionist policy of monitoring speakers for trustworthiness: folk psychological prejudices to the contrary notwithstanding, it turns out that monitoring is on a par (in terms both of the reliability of the process and of the sensitivity of the beliefs that it produces) with blind trust. The consequence is that while (a version of) Fricker's argument for the necessity of a reduction succeeds, her argument for the availability of reductions fails. This does not, however, condemn us to endorse standard pessimistic reductionism, according to which there is no testimonial knowledge, for recent research concerning the methods used by subjects to discover deception in non-laboratory settings suggests that only a more moderate form of pessimism is in order.

The information effect: constructive memory, testimony, and epistemic luck

“…(Reid 1764(Reid /1970 In other words: the truth bias, in virtue of which we tend to evaluate most received testimony as honest, does not operate in isolation; we also have an "honesty bias", in virtue of which we tend to give mostly honest testimony. Just as work on deception detection has confirmed Reid's suggestion that we are biased in favour of accepting testimony, work on lying in everyday life is beginning to confirm his suggestion that we do not lie easily (Michaelian 2010;DePaulo et al 1996;Levine et al 2010). 22,23 22 There is also brain-imaging work that seems to confirm Reid's suggestion.…”

“…The various available conceptions of testimony 8 range from narrow to broad (Fricker 1995;Gelfert 2009;Michaelian 2010); I will adopt an unusually broad conception here. On my conception, testimony is a matter of any serious communication by an agent, either by means of an assertion or by other means.…”

Collaborative Memory Knowledge: A Distributed Reliabilist Perspective

“…However, there are also many cases in which agency does not appear to play a significant role. In the case of testimony, for example, there seems to be a default tendency to endorse information provided by others (Michaelian, 2010): intuitively, we feel that we monitor testifiers for deception, but in fact there is considerable evidence that we do not routinely monitor for dishonesty and are not good at detecting it when we do monitor (Vrij, 2008). In many technological cases, agency likewise seems to play a limited role.…”

(Social) Metacognition and (Self-)Trust

“…4 I rely mainly on Fricker (1994Fricker ( , 1995, but see Fricker (2002Fricker ( , 2004Fricker ( , 2006a for recent developments of the view. I have provided a detailed reconstruction of Fricker's epistemology elsewhere Michaelian (2010); I rely on that reconstruction here without defending it. 5 While Fricker is an internalist, she acknowledges the importance of reliability, at least as I read her.…”

“…There is also a modal aspect to Fricker's argument-the blindly trusting subject is supposed to be gullible not only in the sense that her beliefs are formed by an unreliable process but also in the sense that they are unsafe or insensitive. I set this aspect of the argument aside here, as I have dealt with it elsewhere Michaelian (2010). A3 Subjects can and do effectively monitor for (enough of) these cues, and not for (too many) false cues.…”