Authoritative Testimony, Preemptive Reasons, and Opinionated Apprentices

Abstract Rationally speaking, receiving testimony from an epistemic authority seems better than receiving testimony from anyone else. But what explains this? According to the Preemptive Reasons View (PRV), the difference is one in kind, i.e., authorities provide you with preemptive reasons, whereas everyone else provides you with evidence. In this paper, I develop a novel problem for the PRV. In a nutshell, the problem is that the PRV cannot account for why there are cases in which the opinions of epistemic apprentices should count for something too. I conclude by offering a new reason for endorsing the Authorities-as-Advisors View (AAV). According to the AAV, testimony always provides you with evidence; it is just that relying on the say-so of an epistemic authority provides you with better evidence than relying on the say-so of anyone else.