

























 Abstract
The epistemology of testimony is an inquiry into the 
nature of testimony as an epistemic source. Given that 
testimony is an epistemic source, is it a basic or 
generative epistemic source? Or does it derive its 
epistemic credentials from other more basic and 
generative epistemic sources, like; perception, reason, 
and introspection? If testimonial knowledge is dependent 
on other basic epistemic sources, it means that 
testimonial knowledge is inferential. On the alternative, if 
testimonial knowledge is basic, it implies an inherent 
justicatory power. Given that there are two cognitive 
agents in testimonial epistemic transaction – the testier 
(speaker) and the receiver (hearer); where do we situate 
the justicatory power of testimonial knowledge, the 
testier or the hearer? The responses to these questions 
have generated theories that dominantly swing between 
reductionism and anti-reductionism, bringing in the 
inferentialist and non-inferentialist perspectives. These 
theories, however, fail to successfully establish whether 

TESTIMONY, JUSTIFICATION, AND VIRTUE: 

INVESTIGATING THE JUSTIFICATORY SOURCE 

OF TESTIMONIAL KNOWLEDGE

Anselm K. JIMOH, Ph.D.
Department of Philosophy

SS. Peter and Paul Catholic Major Seminary
jimohanselm@gmail.com

Precious E. IYOGUN
  Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan

P.M.B. 5171, Bodija – Ibadan,         Ibadan.
iyogunp@yahoo.com

and



testimonial knowledge is basic or not and therefore, 
makes it problematic to establish the justicatory source 
of testimonial knowledge. The less dominant quasi-
reductionism of Duncan Pritchard opens up the 
possibility to consider Miranda Fricker's application of 
epistemic virtues to testimonial justication. Therefore, 
with the aim to establish the justicatory source of 
testimonial knowledge, this paper critically analyses and 
evaluates the role of epistemic virtues in testimonial 
knowledge. We argue that testimonial justication is a 
two-way process, and conclude that testimonial belief is 
justied as knowledge on the basis of the intellectual 
virtues of the testier's cognitive character traits and the 
hearer's cognitive faculties and excellences. 
 

Keywords:  Ant i - reduct ionism,  Epis temic source, 
Reductionism, Testimony, Virtue epistemology.
  
Introduction
This paper aims to establish the justicatory source of testimonial 
knowledge. The problematic lies in the question whether testimony 
is, or not, a basic epistemic source? By basic epistemic source, we 
mean a source of knowledge that is not reliant on other epistemic 
sources for its epistemic credentials. For instance, perception is 
considered to be a basic epistemic source because we acquire 
perceptual knowledge through our perceptual engagement with the 
world, without reliance on any other cognitive faculty. Thus, the 
question, reformulated is: can testimony, without reference to other 
purported more basic epistemic sources like reason, experience, and 
introspection, generate knowledge in the hearer (receiver)? 
Reductionism and Anti-reductionism have emerged as the two 
dominant positions in this discourse. A corollary of the problematic, 
which is the focus of this paper is the question: What is the actual 
source of the justicatory power of testimonial knowledge; the 
trustworthiness of the testier, or the belief of the hearer? We rely on 
existing literature, to critically analyse and evaluate the various 

160 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



issues within the purview of the discourse on the testimonial 
justication. First off, we analyse the meaning and nature of 
testimony, as well as, the different approaches to testimony and 
testimonial knowledge. Secondly, we explicate the relationship 
between testimonial knowledge and justication. Thirdly, we shall 
investigate the role of epistemic virtues in testimonial knowledge. 
Thereafter, we conclude, based on our analyses, that neither the 
testier nor the hearer of testimony has the monopoly of justicatory 
power because the latter is not dependent solely on either the testier 
or the hearer, but a shared responsibility between the testier and the 
hearer.

 
On the Meaning and Nature of Testimony
Testimony is “a statement or other communication that purports to 

1state a fact or provide information.”  From its Latin etymology, which 
is a synthesis of two words: testis – witness, and monium – which 
signies an action, state, or condition, testimony describes a proof or 
demonstration of some fact, evidence, or a piece of evidence that 
conrms or negates a state of affairs. Therefore, we can understand 
testimony as that which a declarative sentence asserts, either written 
or spoken. Needless to say that most of the body of knowledge we 
presently have are products of the testimony of others which we have 
learnt from their spoken and/or written words. We depend in endless 
practical ways on the technological fruits of the dispersed knowledge 

2of others.  Hence, Dan O' Brien describes it as the way human beings 
3 obtain knowledge through linguistic communication.

 Despite, the fact that much of the beliefs that constitute our 
knowledge system extensively dependent on testimony, the very vast 

1Alvin Goldman, “Testimony and disagreement,” in Alvin I. Goldman and Matthew 
McGrath, Epistemology: A contemporary introduction (Oxford: Oxford University 
Press, 2015), 207.
2 Elizabeth  Fr icker,  “Second-Hand Knowledge,”  Philosophy and 
Phenomenological Research 73, no. 3 (Nov. 2006), 592-618.
3Daniel O'Brien, “Introduction to the Epistemology of Testimony,” Philosophica 
78 (2006), 6.

Ttestimony, Justication, and Virtue   | 161



role testimony plays in our acquisition of knowledge, has not enjoyed 
a corresponding vast treatment in the history of traditional 
epistemology (TE). The latter did not consider testimony as a basic 
epistemic source; its epistemic status was reduced to inference based 
on the trustworthiness of the speaker, which makes it a mere 

4
transmitter of knowledge.  Testimony was conceived to be less 
reliable than other epistemic sources, like; experience, reason, and 
introspection. 
 Testimony embodies beliefs, and the beliefs acquired through 
testimony are considered, by TE, to be second-hand because they 
have been passed on to the believer by someone else. Although 
testimonial beliefs are considered second-hand, they are not second-

5
rate since on some occasions they may amount to knowledge.  Like 
knowledge, testimony is propositional. Given that propositions are 
statements of fact about the world, they have a truth-value and 
therefore, are considered to be a medium for knowledge transfer. 
 As a medium of knowledge transfer from the testier to the 
receiver, testimony presupposes credulity, especially when dealing 
with a trusting receiver – the latter readily believes whatever the 
information the testier provides. Within this context, the issue of 
trust and reliance become important factors to consider in the 
epistemology of testimony. The interesting questions here are: (i) Is 
the receiver's credulity founded on the reliability of the testier? (ii) 

6
Is credulity not an invitation and/or license to gullibility.  What 
reason, if any, is there for a receiver to believe a testier, given that the 
testier is capable of lies, deception, error, and poor ambiguous or 
misleading expressions? Does the receiver have good reason to rely 
on or believe the testier/speaker? Note that the terms hearer and 
receiver, testier and speaker, are used in this paper as synonyms. 
Sometimes, our testimonial information is misleading or false. But as 

4Dhirendon M. Datta, “Testimony as a method of knowledge,” Mind 36, no. 143 
(July 1927), 354-358. . http://www.jstor.org/stable/2249544
5Daniel O'Brien, “Introduction to the Epistemology of Testimony,” 6.
6Duncan Pritchard, What is this thing called Knowledge? (London: Routledge, 
2006), 99.

162 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



Duncan Pritchard avers, this kind of testimonial deceit, in itself, is not 
all that troubling given that there are some checks and balances 
through which we evaluate the testimony of others. The problem, 
however, with testimonial knowledge is that we are not able to offer 

7
independent grounds for most of our testimony-based beliefs.  In the 
opinion of Laurence BonJour, this is precisely the problem with 
testimonial justication – our inability to provide general 

8
justication for testimony-based beliefs.  
 Contemporary social epistemology tries to investigate 
whether testimony provides knowledge and justication. If it does, 
how does it provide knowledge and justication; by yielding basic 
knowledge or  bas ic  jus t icat ion  l ike  percept ion  and 

9 
introspection/reection?  The idea is to plausibly establish if belief in 
a testier's words is actually caused by inference. The questions 
correlated to this are:
I. Does the receiver of testimony believe, disbelieve, or suspend
 judgement about what she hears?
ii. Is the receiver justied in believing what she hears?
iii. Does the receiver acquire knowledge from what she hears?

The attempts to respond to these questions raise another key question, 
namely; is testimonial knowledge inferential or non-inferential? For 
those who argue that it is inferential, a testimonial belief only 
amounts to knowledge if it is justied, and for it to be justied, it must 
be supported by inferences available to the hearer. On the contrary, 
non-inferentialists insist that we do not need to work through 
inferences to possess testimonial beliefs, that even if we have the 
ability to make such inferences, it does not play a justicatory role in 

10 testimonial beliefs.

7Duncan Pritchard, What is this Thing called Knowledge? 91.
8Laurence BonJour, Epistemology: Classical Problems and Contemporary 
Responses, 2nd edition (London: Rowman and Littleeld, 2010), 164.
9Robert Audi, Epistemology: A contemporary introduction to the theory of 
knowledge, 2nd ed. (New York and London: Routledge, 2003), 137.
10Daniel O'Brien, “Introduction to the Epistemology of Testimony,” 6.

Ttestimony, Justication, and Virtue   | 163



 The inferential vs. non-inferential debate is concomitant with 
11 

the question of whether testimony is a basic epistemic source or not.
While the inferentialists insist that testimonial knowledge is not basic 
in the sense in which perceptual knowledge is basic because the 
former derives its justicatory power from perceptual, memorial and 
inferential resources, non-inferentialists opine that even though 
testimony may be causally related to perception, the former does not 
need to be epistemically dependent on the latter. In other words, non-
inferentialists insist that the justication of testimonial beliefs is not 
derived from other sources since a hearer can acquire knowledge 
from simply hearing the testimony of another. 

Testimonial Knowledge: Basic or not Basic?
Inferentialists provide a reductionist account of testimonial 
knowledge by arguing that the latter is a derivation of more basic 
forms of knowledge and justication. On the contrary, non-
inferentialists maintain an anti-reductionist account that testimonial 
knowledge and justication are basic. The underlying assumption 
that undergirds both positions is that our testimonial beliefs are 
justiable on the basis that testimony provides evidence for the truth 
that it asserts. The argument can be formulated in a bi-conditional: 
Either we trust the testimonies of others on account of what we have 
acquired from other epistemic sources or we do based on what we 
have independently veried to be true. Therefore, we are generally 
entitled to trust what others tell us.
 Reductionism is the argument that we can only rightly hold a 

12 
testimonial belief if it is traceable to a non-testimonial justication.
The implication here is that our personal evidence is insufcient to 
justify testimonial knowledge. According to Axel Gelfert, if our 
testimony depends on our sense perceptions for its reception and the 
sincerity and competence of the testier for its truthfulness, it means 
that our justied testimonial beliefs must have been derived from, 

11Laurence BonJour, Epistemology:Classical Problems and Contemporary 
Responses, 165.
12Duncan Pritchard, What is Wrong with this Thing called Knowledge? 82.

164 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



and ultimately reducible to more basic epistemic sources, like 
13

perception, memory, and inference. James Van Cleve,  For 
“testimony gives us justied belief … not because it shines by its own 
light, but because it has often enough been revealed [to be] true by our 

14
other lights.”  Here, Van Cleve collapses three other forces of 
justication – perception, memory, and inductive inference, into 
testimony. This position is described as “global reductionism,” the 
view that, based on the general reliability of inferential appeal to 
testimony, hearers are justied in believing particular instances of 

15testimony.  
 David Hume's work, “On Miracles,” promotes this position. 
Here, Hume argues that our general observations of testimonial 
trustworthiness in the past, allows us to inductively infer that fresh 

16items of testimony would be justied.  We do not have any a priori 
reason to think that beliefs gained through testimony should be true. 
Therefore, we need independent grounds to justify our testimonial 
beliefs. He further argues, as Michael Huemer afrms, that the 
observation of the veracity of human testimony and their conformity 
to the facts of the testier's report provide the assurance of our 

17
testimonial beliefs.  This implies that our beliefs are proportionate 
with evidence to the extent that we either have a proof or a 
probability. We have a proof when the testimony and evidence are in 
constant and unalterable conformity and a probability when they 

13Axel Gelfert, “Hume on Testimony Revisited,” Logical Analysis and History of 
Philosophy 13, no. 1 (2010), 62.
14James Van Cleve, “Reid on the Credit of Human Testimony,” in J. Lackey and E. 
Sos, (eds), The Epistemology of Testimony (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 
2006), 69.
15Alvin Goldman and Thomas Blanchard, “Social epistemology”, The Stanford 
encyclopaedia of philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward Zalta (ed.), 
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/epistemology-social/, 
[Accessed 29/02/2020].
16David Hume, “On Miracles,” An enquiry concerning human understanding, 
(1748), E. Steinberg (ed.) (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1977), 74.
17Michael Huemer (ed), Epistemology; Contemporary Readings, (Routledge, New 
York, 2002), 225.

Ttestimony, Justication, and Virtue   | 165



(testimony and evidence) are not in constant and unalterable 
18

conformity.   Hume assumes that the trustworthiness of testimony 
depends on the evidence that the testier is likely to be right. 
Therefore, whether we accept a testimony or not must depend on 
inferential reasoning; from the speaker's track record and the  
plausibility of the claim to the acceptability of the specic testimonial 
claim in question. Our reliance on testimony is based on our 
observation of a constant and regular aggregation between testimony 
and the facts in the external world. 
 According to Alvin Goldman, the following questions would 
arise from Hume's position: 
i. Do we all, individually, make enough observations to justify 

our conclusions? 
ii. Are our range of individuals and subject-matters diverse 

enough to warrant our acceptance and application of such a 
general principle of justication to testimonies and persons, 

19
even those we have not met before?

For Anthony Coady, we do not have enough observational bases to 
inductively conclude that testimony is generally reliable because we 
cannot individually achieve the required amount of eldwork to 
reach such conclusions. For instance, even though many of us have 
never witnessed the process of giving birth to a baby or examined 
how blood circulates around the body, we nonetheless, still hold the 

20
conclusions we have about them based on the testimony of others.
 Elizabeth Fricker attempts to mitigate the global reductionist 
position of Hume by advocating a local reductionism. She argues that 
the general principles of testimonial trustworthiness in Hume's 
account do not sufciently warrant a receiver's justication in 
particular acts of testimony. In addition to these general principles, 
she contends that the receiver requires background evidence, based 
on observation and memory, about the specic testier to warrant the 
receiver's justiedness. The receiver achieves this by constantly 

18Axel Gelfert, “Hume on Testimony Revisited,” 63.
19Alvin Goldman, “Testimony and disagreement,” 208.
20C. A. J. Coady, Testimony, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 82.

166 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



evaluating the testier for trustworthiness and make her conclusions 
based on the pieces of evidence available to her. Therefore, all that is 
required for a testimonial belief is that the testier is reliable in 
relation to her specic testimony, and not the general reliability of 
testimony. Reliability here refers to the sincerity of the testier and 

21
not the testimony itself.
 Thomas Reid advanced an anti-reductionist argument against 
Hume's reductionism. Anti-reductionism is the view that testimony, 
like perception, memory, and introspection, is a basic epistemic 

22source.  The anti-reductionists argue that a receiver is justied to 
hold a testimonial belief, based on the testimony of a testier, given 
that the receiver has no defeaters (doubts) about the credibility of the 
testier. Based on the general assumption of credulism that human 
beings have the natural propensity to speak the truth, and a 

23disposition to conde in the veracity of others,  Reid argues that 
testimony is a social intercourse between intelligent beings by which 

24
human knowledge is transmitted.  According to him, although Hume 
broke away from the traditionalist scheme with his (Hume's) 
reductionist account of testimony, he did not free himself from his 

25 
own implausible principles. His argument tended toward 
individualism and solitude, which are against human nature. The 
human person is social by nature, and therefore, hardwired to trust the 
testimony of other people. For Reid, we should rely on common-
sense in our quest to justify testimonial knowledge instead of past 
experiences as posited by Hume, because, the experiences of the past 

21Elizabeth Fricker, “Against Gullibility,” in B. K. Matilal and A. Chakrabarti (eds), 
Knowing from words: Western and Indian philosophical analysis of understanding 
and testimony (Dordreecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), 125-161. 
22Alvin Goldman and Dennis Whitecomb (eds), Social Epistemology: Essential 
Readings (Oxford University Press, Newyork,2011), 73.
 23Thomas Reid, “Inquiry into the Human Mind,” in Inquiry and Essays, R. E. Bean 
Blossom and K. Lehrer (eds), (Hackett, Indianapolis, 1983), 236-237.
24Thomas Reid, “Inquiry into the Human Mind,” 236.
25Nicholas Wolterstorff, Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology (Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 2001), 163.

Ttestimony, Justication, and Virtue   | 167



26
cannot, of themselves, provide a belief of what is in the future.
 Other anti-reductionists like Tyler Burge and Richard Foley 
argue that irrespective of the amount of evidence in support of the 
testier's reliability and sincerity, a receiver of testimony is warranted 
to believe the testimony of a given speaker. According to Burge, a 
“person is entitled to accept as true something that is presented as true 
and that is intelligible to him unless there are stronger reasons not to 

27
do so.”  This implies that a receiver of testimony does not necessarily 
require positive support for the sincerity of the testier to hold a 
testimonial belief. What is required is that the receiver has no 
evidence that defeats the testier's reliability and sincerity. Goldman 
supports this argument with the assertion that without defeaters, like 
prior experience, testimonial justication comes free for the receiver 

28without reference to any positive reason for believing the testier.
 To moderate the rift between reductionism and anti-
reductionism, Duncan Pritchard proposed a quasi-reductionist thesis. 
Against anti-reductionism, he argues that credulism permits 
widespread gullibility, which is not epistemically attractive. Against 
reductionism, he insists that we cannot resolve the issue of 
testimonial justication by providing additional instances of 
testimony that support the original testimonial belief. If the 
reductionist position is correct, we have to look for adequate 
supporting grounds that are non-testimonial. In the absence of the 
latter, reductionism leads us directly to a form of scepticism about the 

29 epistemic status of our testimonial beliefs. Pritchard's quasi-
reductionist thesis is a hybrid position that accommodates the 
motivations and respects the intuitions of both the reductionist and 
anti-reductionist. According to O'Brien, when we cannot have 
testimonial knowledge without non-testimonial epistemic support 
for our beliefs, we express the spirit of reductionism. This is, 

26Thomas Reid, “Inquiry into the Human Mind,” 236.
27Tyler Burge, “Content Preservation,” Philosophical review 102 (1993), 457-488.
28Alvin Goldman, “Testimony and Disagreement,” 209.
29Duncan Pritchard, “The Epistemology of Testimony,” Philosophical issues 14 
(2004), 326-328.

168 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



however, compatible with certain fundamentalist or credulist 
intuitions in the sense that it provides some epistemic support by 

30means of testimonial evidence.  In this wise, quasi-reductionism 
brings within its ambiance the two-key intuitions regarding any 
knowledge inquiry, namely; that knowledge is a cognitive 
achievement, and that knowledge is not compatible with luck.
 Hume's reductionism assumes that we should only trust 
testimony when we have evidence that the testier is likely to be 
right. It is an inferential position that places testimonial justication 
on the relationship between the reliability of the testier and 
supporting evidence, which invariably implies that the justicatory 
power of testimony lies in the reliability of the testier. Reid's anti-
reductionism argues for the reliance on common-sense in the quest 
for justifying testimonial information. This is a non-inferential 
position that presupposes that credulity is based on the common-
sense of the receiver of testimony. Here, the responsibility of 
justication is hinged on the receiver of testimonial information. 
Pritchard's quasi-reductionism supports a justicatory model that 
accommodates some elements of both the inferentialist and non-
inferentialist considerations. It synthesises the reliability of the 
testier with the innate natural tendencies of the receiver to account 
for testimonial knowledge. If Pritchard's synthesis is correct, it means 
the justication of testimonial knowledge is a shared responsibility 
between the testier and the receiver. Herein, the latter applies 
common-sense in the exercise of her credulity to apprehend the 
reliability of the testier. This seems to be Miranda Fricker's concern 
when she explicates the idea of the testimonial sensitivity of the 
hearer.
 By the testimonial sensitivity of the hearer, Fricker describes 
a virtuous display of perceptual capacity by the receiver towards a 
testimony. For the virtuous receiver to trust the testier, she must 
consider the testier to be trustworthy to a degree that enables her to 
achieve a reasonable level of trust towards the testier and the 

30Daniel O'Brien, “Introduction to the Epistemology of Testimony,” 8.

Ttestimony, Justication, and Virtue   | 169



31
testier's testimony.  According to Fricker, there is an emotional 
aspect proper to cognition, which is displayed through empathy. 
Therefore, it is only when the virtuous receiver is in such an 
empathetic relationship with the testier, that she can make a good 

32
judgement of the latter's trustworthiness.  Given that empathy is the 
ability to identify with the feelings of others; epistemically, it 
describes being in the same cognitive situation with someone. 
Consequently, for a receiver to consider a testier reliable, both the 
receiver and the testier must possess some form of similar cognitive 
abilities, which are only perceptible empathically. Such cognitive 
abilities are rooted in the theory of epistemic virtues, hence, we need 
to consider how epistemic virtues impact on testimonial justication.

Epistemic Virtues and Testimonial Justication
If Fricker is correct about the idea of the testimonial sensitivity of the 
hearer as analysed above, it would mean that epistemic virtues impact 
on testimonial justication. Given that this is the case; we should 
investigate the importance of the impact of virtue in testimonial 
justication. Such an investigation warrants that we consider virtue 
epistemology since the virtues in question here are epistemic virtues. 
Essentially, virtue epistemology (VE) is modelled on intellectual 
virtues, which is sometimes described as epistemic virtues. It 
promotes the Socratic and Aristotelian idea that a truly virtuous agent 

33
would be an excellent cogniser,  because intellectual or epistemic 
virtues are characteristics of the cognitive agent that promote 
intellectual ourishing, which accounts for excellent cognition. 
Therefore, VE denes knowledge in terms of virtue-theoretic 
concepts, with two variants to its thesis. The rst variant is traced to 
Aristotle's notion that intellectual virtues are cognitive excellences, 
which constitute reliable or truth-conducive qualities of the agent. 
This is virtue reliabilism. And the second variant is linked to 

31Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice; Power and the Ethics of Knowing (Oxford 
University Press, Oxford, 2007), 79.
32Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice; Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 80.
33Julia Driver, “The Aristotelian Conception of Virtues,” in Uneasy Virtue (London: 
Cambridge university Press, London), 6.

170 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



Aristotle's ethics, whereof, intellectual or epistemic virtues are 
conceived as character traits, like; fair-mindedness, open-

34 mindedness, intellectual carefulness, intellectual courage, etc. This 
is virtue responsibilism.
 Virtue reliabilists argue that it is possible to acquire 
knowledge in the absence of an exercise of intellectual character 
virtues. Consequently, they insist that virtue responsibilists character 
model of intellectual virtue does not provide a helpful account of the 
nature of knowledge because any analysis of knowledge aims to 

35specify the necessary and sufcient conditions for knowledge.  
Virtue responsibilists, on the contrary, argue that intellectual virtues 

36
are states that indicate an intellectual grasp of the truth.  Therefore, 
they disagree with virtue reliabilists that intellectual excellences are 
competencies that properly position us to pursue the truth. Virtue 
responsibilists consider virtue reliabilists' class of virtues as natural 
powers, faculties, and receptivities that provide the grounds for 
intellectual virtues. However, they are nurtured to the extent to which 
they nd expressions in rened character traits of epistemic agents. 
Therefore, we can argue that intellectual virtues do not only refer to 
rened character traits but also to our nurtured inherent capacities.
 Virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism share the same 
aim – the attainment of truth and knowledge, which is critical to 
intellectual well-being and ourishing. While the former considers 
cognitive qualities or faculties that effectively aid the attainment of 
truth and knowledge, the latter is concerned with the character traits 
of the cognitive agent that enable the attainment of truth and 

37 
knowledge. Both variants of VE credit knowledge to the believer. 
Considering that social epistemology (SE) advocates the view that 

34Paul Faulkner, “A Virtue Theory of Testimony,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian 
Society 114, no. 2 (2014), 189. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9264.2014.00370.x. 
35Jason Baehr, “Character Reliability and Virtue Epistemology,” 197.
36Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski, Intellectual Virtues, (Oxford: Clarendon 
Press, 2007), 38.
37Anselm Jimoh, “A Critical Assessment of Virtue Epistemology,” Flash: Journal 
of Philosophy and Religion 9, no. 1 (2015), 7.

Ttestimony, Justication, and Virtue   | 171



the trustworthiness of the testier justies testimonial knowledge, it 
38

would seem that VE would run into tension with SE.  This, at least, is 
the view of Jesper Kallestrup and Duncan Pritchard, who argue that a 
robust VE is opposed to SE, especially the epistemology of 

39
testimony.
 Kallestrup and Pritchard differentiated robust VE from 
modest VE. The latter, for them, denes knowledge in both virtue-
theoretic and non-virtue-theoretic concepts, and the former, which is 

40
their concern, denes knowledge only in virtue-theoretic concepts.  
According to Benjamin McCraw, as Kallestrup and Pritchard 
conceive it, for robust VE, “there is nothing more to knowledge than 
true belief plus some virtue-theoretic condition or set of 

41
conditions.”  This implies that a cognitive agent's true belief in 
knowledge is a credit of the agent's (who is the believer) virtuous 
activity. This is the Credit Thesis (CT), which states that: “S knows 

42
that p only if S believes that p because of S's virtuous operation.”  
The CT situates the credit for true beliefs that yield knowledge to the 
individual believer, which in the view of Kallestrup and Pritchard 
defeats the paradigm of VE as SE. This is so because the CT commits 
robust VE to epistemic individualism. The latter is the view that 

43justication supervenes on internal features of the cognitive agent.  
Internal features here should not be associated with epistemic 
internalism or externalism, but instead, refers to the cognitive 
faculties of the individual cognitive agent.
 The position of Kallestrup and Pritchard notwithstanding, the 
question of interest in relation to our subject matter – the possibility 
of a virtue epistemology of testimony is: “What justies out uptake of 

38Benjamin W. McCraw, “Virtue Epistemology, Testimony, and Trust,” Logos and 
Episteme V, no. 1 (2014), 95-102. 
39Jesper Kallestrup and Duncan Pritchard, “Robust Virtue Epistemology and 
Epistemic Anti-Individualism,” Pacic Philosophical Quarterly 93 (2012), 84-
103.
40Kallestrup and Pritchard, “Robust Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Anti-
Individualism,” 85-86.
41McCraw, “Virtue Epistemology, Testimony, and Trust,” 96.
42McCraw, “Virtue Epistemology, Testimony, and Trust,” 96.

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testimony? That is, when our acceptance of a bit of testimony to p is 
44 

the acquisition of the belief that p, what justies this acceptance?”
The two prevalent answers to this are: (i) The reductionist view that 
because “our grounds for acceptance are all the things we believe 
about the testimonial situation [our] uptake is … justied … in so far 
as, our beliefs about the testimonial situation overall support the 

45conclusion that a piece of testimony is true.”  (ii) The none or anti-
reductionist view that “we do not need grounds to be justied in the 
uptake of a bit of testimony. Rather, we have a general defeasible 

46entitlement to accept what other people tell us.”  Fricker does not 
nd these prevalent views favourable to her project. She opines that 
our uptake of testimony is more often immediate and non-inferential, 
even though it is informed and supported by the background beliefs 
we have. This claim poses an epistemological challenge, namely; 
how do we account for the fact that our uptake of testimony is 
immediate and non-inferential, and yet supported by background 
beliefs? According to Fricker, virtue ethics provides the resolution to 
this challenge.
 Virtue ethics expounds on how perception can deliver 
judgement. Using the example of kindness, Fricker argues that a kind 
person does not calculate or appeal to principles to determine which 
situation requires her kindness. She (kind person) is reliably sensitive 
to the situational features, which provide her the reasons to be kind. 
The kind person perceives the situational features as her reasons to 
judge what she ought to do in any given situation. Therefore, to 
resolve the epistemological challenge, the receiver of testimony only 
needs a testimonial sensibility that cognises the features of the 
testimonial situation which enables the receiver to see that a piece of 
testimony is trustworthy or not trustworthy. According to Fricker, 
“The main idea is that where a hearer gives a suitable critical 

43Kallestrup and Pritchard, “Robust Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Anti-
Individualism,” 86.
 44Faulkner, “A Virtue Theory of Testimony,” 190.
 45Faulkner, “A Virtue Theory of Testimony,” 190.
 46Faulkner, “A Virtue Theory of Testimony,” 190.

Ttestimony, Justication, and Virtue   | 173



reception to an interlocutor's words without making any inference, 
she does so in virtue of the perceptual deliverances of a well-trained 

47testimonial sensibility.”
 Fricker draws the following closely related parallel between 
“the virtuous agent's moral perceptual capacity and the virtuous 

48
hearer's testimonial capacity,”
i. That in the testimonial as in the moral sphere, the judgement 

model is perceptual, and so non-inferential.
ii. In both spheres, good judgement is uncodiable.
iii. In both spheres, the judgement is intrinsically motivating.
iv. Intrinsically reason-giving
v. In both spheres the judgement typically contains an 

49
emotional aspect that is a proper part of the cognition.

As Faulkner emphasises, the rst two points of parallel – (i) and (ii), 
dene the operation of sensibility, while (iii) to (v) are considerations 

50
on the nature of the judgement output.  For Fricker, these ve points 
of parallel are consistent with “the spontaneous, unreective 
phenomenology of the testimony [which provides] so much impetus 

51
for non-inferentialism.”  Therefore, they explicate how our 
testimonial sensibility provide the spontaneous judgement about the 
trustworthiness of a bit of testimony.
 Concerning whether, and how epistemic virtues impact on 
testimonial justication, our take is that cognitive faculties as 
intellectual virtues require character traits as intellectual virtues, to 
serve as indicators for the intellectual grasp of truth. As such, for 
testimonial information to be justied there is a need to establish that 
neither the virtue reliabilist cognitive faculties nor the virtue 
responsibilist character traits are indispensable. To this extent, we can 
talk about a virtuous hearer or a virtuous speaker; both of them have 

 47Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice; Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 71.
48Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice; Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 71.
49Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice; Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 72.
 50Faulkner, “A Virtue Theory of Testimony,” 192.
51Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice; Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 80.

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an important role to play in testimonial justication. Here, Pritchard's 
quasi-reductionist approach is applicable – the synthesis of the 
reliability (trustworthiness) of the testier/speaker and some innate 
natural tendencies (credulity) of the receiver/believer. This is a two-
way justicatory process, which brings together the reliability of the 
virtuous testier as indicated by her rened character traits (which 
mark an intellectual grasp of truth) and receiver's cognitive faculties 
– innate natural tendencies (which properly positions her to pursue 
truth).
 Almost all hearers access testimony for credibility. 
According to Fricker, the virtuous hearer does not arrive at her 
credibility judgment of testimony through principles that are pre-set 
because such pre-set principles are usually not precise or 

52comprehensive enough to do the job.  On the other hand, Fricker 
argues that the speaker arrives at her credibility judgment through the 
aid of cues, which indicate her moral attitude towards the hearer. 
Based on this, we argue that there are cases where the speaker may 
have a positive moral attitude without having the right information 
that will lead to truth in her testimony. More so, moral attitudes may 
not be as stable as epistemic attitudes can be, especially because of 
their emotional content. As such, we argue that the speaker's moral 
attitude towards the hearer may not be sufcient in aiding the hearer 
to arrive at a proper credibility judgment of testimonial information.
 The two-way justicatory process, we propose, for 
testimonial justication is characterised by the following features: (i) 
The indispensability of cognitive faculties and character traits. (ii) 
The reliability of the virtuous testier. And (iii) the sensitivity of the 
virtuous hearer to the epistemic salience of the testier, based on 
epistemic empathy. This model is both perceptual and inferential 
because it involves the speaker's reliability and the hearer's 
perceptual capacity. The idea of testimonial justication being both 
perceptual and inferential implies an interconnection between the 
reliability of the testier (as some form of non-testimonial supporting 

52Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice, Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 75.

Ttestimony, Justication, and Virtue   | 175



ground for justication) and the innate natural tendencies of the 
hearer through which she apprehends the speaker's reliability, as a 

53basis for justication.  The reliability of the speaker goes beyond 
what is established beforehand, it includes what is to be established in 
the present through the epistemic virtues of the speaker. This 
interconnection stimulates the justicatory process both internally 
and externally. When a testier gives a testimony on a particular 
incidence, the hearer does not access the credibility of the testimony 
solely by relying on the testier's reliability, the hearer relies also on 
her perceptual capacity to access the credibility of the testimony. The 
wide-ranging advantage of this kind of interconnection is that it 
allows us to understand that an epistemic agent's reliability is not 
merely pre-established but has to be re-established at every point.
 Our analysis above establishes that testimonial judgement is 
both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. This further implies 
that testimonial justication entails the cognitive abilities of both the 
hearer and the speaker because the virtuous hearer is motivated to 
accept what the speaker says, not just based on her cognitive 
capacities, but also based on the cognitive character traits of the 
speaker. The idea here is that an agent with excellent cognitive 
faculties has what it takes to apprehend cognitive traits because they 
seem to be two sides of the coin. Herein is a uniformity of cognitive 
situation identied above as epistemic empathy. It is an approach to 
testimonial justication that follows the paradigm of Pritchard's 
quasi-reductionist thesis.
 A possible objection to this model would be on the grounds of 
its sufciency to resolve the question of testimonial justication. For 
instance, we could ask: Does this model provide general justication 
for testimonial beliefs? That is to ask if testimonial information is 
sufciently justied when the hearer and speaker are involved in the 
justicatory process on the grounds of epistemic virtues? This is the 
point where we align with Laurence BonJour who argues that the 
problem of justifying testimonial knowledge has persisted because of 
our inability to provide general justication for testimonial beliefs. 

53Duncan Pritchard, “The Epistemology of Testimony,” 327.

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According to him, because we cannot successfully distinguish all the 
54

different kinds of cases of testimonial uptake,  we cannot adequately 
assess the justication of testimonial beliefs. Therefore, we cannot 
begin to provide 

55 a general justication for testimonial beliefs. Given 
that BonJour is correct, which we think he is, our concern is whether 
the two-way model we have proposed  sufciently takes care of most 
cases of testimonial uptake? Our response to this is afrmative.

Conclusion
This paper aims to establish the source of justication of testimonial 
knowledge. Given the vastness and practical indispensability of 
testimony as a source of knowledge, we embarked on the project of 
analysing if testimony is a basic or generative epistemic source. This 
project brought to the fore the discourse on reductionism and anti-
reductionism theories of testimony. The failure of both theories to 
satisfactorily resolve the nature of testimony as a basic epistemic 
source gave way to Pritchard's project to synthesize the plausible 
claims of both theories in his quasi-reductionism thesis. Pritchard's 
project provides the grounds to consider Fricker's idea of the 
testimonial sensitivity of the hearer. The application of Fricker's idea 
permits us to explore the role of epistemic virtues in testimonial 
justication, a permission that necessitated that we briey but 
critically analyse the literature on virtue epistemology. Based on our 
various analyses, we argued that testimonial justication or the 
justication of testimonial knowledge lies in the reliability of the 
testier as a trustworthy cognitive agent and the perceptual capacity 
of the hearer to access the credibility of the testimony. This provides 
us a justicatory process that is both perceptual, from the perspective 
of the testier, and inferential from the perspective of the hearer. The 
entire breadth of this paper is couched in the attempt to establish a 
proper way of justifying testimonial beliefs as knowledge. We have 

54Laurence BonJour, Epistemology: Classical Problems and Contemporary 
Responses, 164.
55Lawrence Bonjour, Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary 
Responses, 158.

Ttestimony, Justication, and Virtue   | 177



argued in this paper that a general justication for testimonial beliefs 
rest, not solely on either the testier or the hearer, but on both players 
– the testier and the hearer, in the epistemic transaction involving 
testimony. This is because a testimonial belief is justied as 
knowledge based on the intellectual virtues by the testier's cognitive 
character traits and the hearer's cognitive faculties and excellences. 

178 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   


