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. 172 | Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020 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. 174 | Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020 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. 176 | Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020 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