What is it to obey someone?

Benjamin McMyler Texas A&M University Draft: 6/21/12

I. Introduction

In a characteristically brief and insightful paper entitled “What is it to believe someone?,” Elizabeth Anscombe argues that the concept of believing a person is much more difficult to understand than it might at first appear. She argues that both believing what a person says and believing what a person says on the strength of the person’s saying it are insufficient for believing the person, and she tentatively concludes that believing a person requires “trusting her for the truth.” In this paper

I argue that the concept of obeying a person is also much more difficult to understand than it might at first appear and in ways that parallel Anscombe’s discussion of believing a person. Both acting as a person demands and acting as a person demands on the strength of the person’s demanding it are insufficient for obeying the person. Unlike the concept of believing a person, however, the concept of obeying a person appears to have two distinct senses, one applying to coerced action and one applying to non-coerced action based on authoritative directives

(e.g., orders or commands). Though the latter sense of obedience can be understood as the practical analogue of the theoretical case of believing a person, the former sense of obedience has no theoretical analogue. This helps to clarify some of the ways in which belief is and is not rationally subject to determination by others.

II. Doing what someone demands

1 If a speaker S tells an audience A to Φ, what is it for A to obey S? A natural first answer is that A obeys S just in case A Φ’s. If a police officer orders me to step out of my car, then I obey the officer just in case I step out of my car.

Anscombe argues that when a speaker S tells an audience A that p, A’s believing what S says (believing that p) is insufficient for believing S because A might already believe that p for reasons independent of S’s telling A that p. “If you tell me ‘Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo’ and I say ‘I believe you,’ that is a joke”

(1979: 144-145). Similarly, when S tells A to Φ, A’s Φ-ing is insufficient for obeying

S because S might Φ for reasons independent of S’s telling A to Φ. Imagine that I walk down the street and start randomly ordering people to look both ways before they cross the street, and imagine that everyone I so order does in fact look both ways before crossing the street but for reasons that have nothing to do with my order. Perhaps they always look both ways before crossing the street for independent prudential reasons. In such a case, they do what I tell them to do, but it would be a joke to say that they obey me. Similarly, if I proceed to step out of my car on the basis of reasons that are independent of the police officer’s order, perhaps because I notice a foul odor, then I act as the officer demands but without obeying the officer. Even if the officer has the authority to order me to step out of the car, if I step out of the car for reasons that are independent of the order, then my doing what the officer demands does not count as a case of obedience.

III. Doing what someone demands because she demands it

2 The forgoing suggests that obeying a speaker involves not only doing what a speaker demands but doing so because she demands it. As Robert Paul Wolff puts it,

“Obedience is not a matter of doing what another tells you to do. It is a matter of doing what he tells you to do because he tells you to do it” (1970: 8, original emphasis). We might thus propose that if a speaker S tells an audience A to Φ, A obeys S just in case A Φ’s because S told A to Φ.

In Intention Anscombe writes, “If someone says ‘Tremble’ and I tremble I am not obeying him—even if I tremble because he said it in a terrible voice. To play it as obedience would be a kind of sophisticated joke (characteristic of the Marx brothers) which might be called ‘playing language-games wrong’” (1957: 33, original emphasis). Trembling because a speaker orders one to tremble cannot be a case of obeying a speaker because, in the imagined example, trembling is not an intentional action that is performed for the reason of the audience’s order. In the imagined example, trembling is behavior that is non-rationally caused by the order, either by the fact of the order itself or by the terrible quality of the speaker’s voice.

The causation involved in obedient action, on the other hand, must be rational causation. Obeying a speaker requires doing what a speaker says because the speaker demands it, where the speaker’s demand functions as a rational rather than a non-rational cause of the audience’s action. If we imagine trembling to be an action that is performed for the reason of the speaker’s demand—if we imagine, for example, an actor proceeding to “tremble” for the reason of her director’s demand that she do so—then it would no longer be a joke to describe it as obedience.

3 We might thus propose that if a speaker S tells an audience A to Φ, A obeys S just in case A Φ’s and part of A’s reason for Φ-ing is S’s telling A to Φ. This is almost certainly what Wolff has in mind when he claims that obeying a speaker requires doing what a speaker tells one to do because she tells one to do it. He is claiming that obedience is a matter of doing what someone demands for the reason that she demands it.

I think it can be shown that even this is insufficient for obeying someone.

Anscombe considers an analogous position concerning what it is to believe a person, the position that believing a person is a matter of believing what the person says for the reason that the person says it. She presents the following counter-example:

Suppose I were convinced that B wished to deceive me, and would tell the

opposite of what he believed, but that on the matter in hand B would be

believing the opposite of the truth. By calculation on this, then, I believe

what B says, on the strength of his saying it—but only in a comical sense can I

be said to believe him. (1979: 145, original emphasis).1

1 This case is similar to a case that Lackey (2006) calls CONSISTENT LIAR. Lackey argues that, despite the insincerity of the speaker, an audience can acquire knowledge in cases like CONSISTENT LIAR. Similarly, it would seem that, given some appropriate stage setting, an audience can acquire knowledge in Anscombe’s case as well. In McMyler (2011a), however, I argue that the category of testimonial knowledge is most fruitfully theorized as knowledge that requires believing a speaker, meaning that even though knowledge can be acquired in cases like Lackey’s CONSISTENT LIAR and Anscombe’s bluffing case, properly testimonial knowledge cannot.

4 Anscombe claims that in this bluffing case she believes what B says “on the strength of his saying it” but that she doesn’t thereby believe B. I take “on the strength of his saying it” to be equivalent to “for the reason of his saying it.” In the imagined case,

Anscombe believes that p for the reason that B tells her that p, but she doesn’t thereby believe B that p. We can construct an analogous counter-example for the above account of obedience. Suppose I were convinced that B wished me to do the wrong thing in the situation (for example, to breach local etiquette) and would tell me to do the opposite of what he thinks ought to be done, but that on the matter in hand what he thinks ought to be done would be the opposite of what actually ought to be done. By calculation on this, I do what B tells me to do, for the reason that B tells me to do it, but only as a joke could I be said to obey B. In this practical bluffing case, as in Anscombe’s theoretical case, I Φ for the reason that B tells me to Φ, but I do not thereby obey B.

The problem in both of these bluffing cases arises from the particular kind of

“calculation” being performed on the part of the audience of the speaker’s tellings.

The way in which the audience is calculating on the speaker’s telling her that p or to

Φ makes it the case that, even though the audience takes the speaker’s telling to be good reason to believe that p or to Φ and proceeds to believe that p or to Φ on this basis, the audience does not thereby count as believing or obeying the speaker.

Even though the speaker’s telling functions as part of the audience’s reason for believing that p or for Φ-ing, it is functioning as the wrong kind of reason for the resulting belief or action to amount to a case of believing or obeying the speaker. In effect, the audience in these cases is treating the speaker as little more than a

5 reliable instrument—the audience is treating the speaker’s tellings as little more than reliable indicators of what is the case or what to do—and though we can certainly treat speakers as reliable instruments and acquire good reasons for belief and action on this basis, to do so is not to believe or obey the speaker.

Once we appreciate this, we can begin to imagine less complex counter- examples to Wolff’s claim that obedience is doing what a speaker tells one to do because she tells one to do it. In fact, Wolff himself presents what would appear to be just such a counter-example. Wolff claims that “the autonomous man” can treat a speaker’s orders or commands as genuine reasons for action without thereby obeying the speaker.

If I am on a sinking ship and the captain is giving orders for manning the

lifeboats, and if everyone else is obeying the captain because he is the captain,

I may decide that under the circumstances I had better do what he says, since

the confusion caused by disobeying him would be generally harmful. But

insofar as I make such a decision, I am not obeying his command; that is, I am

not acknowledging him as having authority over me. I would make the same

decision, for exactly the same reasons, if one of the passengers had started to

issue “orders” and had, in the confusion, come to be obeyed. (1970: 15-16,

original emphasis)

The reason that the autonomous man is not here obeying the ship captain is that he is treating the ship captain as nothing more than a reliable instrument that he uses

6 to make up his own mind what to do. The autonomous man recognizes that orders are being issued with the intention that they be obeyed, but he is treating these orders as providing reasons for action that are no different than other ordinary first-order reasons. As a result, though he does what the captain tells him to do, and though part of his reason for doing what he does is the captain’s telling him to do it, he does not obey the captain.

IV. Two varieties of obedience

The above cases demonstrate that obeying a speaker requires not only that an audience act for the reason of a speaker’s demand but that the speaker’s demand function for the audience as the right kind of reason. Moreover, they suggest that in order for a demand to function as the right kind of reason it must function as something other than a merely reliable guide to action, something other than a consideration on the basis of which an audience makes up her own mind what to do.

I propose that there are two distinct senses in which a speaker’s demand can function for an audience as a genuine reason for action without the audience thereby making up her own mind what to do.

The concept of obedience is often used in ordinary English to characterize actions performed in response to authoritative directives such as orders and commands. A soldier might thus be said to obey her superior officer’s command to cease fire, and a child might be said to obey her parent’s order that she go to her room. Let’s call this form of obedience deferential obedience.

7 Deferential obedience: If a speaker S tells an audience A to Φ, A

(deferentially) obeys S just in case A Φ’s and part of A’s reason for Φ-ing is

A’s acknowledgment of S’s practical authority.

The concept of obedience is also sometimes used to characterize actions performed in response to coercive threats. I might thus be said to obey a mugger’s demand that

I give her my wallet or else suffer an unwanted consequence.2 Let’s call this form of obedience coerced obedience.

Coerced obedience: If a speaker S tells an audience A to Φ, A (coercedly)

obeys S just in case A Φ’s and part of A’s reason for Φ-ing is the desire to

avoid a consequence that S has threatened to bring about if A does not Φ.3

These two senses of obedience must be distinguished, I contend, because the reasons for action involved in the two cases are different. In the case of deferential obedience, the audience’s reason for action stems from her acknowledgment of the speaker’s authority, while in the case of coerced obedience, the audience’s reason for action stems from her desire to avoid a threatened consequence.4

2 The mugger might legitimately be said to order me to Φ, but the mugger’s order does not amount to what I am here calling an authoritative directive. I will thus refer to the mugger’s directive as a generic ‘demand,’ reserving the terms ‘order’ and ‘command’ to refer to directives that purport to be exercises of legitimate practical authority. 3 This is an extremely simplified version of the account of coercion offered by Nozick (1969). 4 In distinguishing in this way between deferential and coerced obedience, I follow Friedman (1990: 62).

8 Political philosophers commonly distinguish in this way between authoritative directives and coercive threats, claiming that the orders and commands of speakers in positions of practical authority purport to provide reasons for action that are different in kind from the reasons for action provided by coercive threats. Hannah Arendt, for example, writes, “Since authority always demands obedience, it is commonly mistaken for some form of power or violence. Yet authority precludes the use of external means of coercion; where force is used, authority itself has failed” (1954: 92). While there is much disagreement concerning how precisely to characterize the nature of social influence by authority and by coercion, it is commonly accepted that reasons for action stemming from the acknowledgment of a speaker’s authority are different in kind from reasons for action stemming from the desire to avoid a threatened consequence.5

5 Estlund (2008) considers an interesting case of a child of a brutal dictator who orders a minister to leave the palace. Even though the child has no right to make such an order (even according to the corrupt practices of the regime), the minister knows that the child will unleash severe brutality on the masses if he doesn’t do as he is told. By calculating on this, the minister does what he is ordered to do for the reason that he was ordered to do it. Estlund claims that this is not a case of action based on authority— that this is not a case in which the child has “the moral power to require action”—and he claims that this is because “when the minister considers what to do, the fact that the child commanded him to leave has no weight of its own. The danger of the dictator’s brutality is triggered by the command, but the command itself drops out of the set of reasons for action” (2008: 118). It is not clear to me how the command itself drops out of the set of reasons for action. The child’s command clearly seems to be part of the audience’s reason for acting. However, it does seem to be the case that the command is not functioning as the right kind of reason for the action to count as a case of genuinely obeying an authority. In the terms that I have developed here, the minister does not deferentially obey the child. It is not the case that part of the minister’s reason for acting is his acknowledgment of the speaker’s authority. Nevertheless, the minister does coercedly obey the child in that part of the minister’s reason for acting is the desire to avoid the consequence of a standing threat of violence. 9 I have claimed that the concept of obedience can be legitimately used to describe cases of both deferring to practical authority and acquiescing to coercive threats. The reason for this, I contend, is that both deferring to authority and acquiescing to coercion involve acting for reasons while, in different ways,

“subjecting oneself to the will of another.” Unlike the practical bluffing case described above, and unlike Wolff’s ship passenger case, when I defer to an authority’s directive or acquiesce to a coercive threat what the speaker says is not simply functioning for me as a potentially reliable indicator of what to do in the situation. Instead, I am subjecting myself to the will of the speaker, and I am doing this in one of two ways.

In the case of coerced obedience, I am subjecting myself to the will of the speaker in that I am acquiescing to the way in which the speaker has constrained the options for action that are reasonably available to me. Like non-threatening warnings and non-coercive offers, coercive threats serve to influence the actions of others via the issuing of conditional statements of the form “If you Φ (or do not Φ),

X will happen.” In the case of coercive threats and non-coercive offers, X is something that is broadly under the control of the speaker. In the case of non- coercive offers, X is something that makes the audience relevantly better off than she would be otherwise (or doesn’t make her relevantly worse off). Offers thus seek to expand the options reasonably available to an audience.6 In the case of coercive

6 There is a sense in which, in accepting a speaker’s offer, an audience is “subject” to the will of the speaker. The audience is dependent upon the speaker’s willing to bring X about. However, we do not typically think of this as a case of “subjecting oneself to the will of another” due to the fact that this does not amount to a case of constraint by another. We thus do not classify actions that are the result of accepting non-coercive offers as cases of obedience. However, some offers can be

10 threats, X is something that makes the audience relevantly worse off than she would be otherwise. Threats thus seek to constrain the options reasonably available to an audience. In threatening to harm me if I do not give her my wallet, the mugger is making it the case that I no longer have the option of both keeping my wallet and remaining unharmed, and in obeying the mugger’s demand, I acquiesce to this constraint.

Deferential obedience involves subjecting oneself to the will of a speaker in a quite different way. When a practical authority orders or commands an audience to

Φ, she is attempting to determine the audience’s will in a much more direct way than by attempting to constrain the options for action available to the audience.

Rather than presenting the audience with a threat that the speaker intends will cause the audience to make up her mind in a particular way, the authority is attempting to simply make up the audience’s mind for her, to settle for her the question what to do. In ordering a soldier to cease fire, an officer purports to be in a position to settle for the soldier the question whether to cease fire, and in obeying the officer’s command, the soldier allows the officer to so settle this question for her.

So while coerced obedience involves allowing one’s choice to be constrained by another, deferential obedience involves allowing one’s choice to be actually settled or “authored” by another.7

quite constraining, and to the extent that they are, such offers can become coercive and “accepting” such offers looks more like a case of obedience—“I had to obey. My family wouldn’t have survived without the money he offered.” 7 See Friedman (1990) on the Latin ‘auctor’ and ‘auctoritas’ from which the English term ‘authority’ derives. 11 Different accounts of the general nature of authority can be understood as different accounts of what exactly is involved in settling questions for others.

According to Joseph Raz’s (1986) service conception of authority, for example, legitimate practical authorities perform the service of mediating between agents and the reasons for action that apply to them anyways by issuing authoritative directives that provide agents with pre-emptive reasons for action, reasons that are both first-order reasons for action and second-order reasons that exclude the agent’s action being based on certain other first-order reasons. This can be understood as one explanation of what is involved in settling a practical question for another. Legitimate practical authorities settle questions for others by providing them with reasons for action that simultaneously exclude the agent’s action being based on certain other reasons. If an agent does what the speaker demands but for a reason other than the pre-emptive reason provided by the authority’s directive— in particular, if she acts on the basis of one of the reasons that the authority’s directive is meant to exclude—then she does not deferentially obey the authority.

She does not allow the speaker to settle for her the question what to do.

I take it to be the task of a general theory of authority to spell out in this way the precise sense in which authorities are capable of settling questions for others. I won’t attempt to defend such a general theory here. For the purposes of this paper, the general distinction between constraining the practical options available to another and settling a practical question for another should be sufficient to characterize the different respects in which social influence by coercion and by authority involve an audience’s subjecting herself to the will of a speaker. This

12 being said, however, it is important to note that social influence by authority and by coercion often work in tandem. The orders and commands of legitimate practical authorities are often backed up standing coercive threats, leading to a certain amount of ambiguity concerning the respect in which an obedient agent is subjecting herself to the will of another. When I pay my taxes, for example, it may be unclear whether my reason for action stems from my acknowledgment of the government’s legitimate authority to levy taxes or from my desire to avoid the fine or imprisonment that may result from my failing to pay. Though I am clearly obeying the law and thereby subjecting myself to the (collective) will of the government, it may be unclear whether I am allowing the government to settle a question for me or acquiescing to the way in which the government has constrained the practical options available to me. It might even be the case that both forms of obedience are in play, that part of my reason for action is my acknowledgment of the government’s legitimate authority while another part of my reason for action is my desire to avoid a sanction. Deferential and coerced obedience are thus not mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, it is important to distinguish between them in that these two forms of obedience involve subjecting oneself to the will of another in quite different ways.

V. Authority in belief and action

I have argued that just as believing a person requires more than believing what a person says for the reason that she says it, obeying a person requires more than doing what a person says for the reason that she says it. Both believing a

13 person and obeying a person require that what the person says functions as the right kind of reason for belief or action. Moreover, I have argued that there are two distinct ways in which a speaker’s practical demand can function as the right kind of reason. It can function either as an authoritative practical directive that settles for one the question what to do or as a coercive threat that constrains the options available to one. When an audience acts on the basis of a speaker’s demand functioning in either of these ways, the audience counts as obeying the speaker.

It is instructive to compare these conclusions concerning what it is to obey someone to Anscombe’s conclusions concerning what it is to believe someone.

Anscombe concludes that “believing someone (in the particular case) is trusting him for the truth—in the particular case” (1979: 151). The appeal to “trusting him for the truth” is supposed to pick out what is required for what the speaker says to function as the right kind of reason for believing what she says, but Anscombe herself recognizes that the idea calls for further clarification. She ends her paper with a problem:

I imagined the case where I believed what someone told me, and got the

information from his telling me, but did not believe him. This was because I

believed he would tell me what he thought was false, but also would be clean

wrong in what he thought. Now [in genuine cases of believing someone] I

may . . . have to reflect on whether someone is likely to be right and truthful

in a particular case when he is telling me that p . . . But someone might say:

“What is the difference between the two cases, culminating in belief that p

14 because NN has told one that p? In both cases there is calculation; in one, you

believe what the man says as a result of a calculation that he is a liar but

wrong, and in the other you calculate that he is truthful and right . . . The

difference between the two cases is only as stated. When you say that in the

first case you do not believe the man, only what he tells you, and in the

second you believe the man, that is just a bit of terminology: you are only

willing to call it believing the man when you believe he is right and truthful in

intent.[“] (1979: 151, original emphasis)

A parallel problem arises with respect to the case of obedience. I have claimed that the problem with the practical bluffing case and with Wolff’s ship passenger case is that the speaker’s demand is functioning in these cases as a merely reliable indicator of what to do. The audience calculates that in the situation it is likely the case that what the speaker demands is what ought to be done, and on this basis she makes up her own mind to act as the speaker demands. However, in genuine cases of obedience an audience often must calculate whether she should obey the speaker.

In cases of deferential obedience, the audience must often calculate whether the speaker is a genuine practical authority in the situation. Before obeying a police officer’s command, for example, an audience might be careful to establish that the speaker is actually a police officer. In cases of coerced obedience, the audience must often calculate both the likelihood that the speaker will follow through on her threat and the relative merits of suffering this consequence versus acting as the speaker

15 demands.8 Before obeying a mugger’s demand that I give her my wallet, I might be careful to (quickly) establish that the gun is real, that the location is one in which the speaker could reasonably hope to carry out her threat without getting caught, etc.

Calculation is involved in such cases of genuine obedience and in the bluffing and ship passenger cases, so is there any more than a terminological difference between them?9

Clearly, obedience is not opposed to practical reasoning concerning whether to Φ. An audience’s Φ-ing can be a case of obedient action even if the action is the result of the audience’s rational deliberation concerning whether to Φ. Obedience requires not the absence of calculation but simply action based on a particular reason. As long as part of the audience’s reason for action is either the desire to avoid a threatened consequence or her acknowledgment of the speaker’s authority, the action counts as a case of obedience.

The same appears to be true for the case of believing a speaker. Believing a speaker that p is not opposed to theoretical reasoning concerning whether p. If a speaker tells me that p, I might be careful to consider the competence and sincerity of the speaker and the likelihood that p is true given the other evidence available to me. After deliberating concerning such matters, I might then believe the speaker

8 Such calculation clearly seems to be present in Estlund’s case of the dictator’s child. See footnote 5. 9 Note that Wolff’s ship passenger case is unlike the practical bluffing case in that the audience in the ship passenger case doesn’t judge that the captain is attempting to mislead. This means that it cannot be right to claim, parallel to Anscombe’s imagined objector, that the only difference between the bluffing case and cases of genuine obedience is that in cases of genuine obedience the audience judges that the audience is not attempting to mislead. In the ship passenger case, the audience judges that the speaker is not attempting to mislead but still doesn’t obey the speaker.

16 that p. An audience’s believing that p can thus be a case of believing a speaker that p even if the belief is the result of the audience’s rational deliberation concerning whether p. This suggests that, parallel to the case of obedience, believing a speaker requires not the absence of calculation but simply belief based on a particular reason. But what reason?

Consider again the practical analogue of Anscombe’s imagined objection. In the case of coerced obedience, it seems quite wrong to say that obedience requires the absence of calculation. Faced with a mugger’s threat, I might seriously deliberate about the pros and cons of doing what the mugger demands, but as long as part of my reason for doing as the mugger demands is the desire to avoid the consequence that the mugger has threatened to bring about, I count as genuinely obeying the mugger’s demand. In the case of deferential obedience, on the other hand, there does appear to be at least one respect in which obedience requires the absence of a particular kind of calculation. Insofar as deferential obedience involves an audience’s allowing a speaker to settle for her the question whether to Φ, such obedience requires the absence of reasoning the result of which is the audience’s settling this question for herself. The calculation in the bluffing and ship passenger cases is calculation the result of which is the audience’s making up her own mind what to do. This is inconsistent with deferential obedience, but not simply because it involves calculation. It is inconsistent with deferential obedience because, insofar as the speaker’s speech act is functioning as a merely reliable indicator of what to do, it is not the case that the audience is allowing the speaker to settle for her the question whether to Φ.

17 The calculation involved in the bluffing and ship passenger cases is calculation directly aimed at settling the question whether to Φ. The audience is in the position of attempting to directly determine whether Φ-ing is the thing to do in the situation, and when she settles this question positively, she thereby counts as making up her own mind what to do. The calculation involved in the police officer case is quite different. In the police officer case the audience is attempting to determine whether to obey the speaker, whether to Φ for the reason of the speaker’s command, where Φ-ing for this reason involves allowing the speaker to settle for her the question whether to Φ. Calculating whether someone is a genuine practical authority is calculating whether the person is in a position to settle particular practical questions for one. Settling for oneself the question whether someone is a genuine practical authority thus does not involve settling for oneself these particular practical questions. When an audience obeys a speaker on the basis of calculating that the speaker is a genuine practical authority (that she ought to be obeyed) the audience does not thereby count as making up her own mind what to do.

Anscombe’s imagined objection in the case of believing a speaker has an intuitive appeal that parallels the intuitive appeal of the practical analogue of this objection in the case of deferential obedience. Just as deferential obedience appears to require the absence of a particular kind of calculation, namely calculation that results in an audience’s settling for herself the question whether to Φ, so believing a speaker appears to require the absence of a particular kind of calculation, namely calculation that results in the audience’s settling for herself the question whether p.

18 The calculation involved in Anscombe’s theoretical bluffing case is calculation the result of which is the audience’s making up her own mind what is the case. This is inconsistent with believing a speaker, but not because it involves calculation. It is inconsistent with believing a speaker because it is not the case that the audience is allowing the speaker to settle the question whether p for her.

In this respect, though there may be calculation involved in both Anscombe’s theoretical bluffing case and in genuine cases of believing a person, the calculation involved is very different. In the bluffing case, the calculation involved is directly aimed at settling the question whether p, and when the audience settles this question positively, she thereby counts as making up her own mind whether p. In cases in which an audience genuinely believes a speaker that p, the audience’s calculation is aimed instead at settling the question whether to believe the speaker that p. Calculating whether to believe the speaker that p is calculating whether the person is trustworthy concerning this particular question, or, as we might put it, whether she is a genuine theoretical authority. Parallel to the practical case, calculating whether someone is a genuine theoretical authority is calculating whether someone is in a position to settle particular theoretical questions for one.

Settling for oneself the question whether someone is a genuine theoretical authority thus does not involve settling for oneself these particular theoretical questions.

When an audience believes a speaker on the basis of concluding that the speaker is a genuine theoretical authority, the audience does not thereby count as making up her own mind what is the case.

19 In this way, the fact that the intuitive appeal of Anscombe’s imagined objection in the case of believing a speaker matches the intuitive appeal of the practical analogue of this objection in the case of deferential obedience helps to clarify Anscombe’s claim that believing someone that p is trusting her for the truth.

Believing someone that p—trusting her for the truth—is the theoretical analogue of deferential obedience. To give it a label, we might call it deferential belief.

Deferential belief: If a speaker S tells an audience A that p, A (deferentially)

believes S just in case A believes that p and part of A’s epistemic reason for

believing that p is A’s acknowledgment of S’s theoretical authority.

Parallel to the case of deferential obedience, deferential belief involves not only believing what a speaker says for the reason that she says it but treating what the speaker says as the right kind of reason, as a reason for belief that stems from the audience’s acknowledgement of the speaker’s theoretical authority. When a speaker tells an audience that p, she is thus attempting to influence the audience’s belief in a way that parallels that in which a speaker who commands an audience to

Φ is attempting to influence an audience’s action. The speaker is attempting to make up the audience’s mind for her, to settle for her the question whether p.

Deferential belief thus involves allowing one’s belief to be settled or authored by someone else.10

10 To be clear, I am here claiming that telling an audience that p aims to influence an audience’s belief in a way that parallels that in which telling an audience to Φ aims to influence an audience’s action, namely by settling a question for one. This is not to claim that telling an audience that p is a form of command or that belief can

20 Again, I take it to be the task of a general theory of authority to spell out the precise sense in which authorities are capable of settling questions for others. I have claimed that believing a speaker parallels deferential obedience in that it involves allowing a speaker to settle a question for one. In the case of deferential obedience the relevant question is a practical question, the question whether to Φ, while in the case of believing a speaker it is a theoretical question, the question whether p. I am inclined to think that the parallel between deferential belief and deferential obedience is quite deep, that the reason for belief provided by a speaker’s telling one that p is robustly analogous to the reason for action provided by a speaker’s telling one to Φ.11 Several political philosophers have suggested such a deep parallel. Raz, for example, has suggested that theoretical authority can be understood along the same general lines as his service conception of practical authority: “Just as with any practical authority, the point of theoretical authority is to enable me to conform to reason, this time reason for belief, better than I would otherwise be able to do. This requires taking the expert advice, and allowing it to pre-empt my own assessment of the evidence” (2009: 155).12 Raz appears to hold that, parallel to the case of practical authority, theoretical authorities provide the service of mediating between agents and the reasons for belief that apply to them anyways by issuing authoritative theoretical directives (such as expert testimony) be coherently commanded. 11 For an account of the epistemology of testimony along these lines, see McMyler (2011a). 12 Hart (1990) and Friedman (1990) also provide brief accounts of theoretical authority that parallel their respective accounts of practical authority. Zagzebski (manuscript) argues for an account of epistemic authority that meets the general conditions of Raz’s service conception of authority, including the condition of providing pre-emptive reasons. 21 that provide agents with pre-emptive reasons for belief, reasons that are both first- order epistemic reasons and second-order reasons that exclude the agent’s belief being based on certain other first-order reasons.13 Theoretical authorities thus settle questions for others by providing them with epistemic reasons for belief that simultaneously exclude the agent’s belief being based on certain other epistemic reasons. If an agent believes what the speaker tells her but for a reason other than the pre-emptive reason provided by the authority’s directive—in particular, if she believes what the speaker tells her on the basis of one of the reasons that the authority’s directive is meant to exclude—then she does not believe the speaker.

She does not allow the speaker to settle for her the question what is the case.

Nevertheless, for all that I have said here, the parallel between deferential obedience and deferential belief might turn out to be rather shallow. It might be the case that what it is for part of one’s epistemic reason for believing that p to be one’s acknowledgement of a speaker’s theoretical authority is importantly different from what it is for part of one’s reason for Φ-ing to be one’s acknowledgment of a speaker’s practical authority. Indeed, many philosophers appear to hold that, given the differences between theoretical and practical rationality, there simply cannot be a kind of authority over belief that is robustly analogous to legitimate practical authority.14 Settling questions concerning the depth of the parallel between deferential belief and deferential obedience will ultimately require defending a

13 Raz recognizes that such pre-emptive reasons for belief do not amount to duties, as in the case of pre-emptive reasons for action, but he claims that this is because “duties exist only when (but not always even then) the response to reason involves the will” (2009: 156). 14 See, for example, Darwall (2006), Owens (2008), and Enoch (manuscript).

22 general account of the nature of authority. I will not take on this task here. I would like to end, however, by noting one significant difference between the practical case of obedience and the theoretical case of believing a speaker.

VI. Coercion in belief and action

I noted earlier that in the practical case of obedience social influence by authority and by coercion often work in tandem. Authoritative practical directives are often backed up by coercive threats, and as a result the two different ways in which an audience subjects herself to the will of a speaker that characterize deferential and coerced obedience often blend together. This is not the case— indeed, cannot be the case—in the theoretical realm, and this may be at least part of the reason why many philosophers have thought that action can be rationally subject to determination by others in a way that belief simply cannot.

I have suggested that believing a speaker is the direct theoretical analogue of deferential obedience. Coerced obedience, on the other hand, has no direct theoretical analogue. A direct theoretical analogue of coerced obedience would have the following form. We can call this coerced belief.

Coerced belief: If a speaker S tells an audience A that p, A (coercedly)

believes S just in case A believes that p and part of A’s (epistemic) reason for

believing that p is the desire to avoid a consequence that S has threatened to

bring about if A does not believe that p.

23 Coerced belief is impossible for the simple reason that the consequences of believing that p, and the desire to avoid them, cannot be epistemic reasons for believing that p. Epistemic reasons for believing that p are considerations that a subject takes to bear on the question whether p, but a subject cannot rationally take considerations concerning the consequences of believing that p to be considerations that bear on the question whether p parallel to the way in which she can rationally take considerations concerning the consequences of Φ-ing to be considerations that bear on the question whether to Φ.15 A subject can rationally take considerations concerning the consequences of believing that p to be considerations that bear on the question whether to act so as to bring about the belief that p, but this is a practical question, not a theoretical question, and so such considerations are practical reasons, not epistemic reasons. A direct theoretical analogue of coerced obedience is therefore impossible.

Even though belief cannot be directly coerced, there are other respects in which the concept of coercion can legitimately apply to belief. Belief can be indirectly coerced in that subjects can be coerced into performing actions aimed at producing belief, actions such as collecting evidence or taking a pill designed to induce the belief. Moreover, it is plausible that coercion does not always work by providing an audience with reasons. In the case of action, some coercive threats may be so terrifying to an audience that, to a certain degree, they overwhelm the audience’s will and non-rationally cause the audience to act. Something similar is possible in the case of belief. Some coercive threats may be sufficient to overwhelm

15 See Hieronymi (2006).

24 an audience’s theoretical reasoning thereby causing here to believe. Such direct and overt compulsion of belief is likely psychologically difficult, but it is plausible that standing threats of social sanction often play a more covert role in non-rationally causing belief. If a significant part of the explanation of a subject’s believing that p is her desire to avoid the consequences that would result from her not believing that p, consequences such as exclusion from a particular social or professional group, then the subject’s belief counts as being coercively compelled.16

Though belief can be coerced in these other respects, the fact that belief cannot be directly coerced is significant. Indirect coercion of belief by coercing a subject into performing actions aimed at producing belief is simply a species of practical coercion. Beliefs that are coercively compelled are not a result of rational determination by others; they are non-rationally caused by the desire to avoid an explicitly or implicitly threatened consequence. Only the kind of direct coercion of belief analogous to coerced obedience would amount to a form of direct rational determination of belief by others, but such direct coercion of belief is impossible.

Insofar as direct rational coercive determination of belief by others is impossible, belief cannot be subject to the will of others in one of the ways characteristic of obedient action.17 This is not yet to say, however, that belief cannot be rationally subject to determination by others in a way that parallels deferential obedience. I have claimed that just as deferential obedience involves allowing

16 For a more detailed account of the various ways in which belief can and cannot be coerced, see McMyler (2011b). 17 In his first Letter on Toleration, Locke uses this point as a premise in an ultimately unsuccessful argument in favor of religious toleration (1983: 27). For a seminal discussion of Locke’s argument, see Waldron (1993). 25 others to settle for us the question what to do, deferential belief involves allowing others to settle for us the question what is the case. In this respect, both our beliefs and our actions are capable of being rationally “authored” by others. Such authoritative rational influence on belief cannot be backed up by direct coercive influence, and so cases of deferential belief do not have the background of constraint by others present in many paradigmatic cases of obedience to practical authority.18

Deferential belief can thus feel much less determined by others. But if the settling of questions for others amounts to a form of rational social influence that is fundamentally different from coercive constraint, as many political philosophers have held, then there is room for a non-coercive form of rational determination of belief by others. There is room for a form of belief, a way of actively holding a proposition to be true, that involves rationally “subjecting ourselves to the judgment of another” in a way that parallels one of the ways in which obeying a person involves rationally subjecting ourselves to the will of another. It may turn out that there can be no such deep parallel, that pace Raz, theoretical questions simply cannot be settled for us in a way analogous to that in which practical questions can.

I think that this would be surprising, but as I’ve said, adjudicating this issue will ultimately require defending a general account of the nature of authority, a task that will have to wait for another occasion.

18 Cases of deferential belief may have a background of indirect and/or compelled doxastic coercion, but this is importantly different from the way in which authoritative and coercive rational influence on action often blend together. In the theoretical case, we do not get a blending together of two different ways of rationally subjecting ourselves to the judgment of another.

26 References

Anscombe, E. (1957), Intention. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

—(1979), “What Is It to Believe Someone?” in Rationality and Religious Belief, ed.

C.F. Delaney. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.

Darwall, S. (2006), The Second-Person Perspective. Harvard: Cambridge University

Press.

Enoch, D. (manuscript), “Authority and Reason-Giving”

Estlund, D. (2008), Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. Princeton:

Princeton University Press.

Friedman, R. (1990), “On the Concept of Authority in Political Philosophy” in

Authority, ed. Raz. New York: New York University Press.

Hart, H. (1990), “Commands and Authoritative Legal Reasons” in Authority, ed. Raz.

New York: New York University Press, 92-114.

Hieronymi, P. (2006), “Controling Attitudes,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 87: 45-

74.

Lackey, J. (2006), “Learning from Words,” Philosophy and Phenomenological

Research, 73: 77-101.

Locke, J. (1983), A Letter Concerning Toleration. Indianapolis: Hackett.

McMyler, B. (2011a), Testimony, Trust, and Authority. New York: Oxford University

Press.

—(2011b), “Doxastic Coercion,” Philosophical Quarterly, 61: 537-557.

Nozick, R. (1969), “Coercion” in Philosophy, Science, and Method, eds. Morgenbesser,

et al. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 440-472.

27 Owens, D. (2008), “Rationalism about Obligation,” European Journal of Philosophy,

16: 403-431.

Raz, J. (1986), The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Waldron, J. (1993), “Locke, Toleration, and the Rationality of Persecution,” in Liberal

Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 88-114.

Wolff, R. (1970), In Defense of Anarchism. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Zagzebski, L. (forthcoming), Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and

Autonomy in Belief. New York: Oxford University Press.

28