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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Nov 4, 2025

An Experimental Analysis of Children's Ability to Provide a False Report about a Crime

An Experimental Analysis of Children's Ability to Provide a False Report about a Crime

Published on: May 3, 2016

Should one trust experts?

¹Department of Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

|May 26, 2021

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

It is not always rational to trust experts. Determining an expert's competence and alignment of interests can be difficult, influencing when to defer to their judgment.

Keywords:

Competence Experts Interest alignment Social epistemology Trust

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Area of Science:

Epistemology
Decision Theory
Philosophy of Science

Background:

The trustworthiness of experts is a critical issue in knowledge acquisition.
Trust in experts is often based on perceived competence and benevolence.
Existing frameworks for expert trust may not fully capture layperson-expert dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

To explore the conditions for rational trust and deference to experts.
To identify factors influencing the decision to trust or distrust expert advice.
To propose a model for evaluating expert trustworthiness.

Main Methods:

Conceptual analysis of trust in expert-layperson relationships.
Development of a theoretical model incorporating competence and interest alignment.
Exploration of the practical and logical feasibility of assessing these factors.

Main Results:

Rational trust depends on both layperson and expert competences, and the degree of interest alignment.
Assessing expert competence and interest alignment can be practically infeasible or logically impossible.
The study highlights conditions where refraining from trusting experts is rational.

Conclusions:

Trust in experts is conditional and requires careful evaluation of specific factors.
The inherent difficulties in assessing expert credibility necessitate a nuanced approach to deference.
Further research can explore more optimistic conclusions regarding expert-layperson interactions.