Abstract
Jozef Maria Bochenski introduced an important distinction between deontic and epistemic authority. A typical example of epistemic authority is the relation of a teacher to his students; a typical example of deontic authority is the relation between an employer and his employee. The difference between the two lies in domains of authority: declarative sentences make up the domain in the case of epistemic authority, orders—in the domain of deontic authority. In the article, I analyze in detail the concepts of the two kinds of authority and propose some new explications. The concept of epistemic authority is distinguished from the concept of infallibility and expertise; and the concept of deontic authority is distinguished from the concept of sovereign. I interpret various kinds of deontic authority in the light of the theory of imperative sentences. The concepts of gradation and de-gradation of authority are introduced and explicated.
Highlights
Epistemic and deontic authorityIntuitions What interests me most within Bocenski’s conception of authority is the distinction he draws between epistemic and deontic authority
Jozef Maria Bochenski introduced an important distinction between deontic and epistemic authority
According to Bochenski, authority is abused when ‘‘the subject of authority attempts to extend his authority to domains in which he is not entitled to have such authority,’’ or when ‘‘he pretends to be an authority over an object or in a domain in which he does not possess valid authority’’
Summary
Intuitions What interests me most within Bocenski’s conception of authority is the distinction he draws between epistemic and deontic authority. Component (b) states that y (the object of authority) accepts every sentence about which he is informed that x accepts it.5 At this point it has to be stated clearly that the notion of epistemic authority should be distinguished from that of infallibility in a given domain as well as from the notion of expertise in a given domain (Bochenski does not use these terms but, as we will see further, he uses terms which I link with them). Condition (a) has been added, as in the case of formula (2), in order to avoid the consequence that one would have to accept as infallible in a given domain a person who does not accept any sentence which belongs to this domain. Sometimes one does not do something one is obliged to do, or one does something that one does not feel obliged to do
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