Eric Sheng: 'Locke on testimony, propagation and moral epistemology'
This paper examines a neglected function of testimony in Locke (section 1) and its implications for the interpretation of his moral epistemology (section 2). Particular attention is given to two late texts, Of the conduct of the understanding and The reasonableness of Christianity, but the Essay and earlier writings will also be considered. The paper will start with brief introductions to Locke’s theory of knowledge and belief, and the state of the literatures on Locke on testimony and on Locke’s moral epistemology. While it is well established that Locke thought that testimony could be the basis of reasonable belief but not knowledge, section 1 draws attention to a way in which Locke allows testimony to have a rôle in producing knowledge. In this rôle (called ‘propagation’ in some recent analytical-philosophical literature), testimony is not the basis on which the recipient believes, but makes available to her resources with which she comes to know. Section 2 shows that, in addition to demonstrative knowledge unaided by testimony and belief on the basis of divine testimony, Locke also allows demonstrative knowledge aided by divine testimony through propagation as a way of having reasonable belief or knowledge about morals. It then considers the relative importance, in practice, of these three ways of knowing or believing according to Locke, and suggests that the possibility, in principle, of knowledge aided by propagation mitigates only to a quite limited extent Locke’s pessimism in his later writings about the possibility, in practice, of human moral knowledge.
