4.5: Trust Me, I Know It on Good Authority

When a woman says you should believe her because she knows it on good authority, you need to mentally ask yourself these four questions. If you get the right answers, then it is OK to believe her.

• Is her authority, an authority on the proper subject?
• Would she know if the authorities disagreed on this subject?
• Can you trust her to have quoted the authority correctly?
• Can the authority be trusted to have told her the truth?

The Defense Minister of Iran may be the world's best authority on whether his country is stockpiling bio-terror weapons, but he may also be the last person to tell the truth about the weapons.

If you get yes answers to your four questions, then you should believe what she has to say, and you are justified in saying you know it, too. Too often you have to answer one of the questions with “I don’t know,” and then you should withhold your belief in what she says or else believe it only tentatively until you can get your questions answered.

---