Doing (Better) What Comes Naturally: Zagzebski on Rationality and Epistemic Self-Trust

I offer an account of what trust is, and of what epistemic self-trust consists in. I identify five distinct arguments extracted from Chapter 2 of Zagzebski's Epistemic Authority for the rationality and epistemic legitimacy of epistemic self-trust. I take issue with the general account of human rational self-regulation on which one of her arguments rests. Zagzebski maintains that this consists in restoring harmony in the psyche by eliminating conflict and so ending ‘dissonance’. I argue that epistemic rationality is distinct from psychic mechanisms aimed at eliminating dissonance, and these two sometimes pull in opposed directions.