ABSTRACT
Testimonial virtue is an intellectual virtue that helps make it possible for citizens to play their role in "the community's conscientious reflection" on "how the authority acquires and modifies the community's belief". It obviously is not innate, being acquired by socialization and education. Miranda Fricker argues that "testimonial sensibility" is to be understood as an experientially developed non-inferential perceptual ability to exercise a "critical reception" to the testifier's account. Elizabeth Fricker proposes that epistemically responsible hearers have developed a "counter-factual sensitivity": "it is true throughout of the hearer that if there were any signs of untrustworthiness, she would pick them up". An educational commitment to the development of testimonial virtue is a partial response to Carl Sagan's concerns. Nevertheless, incorporating an explicit goal of testimonial virtue into education does yield some new educational objectives. Educators can encourage students to connect their developing testimonial virtue with their moral and civic virtue.
