Dallas Willard on knowledge that belongs to the people (and so too, a basis for naturally legitimate authority to lead desperately needed reformation)

 About a year ago, I ran across the late Dallas Willard's posthumous book on The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge (2018, Routledge | Taylor Frances, completed by his literary heirs). In it I found a striking discussion of knowledge and naturally legitimate authority:

To have knowledge in the dispositional sense—where you know things you are not necessarily thinking about at the time—is to be able to represent something as it is on an adequate basis of thought or experience, not to exclude communications from qualified sources (“authority”). This is the “knowledge” of ordinary life [--> knowledge belongs to the people], and it is what you expect of your electrician, auto mechanic, math teacher, and physician. Knowledge is not rare, and it is not esoteric [--> our understanding must not rob ordinary people of knowledge, it must accept that ordinary people know many things on a responsible basis, this recognition would solve many needless issues] . . . no satisfactory general description of “an adequate basis of thought or experience” has ever been achieved. [--> we assess case by case in merits of warrant] We are nevertheless able to determine in many specific types of cases that such a basis is or is not present [p.19] . . . . Knowledge, but not mere belief or feeling, generally confers the right to act and to direct action, or even to form and supervise policy. [p. 20, this is a rub in a day of undermining legitimate expertise and authority] In any area of human activity, knowledge brings certain advantages. Special considerations aside, knowledge authorizes one to act, to direct action, to develop and supervise policy, and to teach. It does so because, as everyone assumes, it enables us to deal more successfully with reality: with what we can count on, have to deal with, or are apt to have bruising encounters with [--> as warranted, it is reliable and even credibly the case, so to act contrary to it without good reason is irresponsible]. Knowledge involves assured [--> warranted, credible] truth, and truth in our representations and beliefs is very like accuracy in the sighting mechanism on a gun. If the mechanism is accurately aligned—is “true,” it enables those who use it with care to hit an intended target. [p. 4, Dallas Willard & Literary Heirs, The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge, Routledge|Taylor& Francis Group, 2018. I annotate.]

I assert, this is a strategic pivot for desperately needed, sound reform of our civilisation:

• 

  A Cash Register Receipt is a transaction record
  from good source and chain of custody that
  is usually fair on its face [having no signs
  of fraud or other deceit]. Once such is in
  hand, it is the objector who has a burden
  of warrant to show it not credible.
  

  Knowledge must involve that ordinary people can and often do know, including pure and applied science, credibility of memory and fair on the face record from good chain of custody [requisites to knowledge], etc.
• Knowledge must not be rare, esoteric or absent, in short: knowledge belongs to the people. (And it cannot be a mis-concept: to claim or imply that one knows knowledge is impossible is self defeating.)
  
• This implies that knowledge has a weak, everyday sense, warranted credibly true [so reliable] [but also potentially corrigible] belief; not just utter, undeniable certainty.
• Post Gettier, warrant requires responsible, objective basis, not just personal justification.
• Truth, here, is not opinion but instead is accurate description of reality. In Aristotle's terms, Met 1011b, truth says of what is, that it is; and of what is not, that it is not. 
• Belief implies responsible, bet the farm acceptance as truth. We bet our lives on the pilots, navigators, designers, manufacturers, mechanics and air traffic controllers every time we fly. Sometimes, we lose, but flight -- despite its inherently dangerous nature -- is empirically the safest form of travel on a seat-mile basis.
  
• Where, once we have a definable subject [e.g. mathematics as the study of the logic of structure and quantity], we can readily see that to deny objective knowable truth is to make a knowledge claim about that field, defeating itself by self referential self contradiction.
• This is pivotal, as self referentiality is a key part of addressing big, hard questions, so coherence is a reasonable first test.
• Similarly, claimed bodies of knowledge or schools of thought [research programmes, paradigms, theories etc.] should also strive for factual adequacy, reliable predictive power and explanatory balance -- neither unduly simplistic nor an ad hoc patchwork.
• This extends to moral knowledge, as the claim there is no objective moral knowledge is a claim about morality -- the business of right/wrong, duty/rights, virtue/vice, good/evil, honour/dishonour etc -- and seeks to be taken as objective. Thus, hyperskepticism about moral knowledge defeats itself self referentially.
• Further (as can be shown) our rationality is morally governed through branch on which we all sit, pervasive -- so undeniable and self evident -- first truths of duty, first duties, indeed first law. 
• Building on Cicero's summary in De Legibus, these duties are: to truth, to right reason, to warrant and wider prudence, to sound conscience, to neighbour, so too to fairness and to justice etc.
• The etc allows us to build sound frameworks for law, governance and government.
• In Acts 25:16, Festus, Roman Governor of Judea c 59 AD, gives a case of that etc: " I answered them [The Sanhedrin] that it was not the custom of the Romans to give up anyone before the accused met the accusers face to face and had opportunity to make his defense concerning the charge laid against him."
  

This brings us back to Willard's point "knowledge authorizes one to act, to direct action, to develop and supervise policy, and to teach."

That is, inter alia, knowledge naturally provides capability, credibility and legitimate authority. Thus, too, we see exposed the misanthropic, nihilistic, anti-civilisational nature of cynical selective hyperskepticism and associated irresponsible rhetoric, trollishness, ideologies, politically motivated censorship and willful obtuseness. 

Further to this, adequate warrant therefore confers power, credibility and authority to call for and lead reformation. 

This is pivotal in a day where we are collectively, recklessly dancing on the edge of a crumbling cliff. END