The First-Person Authority Through the Lens of Experimental Philosophy

In this paper, we analyze the problem of first-person authority and the possibility of disagree-ment over mental states between first- and third-person ascribers. We explain why discussion onthis matter should be preceded by empirical study on the actual strength, scope, and restrictionsto such authority. We present a new study in which we show that the type of the ascribed mentalstate and the kind of interpersonal relationship between speakers both influence the strength offirst-person authority. We also suggest that analysis of a disagreement between a first- and athird-person ascriber of a mental state should take into account the intuition that it is possiblethat neither of these disagreeing speakers is wrong in their ascriptions.