An argument from authority, also called an appeal to authority, is a form of logical and persuasive argument using expert opinion to defend the likelihood of the reliability of a claim. It is well-known as a fallacy, though it is most often used in a valid form.^[1]

Structure and examples

The argument is a defeasible argument and a statistical syllogism taking the form:

• X is an expert on subject Y,
• X claims A. (A is within subject Y.)
• A is probably true.^[2]

The argument can lead to an informal fallacy when misused.^[3]

• A valid argument (Latin:argumentum ad auctoritatem)^[4] is one in which a recognized authority on the relevant subject is appealed to by citing a statement by that authority. This is a form of inductive reasoning in that the conclusion is not logically certain, but likely.^[5] Examples include following the treatments prescribed by a medical doctor, or citing a respected author to establish claims of fact in a written work. ^[5]
• An invalid argument (Latin: argumentum ad verecundiam)^[4][6], translated from Latin as argument to modesty or respect^[7][8], by which the authority appealed to is compromised in some way; such as being an expert in the wrong subject; or being unfamiliar with a specialized aspect of the subject; or giving views from one side of a controversy. ^[5] Some examples are citing a popular astrophysicist for claims about molecular biology, citing an Olympic athlete's endorsement of a product they do not use^[6][9] or citing a long retired professor's claims about a current debate in their field. This fails in that the first proposition is untrue.^[5]

History

John Locke, in his 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, was the first recorded to identify argumentum ad verecundiam as a specific category of argument.^[10] He noted that it can be misused by taking advantage of the "respect" and "submission" of the reader or listener to persuade them to accept the conclusion.^[11] Over time, logic textbooks started to adopt and change from Locke's terminology to refer more specifically to fallacious uses of the argument from authority.^[12]

By the late 20th century, logic textbooks had shifted to a less blanket approach to these arguments, often referring to the fallacy as the "Argument from Unqualified Authority"^[13] or the "Argument from Unreliable Authority".^[14] Some works, however continue to eschew any distinction between the fallacious and sound version. A 2012 guidebook on philosophical logic describes appeals to authority not merely as arguments from unqualified or unreliable authority, but as arguments from authority in general. In addition to appeals lacking evidence of the authority's reliability, the book states that arguments from authority are fallacious if there is a lack of "good evidence" that the authorities appealed to possess "adequate justification for their views."^[15]

With the rise of the internet, sites focused on the subject of fallacies began to appear. Among them, the The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Bradley Dowden states that "Most reasoning of this kind is not fallacious, and much of our knowledge properly comes from listening to authorities. However, appealing to authority as a reason to believe something is fallacious whenever the authority appealed to is not really an authority in this particular subject, when the authority cannot be trusted to tell the truth, when authorities disagree on this subject (except for the occasional lone wolf), when the reasoner misquotes the authority, and so forth."^[16] The "Fallacies" entry by Hans Hansen in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy similarly states that "Fundamentally, the fallacy involves accepting as evidence for a proposition the pronouncement of someone who is taken to be an authority but is not really an authority. This can happen when non-experts parade as experts in fields in which they have no special competence—when, for example, celebrities endorse commercial products or social movements. Similarly, when there is controversy, and authorities are divided, it is an error to base one’s view on the authority of just some of them."^[17]

In the context of law, opinion on the appeal to authority has historically been listed as a valid argument as often as a fallacious argument.^[18]

Appeal to non-authorities

Fallacious arguments from authority can also be the result of citing a non-authority as an authority or citing an expert on a conversational subject.^[19] A example of the fallacy of appealing to an authority in an unrelated field would be citing Albert Einstein as an authority for a determination on religion when his primary expertise was in physics.^[19] The attributed authority might not even welcome their citation, as with the "More Doctors Smoke Camels" ad campaign^[20], which illustrates how the fallacy occurs in accepting his an authority's opinion alone without considering the evidence. ^[21]

It is also a fallacious ad hominem argument to argue that a person presenting statements lacks authority and thus their arguments do not need to be considered.^[22] As appeals to a perceived lack of authority, these types of argument are fallacious for much the same reasons as some uses of an appeal to authority.

Other related fallacious arguments assume that a person without status or authority is inherently reliable. For instance, the appeal to poverty is the fallacy of thinking that someone is more likely to be correct because they are poor.^[23] When an argument holds that a conclusion is likely to be true precisely because the one who holds or is presenting it lacks authority, it is a fallacious appeal to the common man.^[24]

Notable example

Inaccurate chromosome number

In 1923, leading American zoologist Theophilus Painter declared, based on poor data and conflicting observations he had made,^[25][26] that humans had 24 pairs of chromosomes. From the 1920s to the 1950s, this continued to be held based on Painter's authority,^{[27][28][29][26]} despite subsequent counts totaling the correct number of 23.^[25][30] Even textbooks^[25] with photos showing 23 pairs incorrectly declared the number to be 24^[30] based on the authority of the then-consensus of 24 pairs.^[31][27]

This seemingly established number created confirmation bias among researchers, and "most cytologists, expecting to detect Painter's number, virtually always did so".^[31] Painter's "influence was so great that many scientists preferred to believe his count over the actual evidence",^[30] to the point that "textbooks from the time carried photographs showing twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, and yet the caption would say there were twenty-four".^[30] Scientists who obtained the accurate number modified^[32] or discarded^[33] their data to agree with Painter's count.

Psychological basis

An integral part of the appeal to authority is the cognitive bias known as the Asch effect.^[27] In repeated and modified instances of the Asch conformity experiments, it was found that high-status individuals create a stronger likelihood of a subject agreeing with an obviously false conclusion, despite the subject normally being able to clearly see that the answer was incorrect.^[34]

Further, humans have been shown to feel strong emotional pressure to conform to authorities and majority positions. A repeat of the experiments by another group of researchers found that "Participants reported considerable distress under the group pressure", with 59% conforming at least once and agreeing with the clearly incorrect answer, whereas the incorrect answer was much more rarely given when no such pressures were present.^[35]

Scholars have noted that the academic environment produces a nearly ideal situation for these processes to take hold, and they can affect entire academic disciplines, giving rise to groupthink. One paper about the philosophy of mathematics for example notes that, within mathematics,

If...a person accepts our discipline, and goes through two or three years of graduate study in mathematics, he absorbs our way of thinking, and is no longer the critical outsider he once was...If the student is unable to absorb our way of thinking, we flunk him out, of course. If he gets through our obstacle course and then decides that our arguments are unclear or incorrect, we dismiss him as a crank, crackpot, or misfit.^[36]

See also

• Authority bias
• Credentialism
• Ipse dixit
• Manifesto of the Ninety-Three
• Name-dropping
• Philosophical problems of testimony
• Woozle Effect
• Milgram experiment

References

External links

• The dictionary definition of 'ad verecundiam' at Wiktionary