Argument from authority

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An argument from authority (argumentum ab auctoritate), also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of argument in which the opinion of an influential figure is used as evidence to support an argument. [1]

Contents

The argument from authority is a logical fallacy [2] (also known as ad verecundiamfallacy), and obtaining knowledge in this way is fallible. [3] [4]

However, in particular circumstances, it is sound to use as a practical although fallible way of obtaining information that can be considered generally likely to be correct if the authority is a real and pertinent intellectual authority and there is universal consensus about these statements in this field. [1] [5] [6] [7] [8] This is specially the case when the revision of all the information and data 'from scratch' would impede advances in an investigation or education. Further ways of validating a source include: evaluating the veracity of previous works by the author, their competence on the topic, their coherence, their conflicts of interest, etc.

Validity of the argument in deductive and inductive methods

In the deductive method

This argument has been considered a logical fallacy since its introduction by John Locke and Richard Whately. [9] In particular, this is a form of genetic fallacy; in which the conclusion about the validity of a statement is justified by appealing to the characteristics of the person who is speaking, such as in the ad hominem fallacy. [10] For this argument, Locke coined the term argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to shamefacedness/modesty) because it appeals to the fear of humiliation by appearing disrespectful to a particular authority. [11]

This qualification as a logical fallacy implies that this argument is invalid when using the deductive method, and therefore it can't be presented as infallible. [12] In other words, it's logically invalid to prove a claim is true because an authority has said it. The explanation is simple: authorities can be wrong, and the only way of logically proving a claim is providing real evidence and/or a valid logical deduction of the claim from the evidence. [13] [14] [15]

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. [10] 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. [16] 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 an appeal to the common man. [17]

In the inductive method

However, when used in the inductive method, which implies the conclusions can never be proven or certain, [12] this argument can be considered sound and not fallacious. If a person has a credible authority, it is more likely that their assessments would be correct, especially if there is consensus about the topic between the credible sources.[ citation needed ]

The general form of this type of argument is:

Person A claims that X is true.
Person A is an expert in the field concerning X.
Therefore, X should be believed. [18]

Nonetheless, it would also be a fallacy, even in the inductive method, when the source of the claim is a false authority, such as when the supposed authority is not a real expert, or when supporting a claim outside of their area of expertise. This is referred to as an "argument from false authority". [19] It can also be considered a fallacy when the authority is an expert in the topic but their claims are controversial or not unanimous between other experts in the field. Some consider that it can be used in a cogent form if all sides of a discussion agree on the reliability of the cited authority in the given context. [20] This form of argument can be considered sound if both parties to the debate agree that the authority is in fact an expert; [20] [21] [22]

Furthermore, some claim that the act of trusting authorities is unavoidable for science to progress, since it would be a lot harder if not impossible for students and researchers to always resort to the factual evidence and demonstrations for all the knowledge they need to obtain to be able to come across new scientific findings. [23]

At the same time, others claim that authority "has no place in science", [24] meaning that the validity of claims always has to lay, ultimately, on the evidence and proofs provided, and not in the prestige of the authors.[ citation needed ]

Confusion about its classification as a logical fallacy but a sound inductive criterion

Some authors fail to distinguish between the classification of this argumentum ad verecundiam as a logical fallacy, and its classification as a fallacy within the inductive method 'only' when the authority is false or their claims disputed; but failing to address that the weight of this argument can never be more than relative and never a proof since it is logically invalid. This serious mistake has sadly been widely popularized in the last few decades, and lead to the wrong belief that the ad verecundiam argument is logically valid and therefore an absolute proof.[ citation needed ]

The qualification of this type of argument as logical fallacy implies that it is not a valid way to deduce a conclusion, that is, to prove it. [12] This doesn't mean that a claim from a credible respected authority doesn't generally have a bigger probability of being correct than that of somebody who has no expertise at all; but the strength of this argument is not absolute as it's wrongfully believed by some. [12]

Use in science

Scientific knowledge is best established by evidence and experiment rather than argued through authority [13] [14] [15] as authority has no place in science. [14] [25] [26] Carl Sagan wrote of arguments from authority: "One of the great commandments of science is, 'Mistrust arguments from authority.' ... Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else." [24] Conversely, it has been argued that science is fundamentally dependent on arguments from authority to progress as "they allow science to avoid forever revisiting the same ground". [23]

One example of the use of the appeal to authority in science dates to 1923, [27] when leading American zoologist Theophilus Painter declared, based on poor data and conflicting observations he had made, [28] [29] that humans had 24 pairs of chromosomes. From the 1920s until 1956, [30] scientists propagated this "fact" based on Painter's authority, [31] [32] [29] despite subsequent counts totaling the correct number of 23. [28] [33] Even textbooks [28] with photos showing 23 pairs incorrectly declared the number to be 24 [33] based on the authority of the then-consensus of 24 pairs. [34]

This seemingly established number generated confirmation bias among researchers, and "most cytologists, expecting to detect Painter's number, virtually always did so". [34] Painter's "influence was so great that many scientists preferred to believe his count over the actual evidence", [33] and scientists who obtained the accurate number modified [35] or discarded [36] their data to agree with Painter's count.

Roots in cognitive bias

Arguments from authority that are based on the idea that a person should conform to the opinion of a perceived authority or authoritative group are rooted in psychological cognitive biases [37] such as the Asch effect. [38] [39] [40] 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. [41]

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. [42]

Another study shining light on the psychological basis of the fallacy as it relates to perceived authorities are the Milgram experiments, which demonstrated that people are more likely to go along with something when it is presented by an authority. [43] In a variation of a study where the researchers did not wear lab coats, thus reducing the perceived authority of the tasker, the obedience level dropped to 20% from the original rate, which had been higher than 50%. Obedience is encouraged by reminding the individual of what a perceived authority states and by showing them that their opinion goes against this authority. [43]

Scholars have noted that certain environments can produce an ideal situation for these processes to take hold, giving rise to groupthink. [44] In groupthink, individuals in a group feel inclined to minimize conflict and encourage conformity. Through an appeal to authority, a group member might present that opinion as a consensus and encourage the other group members to engage in groupthink by not disagreeing with this perceived consensus or authority. [45] [46] One paper about the philosophy of mathematics states that, within academia,

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. [47]

Corporate environments are similarly vulnerable to appeals to perceived authorities and experts leading to groupthink, [48] as are governments and militaries. [49]

See also

Related Research Articles

Ad hominem, short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments that are fallacious. Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a personal attack as a diversion often using a totally irrelevant, but often highly charged attribute of the opponent's character or background. The most common form of this fallacy is "A" makes a claim of "fact," to which "B" asserts that "A" has a personal trait, quality or physical attribute that is repugnant thereby going entirely off-topic, and hence "B" concludes that "A" has their "fact" wrong - without ever addressing the point of the debate. Many contemporary politicians routinely use ad hominem attacks, which can be encapsulated to a derogatory nickname for a political opponent.

An irrelevant conclusion, also known as ignoratio elenchi or missing the point, is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument whose conclusion fails to address the issue in question. It falls into the broad class of relevance fallacies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Argument from ignorance</span> Informal fallacy

Argument from ignorance, also known as appeal to ignorance, is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes the possibility that there may have been an insufficient investigation to prove that the proposition is either true or false. It also does not allow for the possibility that the answer is unknowable, only knowable in the future, or neither completely true nor completely false. In debates, appealing to ignorance is sometimes an attempt to shift the burden of proof. The term was likely coined by philosopher John Locke in the late 17th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fallacy</span> Argument that uses faulty reasoning

A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument that may appear to be well-reasoned if unnoticed. The term was introduced in the Western intellectual tradition by the Aristotelian De Sophisticis Elenchis.

The genetic fallacy is a fallacy of irrelevance in which arguments or information are dismissed or validated based solely on their source of origin rather than their content. In other words, a claim is ignored or given credibility based on its source rather than the claim itself.

Appeal to tradition is a claim in which a thesis is deemed correct on the basis of correlation with past or present tradition. The appeal takes the form of "this is right because we've always done it this way", and is a logical fallacy. The opposite of an appeal to tradition is an appeal to novelty, in which one claims that an idea is superior just because it is new.

Poisoning the well is a type of informal fallacy where adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing something that the target person is about to say. Poisoning the well can be a special case of argumentum ad hominem, and the term was first used with this sense by John Henry Newman in his work Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864).

Appeal to flattery is a fallacy in which a person uses flattery, excessive compliments, in an attempt to appeal to their audience's vanity to win support for their side. It is also known as apple polishing, wheel greasing, brown nosing, appeal to pride, appeal to vanity or argumentum ad superbiam. The appeal to flattery is a specific kind of appeal to emotion.

Appeal to consequences, also known as argumentum ad consequentiam, is an argument that concludes a hypothesis to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences. This is based on an appeal to emotion and is a type of informal fallacy, since the desirability of a premise's consequence does not make the premise true. Moreover, in categorizing consequences as either desirable or undesirable, such arguments inherently contain subjective points of view.

Argument from fallacy is the formal fallacy of analyzing an argument and inferring that, since it contains a fallacy, its conclusion must be false. It is also called argument to logic, the fallacy fallacy, the fallacist's fallacy, and the bad reasons fallacy.

The association fallacy is a formal logical fallacy that asserts that properties of one thing must also be properties of another thing, if both things belong to the same group. For example, a fallacious arguer may claim that "bears are animals, and bears are dangerous; therefore your dog, which is also an animal, must be dangerous."

<i>Reductio ad Hitlerum</i> Logical fallacy

Reductio ad Hitlerum, also known as playing the Nazi card, is an attempt to invalidate someone else's argument on the basis that the same idea was promoted or practised by Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party. Arguments can be termed reductio ad Hitlerum if they are fallacious. Contrarily, straightforward arguments critiquing specifically fascist components of Nazism like Führerprinzip are not part of the association fallacy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Informal fallacy</span> Form of incorrect argument in natural language

Informal fallacies are a type of incorrect argument in natural language. The source of the error is not just due to the form of the argument, as is the case for formal fallacies, but can also be due to their content and context. Fallacies, despite being incorrect, usually appear to be correct and thereby can seduce people into accepting and using them. These misleading appearances are often connected to various aspects of natural language, such as ambiguous or vague expressions, or the assumption of implicit premises instead of making them explicit.

In logic and philosophy, a formal fallacy, deductive fallacy, logical fallacy or non sequitur is a pattern of reasoning rendered invalid by a flaw in its logical structure that can neatly be expressed in a standard logic system, for example propositional logic. It is defined as a deductive argument that is invalid. The argument itself could have true premises, but still have a false conclusion. Thus, a formal fallacy is a fallacy where deduction goes wrong, and is no longer a logical process. This may not affect the truth of the conclusion, since validity and truth are separate in formal logic.

Appeal to the stone, also known as argumentum ad lapidem, is a logical fallacy that dismisses an argument as untrue or absurd. The dismissal is made by stating or reiterating that the argument is absurd, without providing further argumentation. This theory is closely tied to proof by assertion due to the lack of evidence behind the statement and its attempt to persuade without providing any evidence.

Name-calling is a form of argument in which insulting or demeaning labels are directed at an individual or group. This phenomenon is studied by a variety of academic disciplines such as anthropology, child psychology, and political science. It is also studied by rhetoricians, and a variety of other disciplines.

Slothful induction, also called appeal to coincidence, is a fallacy in which an inductive argument is denied its proper conclusion, despite strong evidence for inference. An example of slothful induction might be that of a careless man who has had twelve accidents in the last six months and it is strongly evident that it was due to his negligence or rashness, yet keeps insisting that it is just a coincidence and not his fault. Its logical form is: evidence suggests X results in Y, yet the person in question insists Y was caused by something else.

In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum is a fallacious argument which is based on claiming a truth or affirming something is good because many people think so.

References

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  2. ↑ Sadler, Troy (2006). "Promoting Discourse and Argumentation in Science Teacher Education". Journal of Science Teacher Education. 17 (4): 330. doi:10.1007/s10972-006-9025-4. S2CID   144949172.
  3. ↑ Cummings, Louise (2015). "Argument from Authority". Reasoning and Public Health: New Ways of Coping with Uncertainty. Springer. pp. 67–92. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-15013-0_4. ISBN   9783319150130. The argument from authority has had many detractors throughout the long history of logic. It is not difficult to see why this is the case. After all, the argument resorts to the use of opinion to support a claim rather than a range of more objective sources of support (e.g. evidence from experiments)...These difficulties and other weaknesses of authority arguments have found these arguments maligned in the logical treatises of several historical thinkers...'argument from authority has been mentioned in lists of valid argument-forms as often as in lists of Fallacies'
  4. ↑ Underwood, R.H. (1994). "Logic and the Common law Trial". American Journal of Trial Advocacy : 166.
  5. ↑ Lewiński, Marcin (2008). "Comments on 'Black box arguments'". Argumentation. 22 (3): 447–451. doi: 10.1007/s10503-008-9095-x .
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  10. 1 2 Williamson, Owen. "Master List of Logical Fallacies". The University of Texas at El Paso.
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  12. 1 2 3 4 Garrett, Aaron (2014). The Routledge Companion to Eighteenth Century Philosophy. Routledge. p. 280. ISBN   9781317807926. demonstrations proceed deductively while probable reasoning involves inductive inferences.
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  17. ↑ Bennett, Bo. "Appeal to the Common Man". Logically Fallacious.
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  24. 1 2 Sagan, Carl (July 6, 2011). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Ballantine Books. ISBN   9780307801043.
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  27. ↑ Painter, Theophilus S. (April 1923), "Studies in mammalian spermatogenesis. II. The spermatogenesis of man", Journal of Experimental Zoology, 37 (3): 291–336, doi:10.1002/jez.1400370303
  28. 1 2 3 Glass, Bentley (1990). Theophilus Shickel Painter (PDF). Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences. pp. 316–17.
  29. 1 2 Mertens, Thomas (October 1979). "The Role of Factual Knowledge in Biology Teaching". The American Biology Teacher . 41 (7): 395–419. doi:10.2307/4446671. JSTOR   4446671.
  30. ↑ Tjio, Joe Hin; Levan, Albert (May 1956), "The Chromosome Number of Man", Hereditas, 42 (1–2): 723–4, doi: 10.1111/j.1601-5223.1956.tb03010.x , PMID   345813
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  40. ↑ Bates, Jordan (16 March 2016). "12 Psychological Tactics Donald Trump Uses to Manipulate the Masses". 11. Appeals to Authority.
  41. ↑ McLeod, Samuel (2008), Asch Experiment, Simply Psychology
  42. ↑ Webley, Paul, A partial and non-evaluative history of the Asch effect, University of Exeter
  43. 1 2 Milgram, S (1965). "Some conditions of obedience and disobedience to authority". Human Relations. 18 (1): 57–76. doi:10.1177/001872676501800105. S2CID   37505499.
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