Appealing to Authority

Introduction

In this series so far we have been looking at ad hominem arguments. These are arguments against the person – you. In an argument, your opponent might appeal to authority. They may cite a scientific authority, a scholar or a text as ‘authoritative’ in deciding the matter under discussion or debate. This can be helpful but it can also be an ad hominem argument if the citation takes the form, ‘You are a nobody, and here is a somebody’. The ‘somebody’ is the ‘authority’ in the field and he/she/it is much more likely to be right about the matter in hand; so you are wrong.

Citing Authority

There are two elements to the ‘argument from authority’: there is the named element, which is the citing of the authority; and then there is the material from that authority which is quoted alongside the name in establishing a point contrary to your position. The same two elements are seen in appeals to scriptural authority – the citation of Scripture (e.g. Gen 1:1) and the material from Scripture designed to rebut a position (e.g. ‘God created…’).  In debate, it helps to know the academic landscape in order to assess the quality of the authority that your opponent has cited, but the knowledge should not be used to downplay or denigrate the authority because this is an ad hominem reaction.

In Biblical Studies, there are two kinds of ‘named authority’ – there is the authority of the individual scholar and there is the authority of the ‘consensus’ – a collection of scholars. There is also a pecking order in authority to note; some scholars have more authority than others. Authority is also conferred by the calibre of the academic institution to which you belong; so, in the UK, Oxbridge professors have greater authority; the old established chairs at Durham, Manchester, Edinburgh or St Andrews have greater weight. Another distinction in the pecking order is whether a professor has a ‘named’ chair or not. Scholars in minor seminaries have relatively little authority. Internationally, certain professors may obtain eminence through the hard work of publication and/or by setting the agenda in scholarship. This only has to happen once for a few years for the caché to last a lifetime. Again, there is a pecking order of authority in which publisher publishes your work. There are prestigious publication series and publishers who will confer more authority on your work; and there are minor publishing imprints which seek to publish PhDs purely for the small amounts of money that can be made.

In Apologetics, the authorities you encounter will be philosophers and scientists and maybe even theologians. Whereas there is also a strong notion of a scientific consensus, which may be cited, this is not the case in philosophy: there is fashion in philosophy and there are ‘isms, and even dominant ‘isms like Materialism, but seldom in philosophical reading will you encounter sentences that appeal to an authority or a consensus; what you get are the arguments of a philosopher or a dominant ‘ism.

Citing an authority might be shorthand for a lot of argument. Someone might say something like, ‘That’s not what NN says’. No material from NN is supplied and their name is deemed sufficient to rebut your argument. This is an effective debating technique, but without material (sentences that purport to establish a point), there is nothing to be done. If an opponent just cites authority, they have decided not to engage any of the material points that you have put forward. The best and only reply is to ask for the relevant material from the authority to be supplied, noting that an authority has been invoked. Often a person will invoke an authority because they themselves are not an authority and/or they don’t have confidence in their own presentation of their position. But without material from the authority, be this evidential reasoning or data analysis or a priori reasoning, there is nothing to counter from a logical point of view. Truth is not shown to be truth by the mere citation of authority; this can only be done by working on the arguments in the material belonging to the authority.

There are now three people in the room. The chances are that you are a nobody and your opponent in argument is also a nobody. Your argument was proceeding back and forth and then an authority is cited with or without material. There are now three people in the room and the authority is not there to defend themselves. Your opponent has stepped back and pushed to the front a champion to fight the battle. Or, perhaps the image is one of them calling alongside a fellow combatant in the conflict, or one of calling an expert witness to the stand. Either way, its two against one: a nobody and a somebody versus a nobody.

One way to avoid being this unfair in an argument yourself is not to cite authority but to use material uncited/unquoted so that the material is to the foreground. This is to use arguments found in authoritative sources but in your own words. That way it is still you and your opponent in the room. You are taking it upon yourself to present and defend a case. If you have qualms about using material by others without citation, you can preface your use by saying, ‘An argument I have come across is…’ That way you don’t invoke an authority or take credit for thinking up your point.

Another way to avoid being unfair is to allow third parties to be cited but not as ‘authorities’. Both combatants can pause and evaluate the new material. When two people are having an argument, and to avoid going round in circles, it is often valuable to have third party material introduced to analyse together. This in effect suspends their exchange and they co-operate in looking at the material. But to avoid the unfair ‘two against one’ fight, the third-party material should be either unnamed or agreed in advance, and in all cases the debating rhetoric of invoking authority should not be allowed. For example, you might agree in advance that such and such a lexicon will be a shared authority in the debate; or again, agreeing the Bible version to be used is another example of sharing authority; or you might allow the work of NN to be examined.

If someone cites an authority, you may be tempted to counter-assert with your own ‘big-name’ authority, even if this is a minority opinion. This temptation should be resisted. Multiplying authorities is a numbers game: who has the most authorities on their side?  The way to claim that the numbers are on your side is to say, ‘The scientific/scholarly consensus is…’, and whoever gets to say this first in a debate wins that game, but the game of citing authorities has nothing much to do with showing logic and truth. Your opponent has left the subject-matter of the dispute far behind and you should insist instead that the terms of engagement are about showing where the logic and truth of a matter lies and not in citing the current or recent consensus of thought about the matter under discussion. If your opponent wants to bring in the consensus of thinking on a matter in an authority-citing way, that is another game altogether and for another time. The new subject is the history of thought about the issue you were discussing. Once the appeal to a consensus has been made, the business of arguing is over – there is no argumentative (rhetorical) strength in your making the reply that the consensus is wrong.

The first person to cite authority in an argument (Scripture excepted) is tacitly admitting that they themselves are not enough. We might ask whether someone should be having an argument in the first place if they don’t know anything or don’t know enough (or think they don’t know anything or know enough). This will become obvious in a situation when something is said like, ‘I am not an expert in this but NN says…’ or ‘You say that, but NN, who is an expert, says this…’ or ‘The consensus opinion agrees with my position’. These kinds of utterance occur in argument somewhere in the middle when someone comes up against their limits. They are bolstering their view. One side is working with the subject-matter under discussion, using their own resources and acquired expertise, but the other has come up against their limits and have felt the need to bolster their case. It can be a question of not having enough confidence in your own abilities. Everyone has limits and most people have lots of them and so it’s best to stop the argument – pause it – and say that they need to do more work to master the issue before continuing. The point to insist on here is that you are arguing with the person in front of you and not the expert brought into the room.

You could ask your opponent if by introducing an authority they are admitting that they themselves cannot continue to work the issue in hand. The problem with doing this is that it breaks the flow in the dialogue and it becomes ad hominem. You switch from dealing with the matter in hand to dealing with the person with whom you are in discussion. Hence, it is better to have rules of engagement agreed in advance of a debate, and for them to exclude the citation of authority, if, that is, your goal is to cooperatively get to the bottom of a matter (rare on the Internet).

A debate, discussion or argument on the Internet can be a no-holds-barred affair, in which case the citation of authorities is going to be deployed on all sides. Within the ecclesia things should be different. The Bible is accepted as an authority but it is part of the data being discussed, and so citing it as authority is different to the use of human authorities. When two people are engaged in discussion and disagree in the ecclesia, the prevailing attitude should be co-operative, and your citation of authorities, rather than just using their information, brings more people to your side of the table and this is unchristian. (Although they are not authorities, having your mates chip in on your side of an Internet debate is equally unchristian if the brother/sister you are in discussion with is on their own.)

There is another aspect of citing authority to mention: some people defer to authority as a matter of policy and do it upfront. We all do this in many situations, for instance, to our doctor or car mechanic. But there are those who defer to authority in matters that impinge on the Bible. For example, they will defer to the archaeology professor (or consensus); they will defer to the most respected lexicon; they will defer to the scientific consensus; they will defer to professional philosophers; they will defer to ‘peer-reviewed’ literature. This deference is unquestioning and accepting. It’s no different to deferring to a professional clergy in centuries past. If you are having an argument with someone who naturally defers to authority, there is nothing to be done as you are in the business of examining a matter and they are just happy to accept what they receive from authority (which is a kind of hiding on their part).

In summary, in the ecclesia, a one-on-one argument should be agreed to be just that: each person brings to the table what they have learnt and argue their case back and forth. The material from authorities can be used but it should be presented as unalloyed reasoning without citation. As such it will be just part of the point of view that you have learnt and developed.

Conclusion

Everyone uses authorities in life, whether it is scholars, scientists, or car mechanics. Unless we are original thinkers, our knowledge is derivative, whether we cite authorities or not. This state of affairs means that our arguments with one another are often largely just conversations between parrots.