Jean Goodwin

This paper provides a typology of appeals to authority, identifying three distinct types: that which is based on a command; that which is based on expertise; and that which is based on dignity. Each type is distinguished with respect to the reaction that a failure to follow it ordinarily evokes. The rhetorical roots of Locke's ad verecundiam are traced to the rhetorical practices of ancient Rome.

This paper provides a typology of appeals to authority, identifying three distinct types: that which is based on a command; that which is based on expertise; and that which is based on dignity. Each type is distinguished with respect to the reaction that a failure to follow it ordinarily evokes. The rhetorical roots of Locke's ad verecundiam are traced to the rhetorical practices of ancient Rome.

On a stray planet in an out-of-the-way corner of the universe live odd beings with patterns of behavior odder still. It can be frequently observed that one of them stands before another, moving its limbs or producing some sounds, and the other responds—apparently quite as the first expected. But why? Why should these feeble motions have such force? This puzzle or wonder is presented to us conspicuously in the phenomenon we know as authority. Authority is exercised most starkly in transactions similar to the following:

Work in Argumentation Studies (AS) and Studies in Expertise and Experience (SEE) has been proceeding on converging trajectories, moving from resistance to expert authority to a cautious acceptance of its legitimacy. The two projects are therefore also converging on the need to account for how, in the course of complex and confused civic deliberations, nonexpert citizens can figure out which statements from purported experts deserve their trust. Both projects recognize that nonexperts cannot assess expertise directly; instead, the nonexpert must judge whether to trust the expert. But how is this social judgment accomplished? A normative pragmatic approach from AS can complement and extend the work from SEE on this question, showing that the expert’s putting forward of his view and ‘‘bonding’’ it with his reputation for expertise works to force or ‘‘blackmail’’ his audience of citizens into heeding what he says. Appeals to authority thus produce the visibility and accountability we want for expert views in civic deliberations.

The “critical questions” for testing appeals to authority proposed by Walton and many textbooks are all right. But why? That seems a good question for argumentation theorists to ask. I propose a general account of the appeal to epistemic authority drawn from principal-agent theory, from which the critical questions can be derived.

ABSTRACT: Philosophers of argumentation and of testimony suggest that we can rely on what someone says because of its epistemic merits. If so, then we should never credit Wikipedia, since we cannot assess what its anonymous contributors know. I propose instead that Wikipedia can have pragmatic merits, in that the contributors' passion for the project, and the emerging communicative design through which that passion is made manifest, provide a reason for trust.

Philosophers of argumentation and of testimony suggest that we can rely on what someone says because of its epistemic merits. If so, then we should never credit Wikipedia, since we cannot assess what its anonymous contributors know. I propose instead that Wikipedia can have pragmatic merits, in that the contributors’ passion for the project, and the emerging communicative design through which that passion is made manifest, provide a reason for trust.