How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 198

The authority in question must be identified.
A common variation of the typical Appeal to Authority fallacy is an Appeal to an Unnamed Authority.
This fallacy is also known as an Appeal to an Unidentified Authority.
This fallacy is committed when a person asserts that a claim is true because an expert or authority
makes the claim and the person does not actually identify the expert. Since the expert is not named or
identified, there is no way to tell if the person is actually an expert. Unless the person is identified and
has his expertise established, there is no reason to accept the claim.
This sort of reasoning is not unusual. Typically, the person making the argument will say things like "I
have a book that says...", or "they say...", or "the experts say...", or "scientists believe that...", or "I read
in the paper.." or "I saw on TV..." or some similar statement. in such cases the person is often hoping
that the listener(s) will simply accept the unidentified source as a legitimate authority and believe the
claim being made. If a person accepts the claim simply because they accept the unidentified source as
an expert (without good reason to do so), he has fallen prey to this fallacy.
As suggested above, not all Appeals to Authority are fallacious. This is fortunate since people have to
rely on experts. This is because no one person can be an expert on everything and people do not have
the time or ability to investigate every single claim themselves.
In many cases, Arguments from Authority will be good arguments. For example, when a person goes
to a skilled doctor and the doctor tells him that he has a cold, then the the patient has good reason to
accept the doctor's conclusion. As another example, if a person's computer is acting odd and his friend,
who is a computer expert, tells him it is probably his hard drive then he has good reason to believe her.
What distinguishes a fallacious Appeal to Authority from a good Appeal to Authority is that the
argument meets the six conditions discussed above.
In a good Appeal to Authority, there is reason to believe the claim because the expert says the claim is
true. This is because a person who is a legitimate expert is more likely to be right than wrong when
making considered claims within her area of expertise. In a sense, the claim is being accepted because
it is reasonable to believe that the expert has tested the claim and found it to be reliable. So, if the
expert has found it to be reliable, then it is reasonable to accept it as being true. Thus, the listener is
accepting a claim based on the testimony of the expert.
It should be noted that even a good Appeal to Authority is not an exceptionally strong argument. After
all, in such cases a claim is being accepted as true simply because a person is asserting that it is true.
The person may be an expert, but her expertise does not really bear on the truth of the claim. This is
because the expertise of a person does not actually determine whether the claim is true or false. Hence,
arguments that deal directly with evidence relating to the claim itself will tend to be stronger.

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