The parenthetical [=that we have no reason for accepting...] implies three possibilities for a reference point in terms of which to approach and/or define authority.

1) In science, where nature is in principle the authority--leaving human judgment the authority implied only of interpreting what nature says in the experimental results--and presupposing the universality of authority insofar as nature is tantamount to universal; 2) In epistemology, the self as authority recorded by language, where if original, is a Kantian a priori, and if secondary, can approach Peirce's Thirdness concept where he permits the authority of experts to count as a last resort in referencing the concept; and 3) that same collective expertise just referred to and its even more extensive sister, the authority implied of any collective whose grant of authority enables a person to exercise what comes to be considered a 'privilege'.

Without offering arguments, let me simply specify where I come from in my own treatment of these matters. I treat authority as a modality of power legitmated by some duly constituted external political entity. Define these other terms how you will, the upshot for the present discussion is that authority, relative to the social actor, is external, leaving the source as a political entity or the projected or anthropomorphized entity of religion. Dismissing the latter for the sake of argument, authority becomes a grant of power legitimated by the raison d'eter of the granting agency, meaning that political or legal considerations are allowed to sanction such grants. The result is a constructive de facto OFFICE. The authority of the holder is held in trust; the holder's power is by definition a PREROGATIVE, meaning that in the context of the office the law has tended to treat such as a PRIVILEGE. From here you can derive at least some attempt at answer to the matters raised by DH.

very interesting posts, i would have to thank both david and Charles for their elucidations and ideas!

i will for the moment stick to Charles second and third points, since it is there where i can begin to detect some signs of my alleged communitarianism. i have noticed that Peirce is referenced (i can dig out the reference if one wishes) as writing that "reality depends on the ultimate decision of the community" (it's in "Some consequences of the Four Incapacities", apparently). which, coupled with a scepticism about our possibility to know nature, leaves the community as the sole decider of reality. and then the question of 1.1 of david's comes in. one tentative answer to that is that authority is a social kind, just like money and kingship. 'being an authority' depends on people treating one as an authority. and we're back to rules and institutions! what do you guys think?

HS: "'being an authority' depends on people treating one as an authority. and we're back to rules and institutions!"

I grant that authority is essentially social, but in this particular specifically: an office, which presupposes a grant of authority, is effectively a segue between holder and her public, on whom she relies to respect her prerogatives, but for whose benefit she acts, in accordance with the condistions of the grant of authority.

While authority is in that regard social, it is better conceived as political, for it is the collective sanction, and not merely its epistemic existence that counts, for as it has been regularly observed by legal theorists, authority means little absent enforceability. Thus the distinction here becomes the relation--social : customary enforcement :: political : lawful enforcement.

Of course, offices have existed prior to the institutions of law v. custom. I still will say that custom in its enforcement utilizes a "constructive" LEGAL deterrent, namely SHAME. When what is 'social' carries sanction, both positive and negative, it is a constructive 'legality'. Custom translates to law specifically as custom is written down and as institutions form to translate shame to more direct enforcement.

I fully acknowledge that this line of reasoning is objectionable to many, but it is the best I can offer absent redefining many of the concepts I work with on a regular basis. Not much of an excuse, that!!

CSH

Now days, the authority of science has risen to unbelievable heights. Consider the recent revelations about the University of East Anglia --- how supposed scientists deliberately fudged their conclusions to promote certain views --- how they destroyed their temperature records in an apparent effort to make it impossible for anyone to check on what they did --- how they seem to have conspired to blacklist editors they disapproved of --- how they conspired to destroy email messages they thought might be a problem...

And in spite of this the scientific community seeks to cover up the whole mess, while blaming the 'hackers' who revealed it all to the world.

The issue here is not whether office-holders should carry prerogative, but how they are to demonstrate accountability and transparency. That is less an issue of authority per se than ethics--in particular, the stewardship of offices.

Law has been duplicitous here, allowing us the fiction that it treats offices as legal interests in that certain privileges are legally enforced, and yet when it comes to accountability, stewardship is nowhere to be seen in legal arguments. One has to demonstrate a civil or criminal offense on those terms, which means that equity has no effect and we learn of damage only after it has done its dubious deeds and often after compensation is beside the point. How do you compensate loss of trust/ Or loss of life?

We have to have offices, and we have to permit prerogative to office holders. There is no rational argument to say that because problems arise that the underlying precepts of authority are wrong. They are not wrong. The legal system's mechanism of ethical enforcement is at issue, not the concept of authority per se.

Therefore, while I fully agree with your complaint, Bill, it needn't deter from the relevant precepts under-girdding authority qua authority. When things go wrong we ask whether proximal v. distal relations are at issue, whether moral or legal, procedural or substantive, and so forth. Certainly, to uphold authority, especially in the context of office, ethics and solid equity (with teeth) are requisites. Currently they are not, but that hardly precludes philosophical discussion of normative authority in a system that nonetheless abuses it. I think we are outlining reasonable precepts of authority, and to place these in actual life situations we must acknowledge the ethical addenda presupposed by the obligations attending any grant of authority.

CSH

there's another example with the EPA deciding that greenhouse gases are bad for health, but that's probably business as usual, lysenkoism was around 60 years ago.

dear charles, it is true that at least for myself that line of reasoning seems not so much objectionable as needless, as it presupposes normativity and more specifically rule-following, which i wanted to bring out in the first place as a more general problem. but i suppose different way of thinking are of course welcome!

CH: "The issue here is not whether office-holders should carry prerogative, but how they are to demonstrate accountability and transparency."

Lord Obama promised us accountability and transparency but has given us neither. And the media --- our supposed watchdogs --- give him a pass.

CH: "Certainly, to uphold authority, especially in the context of office, ethics and solid equity (with teeth) are requisites. Currently they are not, but that hardly precludes philosophical discussion of normative authority in a system that nonetheless abuses it."

I agree with you. But I fear the 'boob tube' will never address anything but appearances. They will ignore the Global Warming Email scandal as long as they can. Meanwhile the Copenhagen 'summit' denies press passes to anyone who might not agree with their Global Warming agenda.

dear bill, what you are saying in the last paragraph is very interesting to me, can you send me a site where i can see that backed up?

though we are straying from our original path!

Hans--your comments are interesting, if difficult for me to handle as I am not current with the history of the thread. But it seems even an out-of-context approach has value here. "Normativity" and "rule-following" are both couched as negatives, it seems. The first seems to wish to obviate the first principle of ethics (identify a standard, however be it theoretical, then argue whether realistic goals can follow therefrom), where the second violates either common sense or the principles of political science (society requires customs and/or law, whence rule-following).

Perhaps you intend different implications. perhaps by "normativity" you mean to disparage the notion of a priori morals or standards arbitrarily imposed; and by rule-following you mean to disparage rules that, having only the interest of following them, as if decency or common sense were not to be considered. In these alternatives of course you will have the sympathy of nearly everyone, but I wonder where the background philosophical reasoning makes such so obvious? Or perhaps NOT obvious? I hope you can elucidate this without having to address all that has come before--don't mean to be impolite or out of the way, I just am not sure what to make of your comment. If you decide it were better I reread the thread I will do so.

dear charles, here's what i mean by normativity:

http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/L135?ssid=363999475&n=1#

and here's a reference for what i'm thinking about when i talk about rule-following:

http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/DD072SECT11?ssid=289694911&n=3#

my idea was that 'authority' be treated as a social kind, hence it would be treated as an institution, the institution of authority. this is different to the definition you give of authority.

HS: "dear bill, what you are saying in the last paragraph is very interesting to me, can you send me a site where i can see that backed up?"

No, I was listening to a radio show. The guest on the show was denied press credentials, as I was saying.

HS: "though we are straying from our original path!"

Not really, ethics is central to any discussion of authority.

mm didn't see us having much of a theoretical discussion on ethics, more a current affairs discussion. i'd like to see something more than radio testimony of somebody being denied press credentials because they don't subscribe to global warming. how did they figure out that he was anti-global warming?

HS: "mm didn't see us having much of a theoretical discussion on ethics, more a current affairs discussion."

Strange... I thought you had written about norms and rules.

HS: "i'd like to see something more than radio testimony of somebody being denied press credentials because they don't subscribe to global warming. how did they figure out that he was anti-global warming?"

Sorry, it has been two or three days since I heard that and I don't recall all the details.

no worries, if you come across something similar could you send me some sort of link? it'd be fascinating if this were the case, and very useful for my studies.

it doesn't seem we were discussing rules and normativity though, that's all.

Thanks for the links, Haris, be back with you after reading them.

A quick point: I think we should take care when considering very different concepts of 'IN Authority' (a social construct) and 'AN Authority' (an intellectual/experiential one). The two abstracts are rarely present in any one person and situation.

Natasha--in usual parlance the one implies the other and designates a modality. One exists 'in' authority by a grant or an aptitude or both, the same which constitutes an office of said authority. But having made the grant we ask why it was made, and immediately we are at the other modality--because that person possessed the expertize and aptitude for the tasks--i.e., possessed the requisite authority, i.e., that person is 'an' authority.

At other times we start by recognizing a person as one with expertise and aptitude in a line of study or work and, in qualifying such as 'an' authority, we will, within that ambit of interest, denominate him/her to be 'in' authority. The distinction of modality is that the ability makes one 'an' authority, and being 'in' authority qualifies one--on the basis of that authority--to command the respect of others interested in making use of that quality/authority. Which then of course implies the office concept.

Q: 1.1 What is an 'authority', and how is it constituted? How does it operate, and by what criteria does it justify its role in the process of "forming beliefs"?

First-off, the larger question may have a trace of Individualistic pessimism or rather a rebellious notion against authoritarianism. Having said that, my second concern is at the implication that “an authority” is something ‘more’ than what it actually IS: which is a [version] of Truth as yet not replaced by a better [version] of Truth. It is nothing more and nothing less and certainly NOT a ‘force’ with its own dynamic elements although it may be wielded as such.

I would like to think that we could ask about WHO is AN authority/IN authority on this-and-that than make a [possibly ignorant] assumption that Authority epitomises objective TRUTH.

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Q: 1.2 What is the status of beliefs formed by appeal to or application of authority? Do such beliefs concern "things in the world", or do they rather concern the authority itself? (and is this the distinction between "believe that" and "believe in"?)

Of course the role of 'context' in appealing to, and application of authority, plays a role. In my view, appealing to authority would imply a *meaningful* exchange. Applying authority involves more my exchange with *truth*. Either way, the experience, for it to 'be authoritative' would need to be 'authentic' - having truth or meaning to my situation.

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Q: 2.1 Can any epistemic system claim a "privileged" status?

Iff it is respected as a *truth that has meaning* - and for a majority group of people.

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Q: 2.2 Can any epistemic system claim to be "universal"?

No. It can be a knowledge source, but surely not an authority. For it to be universal, it would be beyond doubt. But my surfboard DID wait an extra hour for the tide today...

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DH: For my money, any answer we might give will probably relate the notion of 'authority' to that of 'universality'.

For mine, I would relate the notion of authority [presupposing a humanist attachment] MORE to a subjective truth and less to an objective one on universality.

Dearest Charles

Thanks! You're right of course. That would of course make sense as the Ideal Situation. Yet, it's the reality in many sectors here, that we still have an overwhelming amount of Squares-in-Circles as 'qualified' people in authority goes - in politics as well as business - which gave rise to my comment. There's a real perception that one does not have to be qualified to be in a position of authority. This says a lot for people's sense of the two concepts of aptitude of command, and a command of aptitude ;)

I'll take your word for that. Properly, of course, "command of aptitude" leads frequently to self-styled prerogative which is rarely true authority, if you go with the notion (not all scholars do) that authority is inherently legitimate owing to being a grant, implicit or explicit, from a community of some sort or another, or otherwise an evident acknowledgment (by oath, e.g.) from an individual that they knowingly adopt a position implying authority, as when in an emergency a take-charge type assumes command with normative intents. Maybe it is these more sticky situations that make it easy to do injustice to the true idea. And then there are the metaphorical references to authority that often allow nature to be the constructive grantor, as in the adage, "a woman's prerogative". Even that is an "authorized" affair since men tacitly grant permission, thus in effect granting the authority of the notion itself. Finally, there are works by folks like Sennet (Sociology) who muddy the waters with hackneyed notions that are called authority -- one is forgiven for entertaining the idea that some invent themselves as a scholar by claiming a unique position--by all but destroying a good word!! How many ways are there to upset reason!

Hear, Hear!!!

I could not resist: “It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law” - Thomas Hobbes

And I cannot resist adding a corollary!!

A law that remains unenforced or unenforceable is no longer a law. I mentioned this to an American attorney in connection with the immigration fiasco along our southern border (our local or federal attempts at enforcement have until quite recently been embarrassingly lax at best). he denied the adage as possessing merit. Just goes to show how little of legal theory is taught in American law schools!!!

Of course, however much one correctly disagrees with Hobbsean premises, the one you cite cannot possibly entertain exception. He is dead on with that lapidary.

I thought we'd get bogged down in ethics... ;-(

I think the 'universalism' of science is supposed to have some kind of 'rational' force, and this "rational force" is evoked as the norm to which an authority conforms or is supposed to conform. Somewhat ironically, the criteria for recognition as an authority (in this sense) were given by Donald Jenner in the "Philosophy, Mathematics etc." group: "a Ph. D. and a long list of publications, at least". One could add research results for non-theoretical scientists...

These criteria serve to justify both science as a rational activity and the academic hierarchy which science requires insofar as it is a *social* activity. An interesting parallel could perhaps be given by investigating the relation between the doctrine of Papal Infallibility and its social motivations and theological justifications. Why did the authority of the Pope need reinforcement at that time, and how was the doctrine justified with respect to the predominant theological views of the time.

The relation between universalism and "rational force" is ideally manifest in those theories which explain the largest range of phenomena in the simplest terms (Boyle's laws, Newton's laws, e=mc²...). As a rough methodological rule-of-thumb, this is all well and good; though I don't think we'd find many "working scientists" who'd be too worried about such matters one way or the other. As with most human activities, I'd imagine one tends to reach some kind of compromise with "the system", and that there are those who find this easier and others who find it more difficult...

The interpersonal power structures in science follow the same dynamics as do such power structures in other areas of human activity - we're human "before" we're scientists, businessmen, or what-have-you. Evidently, the kinds of relation would be impacted by the nature of scientific disciplines and by the *kind* of psychological constitution that is attracted to a career in science. As a would-be philosopher of science, I'm more interested by the former question: what is "the nature of scientific disciplines" and how is such a "nature" invoked to justify status as an "authority"?

While Natasha's remarks on the justification for claiming epistemic (or for that matter metaphysical) universality over the entire range of human activity is perhaps justified, scientific disciplines do postulate conditions that are supposed to hold *universally* within the domain of investigation of the scientific discipline in question. Unless I'm mistaken, the argument against scientific disciplines (and particularly physics) having 'absolute universality' would depend on the kind of thing Bill was talking about when he deplored the reliance on naïve set theory (am I right, Bill?).

I am of course biased in addressing this question. But I did, after all, develop the metaphysics structuralizing the relevant concepts for authority, prerogative, obligation, will, power, office and stewardship, thus I will gamble that in suggesting my own work I am at least not guilty of maliciously misleading you. I post to SSRN. The series that most reflects your interest will be the Secundum 'De Officiis' three part series, though any of the pieces concerning stewardship will also be relevant. URL is ssrn.com/author=510356. I see I can attach something here also, let me try...it allows only one, so pls use the URL