Argumentum ad verecundiam
Modern textbook treatments of informal fallacies offer “argumentum ad verecundiam” as an alternative name for “appeal to illegitimate authority” (for example, Copi et al., 2007, p.
51). However, ‘‘verecundiam” is not Latin for illegitimate authority; it is Latin for modesty, reverence, shame, or, perhaps, humility. Together with argumentum ad hominem and argumentum ad ignoran- tiam, argumentum ad verecundiam owes its name to John Locke. Locke does not explicitly characterize any of these arguments as fallacies, but he does say that they are “arguments, that men, in their reasonings with others, do ordinarily make use of, to prevail on their assent; or, at least, so to awe them, as to silence their opposition” (Locke, 1836, IVxvii.19). As Locke explains, the trick to ad verecundiam argumentation,is to allege the opinions of men, whose parts, learning, eminency, power, or some other cause has gained a name, and settled their reputation in the common esteem with some kind of authority.When men are established in any kind of dignity, it is thought a breach of modesty for others to derogate any way from it, and question the authority of men, who are in possession of it. This is apt to be censured as carrying with it too much of pride, when a man does not readily yield to the determination of approved authors, which is wont to be received with respect and submission by others: and it is looked upon as insolence for a man to set up and adhere to his own opinion against the current stream of antiquity, or to put it in the balance against that of some learned doctor, or otherwise approved writer.Whoever backs his tenets with such authorities, thinks he ought thereby to carry the cause, and is ready to style it “impudence” in any one who shall stand out against them.This I think may be called argumentum ad verecundiam.
(ibid.)
Locke diagnoses the weakness of such argumentation as taking “another man's opinion to be right, because I, out of respect, or any other consideration but that of conviction, will not contradict him” (ibid.).
In modern treatments of this argument, as the fallacy of appeal to illegitimate authority, it is implicitly contrasted with a non-fallacious pattern of argument: appeal to legitimate authority, or, more commonly, appeal to expert opinion. Hence modern treatments of the fallacy are often much concerned with the recognition of legitimate expertise. In this respect, the ad verecundiam, like several other well-established fallacies, has somewhat drifted from its original designation. Firstly, Locke, as a good empiricist, is prepared to throw doubt on any appeal to authority. Secondly, Locke goes further than recent accounts into the psychological mechanism whereby ad verecundiam arguments succeed. This is the point at which humility becomes relevant. Although Locke does not directly invoke humility in his brief discussion of the ad verecundiam, he is clearly in the near vicinity: indeed, he does employ cognate terms, such as modesty, and antonyms, such as pride.Ian James Kidd defends an account of intellectual humility as “a virtue for the management of intellectual confidence” (Kidd, 2016, p. 396).The intellectually humble would thereby manifest appropriate levels of intellectual confidence, avoiding both the over- and under-valuation of their intellectual circumstances (succumbing neither to the Dunning-Kruger Effect nor to Imposter Syndrome, as it were). On such an account, at least some instances of appeal to illegitimate authority may be seen as manifesting the associated vice of deficiency in deferring to someone else's arguments, since lacking confidence in your own. The corresponding vice of excess would represent overconfidence in the face of legitimate authority. This has received less attention in discussion of fallacies. However, the problems it can cause have been addressed by MicheIle Ciurria and Khameiel Altamimi, who observe that standard treatments of ad verecun- diam are silent “when an appeal to authority has been illegitimately dismissed due to the operation of epistemic injustice or epistemic irresponsibility on the part of a judge or community” (Ciurria and Altamimi, 2014, p. 451). As I have observed elsewhere, such cases may best be understood as a distinct fallacy, dual to the ad verecundiam (Aberdein, 2016a, p. 421). At least on Kidd's account of the virtue, instances of both the ad verecundiam and its dual could be attributed to their proponents' lack of intellectual humility.
28.2