Appeal to Authority

Logical fallacy

Citing an authority where the authority is outside their field, is not representative of expert opinion, or where the question calls for evidence rather than endorsement. Citing relevant, genuine expertise is not a fallacy: this is about misuse.

An everyday example

“A Nobel laureate in physics endorses this investment scheme, so it must be sound.”

The same move in this debate

“My doctor eats meat, so eating meat must be healthy.”

Where this appears

Most food poisoning comes from produce, not meatHealth & Nutrition

Asked for data, the speaker pointed to what they had been taught in medical school and to their years of experience. A figure about the share of food poisoning cases is settled by surveillance data, not by where someone learned it, and the speaker had no figure to set against the CDC numbers raised.

Plato, Socrates and Aristotle ate meat, so the form of the good allows killing animals for foodPhilosophy & Logic

Treats the eating habits of famous philosophers as settling what the form of the good permits. It gives no argument from Platonic principles, and it relies on figures whose personal practice, such as accepting slavery, is not taken as morally authoritative elsewhere.

My religion says we can eat animalsTradition & Culture

Treats a text or religious authority as settling a question that is actively contested within the tradition itself, and on which that tradition contains material on both sides.