Authority

Authority is a way of orienting people's behavior without persuasion or coercion. Instead, authority relies on the trust or recognition of others to obtain reliable obedience. While persuasive and coercive measures may be at the disposal of the authority figure, the need to resort to those measures indicates a lack of trust in the authority figure. An authority figure is someone whose status, expertise, or office should ensure obedience without having to explain or coerce.

While the Greek language and history lacked both the concept and practice of authority, nonetheless, it is with the Greeks that the concept first emerges. In The Republic, Plato sought to create a type of rule distinct from tyranny (which relied on coercion) and popular rule (which relied on persuasion). Popular rule's reliance on persuasion often slowed down the process of government. In addition, most of the populace could not distinguish philosophical truth from rhetoric, and people were thus easily and frequently duped into making poor decisions. On the other hand, the tyrant dominated the entire polis. He ruled arbitrarily and by violence, often more concerned with his own affairs than the public interest. This type of rule prevented men from taking part in the political affairs of their day, which was a key element of the Greek concept of freedom.

Thus, for Plato, authority was a type of rule in which men obeyed while retaining their freedom. Plato looked to the prepolitical sphere for inspiration and drew largely from the models of the expert and craftsman. These figures commanded confidence and obedience as a result of their expertise. Two insights relevant to authority were to be gained from these models: first, that expertise compelled people. The qualifications of experts often precluded both coercion and persuasion from those under their command. Second, such expertise created and justified a pronounced inequality between the expert and the layperson. An important characteristic is that the inequality existed prior to the issuance of commands and was internal to the relationship itself. Thus, it was by virtue of the expertise, and not the particular individual, that the expert deserved recognition and obedience.

Plato used the model of the expert to justify political rule by the philosopher-king. The philosopher-king derives his privileged status from his ability to contemplate the forms. Note here that it is the ideas that have authority—the philosopher is singled out because the rest of the population is unable to contemplate the ideas. For Plato, philosophic truth—transcendent, absolute, and separate from the everyday realities of human action—is the source of political authority. Able to contemplate the forms, the philosopher-king is then responsible for transforming these truths into laws.

While the concept of authority had its beginnings with Plato, ancient Rome was where the word and practice of authority emerged. The Latin word auctoritas derives from the verb augere, or to augment. For the Romans, the founding of Rome was considered sacred: Future generations were bound by it, and the end of Roman politics was to preserve it. Thus, the original founding was the source of authority. In their politics, the Romans sought constantly to augment their foundation, and those who were closest in time to the foundation, that is, the Senate elders, were vested with authority. For the Romans, auctoritas was in contrast to potestas. Potestas, or power, was vested in the people—who reached and executed decisions. Auctoritas was vested in the Senate, whose precepts were somewhere between advice and command. Significantly, those in authority in Rome did not possess power.

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