Authority, Responsibility and Education

R. S. Peters

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138887398
• eBook ISBN: 9781317498704
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

First published in 1959, Authority, Responsibility and Education focuses on the philosophy of education and is concerned with the question of moral education. It was originally based on talks delivered mainly on the Home Service and Third Programme of the BBC between April 1956 and January 1959 but, due to its wide appeal and popularity, it was revised to include work from a further 10 years of the author's teaching and experience in the subject.

The book is written in three parts on authority, responsibility, and education, and uses several theories, including those by Marx and Freud, to achieve his aims. Although originally published some time ago, the book considers many questions that are still relevant to us today.

PART I THE CHANGING FACE OF AUTHORITY

DOI: 10.4324/9781315713670-1

1 The Nature of Authority

DOI: 10.4324/9781315713670-2

‘AUTHORITY’ is a word that has an aura about it, a mystique. And there are some who like to keep it that way. We were told that authority had been re-established in France and we pictured a mysterious something emanating from de Gaulle, drawing millions of Frenchmen towards him in a unified pattern like iron filings towards a magnet. And the French philosopher, de Jouvenel, encouraged this picture when he wrote: ‘In any voluntary association that comes to my notice I see the work of a force: that force is authority…. Everywhere and at all levels social life offers us the daily spectacle of authority fulfilling its primary function-of man leading man on, of the ascendancy of a settled will which summons and Orients uncertain wills.’ Are we then to suppose that authority is a mysterious something, a force, which people like de Gaulle, and Adenauer, had in their voice and countenance?

It may well be that authority has something to do with the voice and countenance, but it surely is a mistake to conceive of it as a kind of force. For that is to make the conformity of men look like the movements of iron filings towards a magnet. But there is conformity and conformity; and ‘authority’, I would suggest, is a word that is reserved for a type of conformity that is confined to men. Hens have a pecking order; but it would be very odd to say that one hen exercised authority over other hens. To speak of authority as a force obscures what is distinctive about human conformity which makes it very unlike anything which goes on in the physical or animal world.

What, then, is so distinctive about the conformity of men? Hobbes long ago was impressed by the fact that a civil society is not a natural System like a sponge, a rook, or a beehive; yet it is not a mere multitude of men. What turns a mere multitude into a social System? The basic point surely is that men are rule-following animals. They form social Systems because they conform to Standards of behaviour which are passed on from generation to generation, largely by means of Speech, which has a most important regulatory function in the life of men. Language makes possible a quite distinctive form of life. The artifice of speech introduces Systems of conformity which have no application in the forest or farmyard. For what human beings do can be described as ‘right’ or ‘correct’; and things are done just because they are known to be right or correct. And this introduces the idea of ‘authority’; for as such Standards are man-made, alterable, and, to a certain extent, arbitrary, procedures are often needed for deciding what Standards are right and correct, who is to originate them, who is to decide about their application to particular cases, and who is entitled to introduce changes. These procedures give certain people, like majors and magistrates, a right to give Orders, to make decisions and pronouncements. Where we find such arrangements for originators or umpires in the realm of rules we find authority.

Philology Supports this tentative analysis; for the word ‘authority’ is obviously derived from ‘auctor’ and ‘auctoritas’, which referred to a producing, inventing, or cause in the sphere of opinion, counsel or command. Authority is at hand where a rule is right or a decision must be obeyed or a pronouncement accepted simply because X ‘conforming to some specification’ says so. Equal emphasis must be placed on the ‘X’ and on the ‘says’. For the reference to X – the ‘auctor’ – is as necessary as the reference to the speech or symbolic gesture by means of which he lays down what is correct or decides what is to be done. Obvious examples are the giving of Orders by an army Commander, the decision of an umpire at cricket or of a judge in a court of law, and an ex cathedra pronouncement by a pope on matters of religion or morals. The sort of conformity brought about by such procedures is quite unlike that of iron filings in a field of force or that of hens in a pecking order. For hens and pieces of iron do not follow rules, knowing what they are doing, and they do not speak – let alone have a right to speak.

This analysis, it might be objected, sounds pretty banal. Where is the mystique of authority so evident in the case of de Gaulle? Well, as a matter of fact, in most cases there is no mystery about authority. The thing begins to look banal because, perhaps, we are becoming clearer what is implicit in our use of the word ‘authority’. The more mundane it seems the better the philosophical job that is being done. But, the job is only just started; for ‘authority’ is a Protean concept; and there are many of its forms to uncover before we have a proper grip on it.

We usually speak of ‘the authoritics’ or of people being ‘in authority’ when their right to command and to make decisions and pronouncements derives from established rules of procedure. But de Gaulle did not fit into this pattern. For de Gaulle was not in authority before he became President. How then can the obvious fact that people recognized his authority be accounted for? The sociologist Max Weber must be called in to help at this point. For he stressed that there are different types of rules which give people rights to command. There are different authority Systems with different grounds of legitimacy.

There is, first of all, what he called a legal-rational set-up where the claim to legitimacy rests on a ‘belief in the “legality” of patterns of normative rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands’. There is, secondly, traditional authority ‘resting on an established belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of the Status of those exercising authority under them’. A chairman of a Civil Service committee would be an example of legal-rational authority; a medieval baron of traditional authority.

But these types of authority must be carefully distinguished from a third type where the right of the ‘auctor’ derives from personal history, personal credentials, and personal achievements, an extreme form of which Weber spotlighted when he dealt with what he called ‘charismatic’ authority – ‘resting on devotion to the specific and exceptional sanctity, heroism, or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him’. Weber, of course, was thinking primarily of outstanding religious and military leaders like Jesus or Napoleon.

He therefore pitched his account rather high and personal authority was decked with the trappings of vocation, miracles, and revelation. Nevertheless there is something distinctive about the charismatic leader which he shares in an exaggerated form with other ‘natural’ leaders who exercise authority in virtue of personal claims and personal characteristics. For the reference to personal characteristics is a way of establishing that a man has a right to make pronouncements and issue commands because he is a special sort of person. And, although in some societies a man who sees visions and goes into trance states is in danger of electric shock treatment, in other societies pointing to such peculiarities of personal biography are ways of establishing a man as an authority in certain spheres.

As a matter of fact we usually speak of a man being an authority in the sphere of pronouncements rather than in that of commands and decisions where reference to ‘the authorities’ or to ‘those in authority’ is more natural. Thus we speak of a man being an authority on art, music, or nuclear physics. Such a man has not been put in authority; he does not hold authority according to any System of rules. But because of his training, competence, and success in this sphere, he comes to be regarded as an authority, as having a right to make pronouncements. And his right derives from his personal achievements and history in a specific sphere. These humdrum cases where we speak of a man being an authority are similar, in this respect, to Weber’s charismatic authority, where the legitimacy also is regarded as being grounded in personal characteristics.

Now the phenomenon of de Gaulle is a clear case of this third type of authority. Here we had a man with an impressive record of personal achievement combined with a sense of personal vocation, linked with rather mystical notions about the destiny of France, which have a peculiar appeal to Frenchmen. Furthermore the centralization of Communications – especially radio and television – made it possible for him to be a familiar figure in the home of every French family. The scene was set for a charismatic coup. But such coups seldom come off unless the other types of authority have been discredited. The legal-rational set-up in France, for instance, was such that it made strong government difficult and those who were in authority exploited the anomalies of the old Constitution.

But, it might be said, even the introduction of this third type of authority has not got to the root of the mystery surrounding it. For we must distinguish the de jure sense of authority from the de facto sense, it being obvious enough that some people who are in authority do not in fact exercise authority, like a schoolmaster with a class which is out of hand; whereas other people, in some sort of Admirable Crichton Situation, in fact exercise authority even though they are not in authority. And how is it that some people, like de Gaulle, make a charismatic break-through, whereas others, who are regarded in a vague sense of having some sort of right to be obeyed or believed, remain in obscurity? Have I not just given a formal analysis showing what we mean by ‘authority’ and distinguishing the different types of authority? What is it about men which makes de Jouvenel’s talk of a force seem so attractive?

Social psychologists resist strongly the Suggestion that there might be any one thing, a mysterious force or something like that, that makes a man a leader. It depends largely, they say, on the nature of the group and the job it is formed to do. Nevertheless there do seem to be a few very obvious observations which may help to dispel some of the mystery. There is, for instance, the well-known saying that the office makes the man. People adopt the persona which is expected of them – as a chairman for instance — and it has a snowball effect. The same is true in cases where people come to be thought of as authorities on various matters. Often the outcome is disastrous – portentous pronouncements which are unquestionably accepted but which turn out to be wrong. The carry-over to other spheres is a well-known phenomenon – scientists pontificating about politics and so on. Socrates spent much of his life attacking such self-generated oracles.

Another obvious point to be made about this snowball effect is that success is crucial – especially in the case of the charismatic leader, who is often rather like a man who has a knack of Spotting a Derby winner without a System. What he says must be right just because it is he who has said it. He has some personal incommunicable flair, and the more often he is right the more readily will he be believed or followed. Indeed in some societies there are institutional devices for covering up failure so that the authority can’t be wrong.

Success, too, strengthens another necessary condition for the effective exercise of authority – the expectation of being believed, followed, or obeyed. People will tend to accept decisions and obey orders in proportion as the man who makes them expects that they will. Any successful schoolmaster knows this. We have phrases like ‘an air of authority’ and Jesus, it was alleged, produced consternation because as a boy he spoke ‘with authority’ in the temple. In the voice and countenance appear the outward signs of the inner certitude which is usually necessary for the exercise of authority. For it is not sufficient for a man to be in fact wise or a felicitous prophet if he is to exercise authority. He must be known to be so. A man cannot exercise authority if he hides his light under a bushel. And his persona must correspond roughly to the image of authority shared by the group. A man who tries to exercise authority in the manner of a Sergeant major will get short shrift in a progressive school. And a man who is reasonable and who goes out of his way to consult others and involve them in his decisions may be thought weak or ‘not having a mind of his own’ in some of the more authoritarian public schools.

Psychological probing such as this might help to dispel further the aura of authority. But it would do little to explain why it is that the modern world seems so prone to produce charismatic figures – a strange phenomenon in view of the pread of enlightenment. As a matter of fact this very spread of enlightenment may have had, to a certain extent, this rather paradoxical result. For such enlightenment has been evident in two main spheres – science and moral argument. And both science and moral argument have been used in social regulation to an increasing extent in the past hundred years to Supplement authority, or to take its place.

For authority, of course, is only one way of bringing about conformity. There is also power. To use power is to get others to do what you want by force, by threats, by economic pressure, by propaganda, Suggestion, and other such non-rational means. Animals exert power; so do brigands and hypnotists. They produce conformity without being able to give orders or without having to do so. There is a very close connection between power and authority; but I think that they are concepts which belong to different families. Indeed, as de Jouvenel points out, it is only when a System of authority breaks down or when an individual loses his authority that there must be recourse to power if conformity is to be ensured. The concept of ‘authority’ is necessary to pinpoint ways in which behaviour is regulated without recourse to power – to force, propaganda, and threats. And this is intimately bound up with the use of the voice in Orders, decisions and pronouncements. It may well be, of course, that the ability to exercise power may be a necessary condition for the exercise of some forms of authority. Behind the voice there is often the cane; behind parliament the army and police, which are legitimatized forms of power, with their own internal authority Systems. It may also be the case that power is a convincing ground of entitlement as in the old saying ‘no legitimacy without power’. But a necessary condition for the exercise of authority or a ground of entitlement to it should not be confused with what ‘authority’ means.

Now modern science has put into our hands instruments for the exercise of power which were scarcely dreamed of by our ancestors. I need only mention gas-chambers, mass advertising, techniques of propaganda, and nuclear weapons to convey the drift of what I mean. These can be used to reinforce authority of a centralized sort, or they can be used to disrupt it. And they certainly have a tendency to dwarf the importance of old Systems of authority which were exercised in a more face-to-face manner. If they favour any sort of authority, it is usually that of the charismatic sort. Politicians are groomed to get the right sort of oracular aura on television.

Along with the enlightenment of science has come also the enlightenment of morality, which has had a widespread disrupting influence on older Systems of authority. For there is a long tradition which stresses the incompatibility between authority and both science and morality. For just as in science the importance of the ‘auctor’ or originator is at a minimum, it never being justifiable in scientific institutions to set up individuals or bodies who will either be the originators of pronouncements or the arbiters of the truth of pronouncements made; so also it could be held that a rule cannot be a moral rule if it is to be accepted just because someone has laid it down or made a decision between competing alternatives. Reasons must be given, as in science, not originators or umpires produced. Of course, in both enterprises provisional authorities can be consulted. But there are usually good reasons for their choice and their pronouncements are never to be regarded as final just because they have made them. In science and morality there are no appointed law-givers, judges, or policemen.

There is, therefore, a basic procedural hostility between science and morality on the one hand, and authority. This is especially evident in religious matters – another of the established bastions of authority. For in the end, most religions rests on some sort of authoritative criterion, like the Bible, an ex cathedra utterance of a pope, or the revelation vouchsafed to an individual believer. Moral beliefs, on the other hand, like scientific ones, must have reasons given for them.

The spread of enlightenment, therefore, in the form of science and morality, has had two main effects in relation to authority. On the one hand it has tended to disrupt and transform it by insisting on reasons for policy rather than authoritative edicts, and by claiming that authority is only to be tolerated if it has some rational justification. This is what Weber was talking about in his account of legal-rational authority. In his view the rise of bureaucracy is the most momentous social development in the Western world.

On the other hand by encouraging the trust in reason it has put on men the joy – or burden – of making decisions for themselves on many matters which were previously left to tradition or to authoritative pronouncements. The psychologists tell us of the difficulty which we have in outgrowing our need for the authoritative figure of the father. The family being on the decline as a social institution, and the traditional father figures – the priest, the lord, and the headman of the village – having been more or less sent packing, it is fatally easy for men to turn to a Substitute like de Gaulle in a time of trouble and indecision. This is a favourite theme of those sociologists like Fromm who have written about the fear of freedom.

I am not, of course, suggesting that this loosening up of the old authorities is a bad thing. I am just making comparisons to bring out what is distinctive about authority as contrasted with other forms of social regulation. I am also suggesting that when science and morality develop and help to oust traditional forms of authority they do not simply replace it by more tolerable forms of legal-rational authority. They also sometimes create a vacuum into which charismatic authority may be thrust. In a social System, as I have tried to show, there must be authority; the only question is what sort of authority there should be and what should be its bounds.

2 Living Without Authority

DOI: 10.4324/9781315713670-3

ONE of the most impressive changes that has come over our society in the past three hundred years has been a gradual one. It could be dramatically described as the rise of the fatherless society.

Up to the seventeenth century men were dominated by the figure of the father in all departments of life. In the family the father was a real patriarch and the sort of authority which he exerted over his children was mirrored in the authority of kings, bishops, lords, squires, and the Pope. Gradually, however this patriarchal kind of authority has been passing away. Even in the face to face communities of the village and the small country town the squire and the vicar no longer meet with that total deference which was once their due. A more brotherly sort of society has grown up in which men take increasing responsibility for their own lives. Men rise in society more because of their ability than because of their birth, and women are not universally regarded as inferior simply because they are women.

This gradual change in people’s attitudes is far more important than that brought about by any sudden revolution. But we are not finding it too easy. When we grow up and begin to stand on our own feet we often long for the security of our childhood days when our parents made all the decisions. It is the same with society. When things prove difficult it is only too easy to return to the father in the form of a dictator, as many have done. Then there is also a tendency to find a new sort of man to take on this ancient patriarchal role. The old religious or political leaders no longer cut much ice with most of us as authorities; we treat the doctor, who looks after our bodies, or the psychiatrist who looks after our minds, with much more respect than the priest who looks after our souls. And we have become so disillusioned with politicians that we treat them with a certain degree of derision. This increased respect for the doctor is symptomatic; for in the minds of m...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Preface to Revised Edition
• Table of Contents
• Part I The Changing Face of Authority
• Part II Freud, Marx and Responsibility
• Part III Education and Moral Education
• Index