Expert in Another Field

Keith Burgess-Jackson writes that Noam Chomsky has strong opinions on foreign policy and morality, but so what?

Chomsky’s expertise as a linguist (or as an amateur but competent philosopher of language) has no bearing on anything moral or political, including matters of foreign policy. These two aspects of his life are, quite simply, unrelated. That he has strong opinions about American foreign policy in general or the war in Iraq in particular is no more significant than that others, such as classicist Victor Davis Hanson, have equally strong but opposite opinions. So why does anyone care what Chomsky thinks? I suspect it’s because people commit a fallacy. Expertise (or the authority that rests on it) is not transferable from realm to realm. It’s realm-specific.

I suppose Chomsky’s opinion has the same weight as that of a celebrity. I wonder of Kevin Bacon thinks about it.

0 thoughts on “Expert in Another Field”

  1. I’d argue that Hanson has greater credibility on the war than Chomsky, because Hanson’s expertise involves military history. But the point is well taken.

  2. I think we have to defer to chomsky here… due to the fact one needs an in depth knowledge of linguistics to understand what people in the military are saying 🙂

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