The Authority of Abstractions

In this article I use the concept of authority to characterize the causal effect of formal rules and processed information on decision-making. I argue that authoritative abstractions provide premises for decision-making that remove competing considerations from deliberation. They reduce the exercise of discretion. Why, then, are some abstractions authoritative while others remain routinely disregarded? I argue that abstractions become authoritative (1) when their use is by results in relation to some goal that decision-makers have accepted as legitimate; and (2) when their construction satisfies a set of procedural constraints that address our moral disapproval of arbitrariness. In turn, they lose authority when they are perceived as lacking in one or the other. Finally, I demonstrate the usefulness of this framework in discussing two recent cases in the formalization of decision-making: preregistration plans in science reform and artificial intelligence in bureaucratic reform. These two examples further illustrate how the formalization of decision-making is an attempt to transform the existing allocation of cognitive effort, accountability, and trust in a division of labor.