Clarifying the Question

I'm not sure I'd say a different standard should apply to anyone.  I guess I'm just saying that I wonder how the fact that Catholic scholarship is supposed (at least on one view) to be subservient to authority affects its credibility.  Imagine that someone proposes an argument because it is the best argument that coheres with orthodoxy.  And I, as a Catholic legal theorist commenting on the argument, accept the argument just because it is the best argument that coheres with orthodoxy.  Assuming that neither the original author nor I was ever willing to consider rejecting the argument (because it is the best argument in support of the orthodox position), you could see how, over time, our conversation might become more and more marginal, particularly as to people who did not much care what the orthodox position is, but perhaps even (to a lesser degree) as to people who care but for whom orthodoxy has less overriding importance. 

I think this whole line of thought may reflect a bias on my part against a particular conception of the role of authority in intellectual life, a bias which may not be justified.  After all, an argument is an argument, no matter why it is proposed, and the argument can and should just be evaluated on its own merits.  But, to answer Fr. Araujo's question, I think the observation I made would be true of any scholar I had reason to believe was making an argument just because it cohered with (some) orthodoxy and not because she thought it was correct.  Perhaps, then, my question is what, in evaluating a piece of scholarship or an argument, the relevance is (or should be) of the scholar's subjective motivation in putting the argument forward.  The correct answer may be "none."  But it strikes me as an interesting question, so I'm curious what others think.