An
argumentum ad hominem is any kind of argument that criticizes
an idea by pointing something out about the people who hold the idea
rather than directly addressing the merits of the idea. ''Ad
hominem'' is Latin for "directed toward the man (as opposed to the
issue at hand)". An alternative expression is "playing the man and not the ball".
Some examples:
- "Of course you say that marketing serves a valuable purpose. You work in marketing."
- "Listen, son. Mind-altering drugs can damage your brain. You're better off avoiding them." "Who are you to talk? I know you dropped a lot of acid back in the 60's."
- "You slept with sheep in highschool. Thus, we won't accept your technical recommendations."
- This one's exceptional: "Apparently, you are too stupid to comprehend the difference between an insult and an ad hominem argument." -- BobBadour
Ad hominem attacks are ultimately self-defeating. They are equivalent to admitting that you have lost the argument.
The
ad hominem is a fallacy of relevance: when you fall into it,
you're confusing two topics that are really distinct. The confusion
dissolves when you point out the implausible connections that are
implied: "So if I quit my job, then marketing
would serve a
valuable purpose?" "So if I never dropped any acid, then everyone
could take heroin with no danger of overdose or brain damage?" The
only way to make an accurate assessment of marketing or drugs is to
actually look into marketing or drugs.
The
ad hominem is not to be confused with various measures that
are prudent to take when delegating cognition to others, such as
checking people's credentials before relying on their testimony.
Also not to be confused with a number of other fallacies of
relevance, like appealing to feelings and prejudices rather than
intellect. There are fancy Latin terms for a lot of those, too; see:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~timm/pub/guides/Logic.html#hominem
Types of ad hominem
- abusive
- attack the person instead of the argument ("Only a cold-hearted Scrooge would cut this program!")
- circumstantial
- attacking the circumstances of the person ("How can you be against relaxing immigration policies. Your grandparents came over from Italy!")
- tu quoque ("you, too")
- AKA "practice what you preach." ("Why should I follow this Java style guide? You write pretty sloppy code yourself!")
We see #2 quite often in politics without failing to see it for what it is.
And #1 as well has been used to such a great extent that it is now impossible to find a candidate who won't promise anything and everything to any special interest group he can find. The preceding was brought to you by the AmericanCulturalAssumption.
Insulting remarks are not to be confused with the AdHominem
"How could you slam the car door on your nose? What a dolt you are!"
This is perhaps not a kind remark, but certainly slamming a car door
on one's nose is good grounds for dolthood. The evidence supports
the conclusion, and the conclusion is not confused with anything
else.
"Your mother sucks army boots!"
An insult. Not much of one, but an insult. An expression of
disrespect. Not an argument supporting or criticizing a conclusion,
and therefore not possibly a fallacy.
- But "Don't pay any attention to what he says, his mother sucks army boots!" is ad hominem fallacious.
"Anyone who thinks that work could possibly be enjoyable, in the face
of all evidence, experience, and reason, is a psychopath! You hear
me, a psychopath!"
Not an effective way to enlighten the benighted, but not an argument
against the enjoyableness of work--and therefore not possibly a
fallacy. Rather, it's a change to another topic: an investigation
into the psychological causes of the belief that work is enjoyable.
A hypothesis is proposed, kicking off the new discussion. The person
on the receiving end of this rant does not share the premise of the
investigation, so further conversation is likely to be fruitless, but
that doesn't make the rant an
ad hominem.
- If someone offered an argument that work could possibly be enjoyable, then this is most certainly ad hominem fallacious.
"Heinlein's 'argument' that human rights don't exist because they can
be violated is a sick caricature by someone who has nothing but
contempt for his opponents."
Again, not an
ad hominem. It's an attempt (probably not
successful) to get the reader to see Heinlein's argument in a new
way, but notice that it does not take the accusation about Heinlein
as a
premise supporting a criticism of Heinlein's view of human
rights. The reader is not expected to already agree with the
accusation (this is essential when persuading by
ad hominem), and
the author was presumably led to make the accusation because of his
evaluation of Heinlein's argument, not the other way around. The
author is
explaining what gives rise to arguments like
Heinlein's, and thereby helping the reader grasp his (the author's)
worldview. Logically impeccable. However, if the author expects
this statement to persuade all by itself, or demands that his view be
rebutted before he gives support for it, he is
ShiftingTheBurdenOfProof illegitimately.
- Since it ignores the substance of Heinlein's argument and instead addresses his personal traits, it is most blatantly ad hominem fallacious. The assertion that the accusation about Heinlein doesn't serve as a premise against Heinlein's view is absurd -- in fact, it's an example of IntellectualDishonesty.
Notice that the examples given in the opening are not insults.
Sinking to the level of ad hominem
From
WageSlave:
-
- The last time I checked, you are not in danger of life or limb when "talking back" to an employer.
-
- Check again. I guess you've never seen the typical police response to a workers' action. Does the term "strikebreaker" mean anything to you?
-
- Dude. I'm really trying not to sink to the level of the AdHominem argument here. Have you ever seen a real labor strike? I have. I remember several periods in my childhood where both of my parents were no longer receiving paychecks for weeks or months because the union was on strike. I remember the literal belt-tightening that occurred as a result of that. I also remember not having Dad home because he was scheduled to walk the picket lines night after night.
The italic author did not commit an
ad hominem. He was merely
condescending and sarcastic, and tossed in a
RedHerring (since
responses to strikes are a different topic than talking back to one's
employer).
Since "talking back" is an example of "a worker's action", it's not a RedHerring at all. The roman author responded by sinking to the level of
ad hominem. The response tries to counter the premise of an
assumed
ad hominem argument: "I have too been on that side of the
fence." By responding in this way, you grant the legitimacy of ''ad
hominem'' reasoning. Just think of the implied connection: if the
author's father hadn't walked a picket line, would that show that
U.S. employees really are in danger of life and limb for talking back
to their bosses?
This is nonsense; the italic author questioned the roman author's relevant knowledge, and the roman author responded with relevant assertions. I suggest that you refer to authoritative works such as T. Damer's "Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments". (And if you think that's an ArgumentFromAuthority, you should definitely read the book, which distinguishes between valid and fallacious appeals to authority.)
Of course, this is a good reason to avoid condescension and sarcasm
in conversation. It tends to provoke this kind of illogical response
even from intelligent, well-meaning people. It spoils the
conversation. In short order, we saw two fallacies of relevance: a
RedHerring and an
AdHominem rebuttal. Condescension and sarcasm are
not to be confused with the illogic they spawn, though.
Perhaps it is wise to avoid the sort of pedantic condescension you display here.
The ad hominem is a fallacy, not a foul
Interestingly, people apologize for an
AdHominem, but they don't
apologize for a
PostHocErgoPropterHoc or
AdVerecundiam, which are
equally fallacious. This is due to a very deep confusion: between
logic and conversation.
A fallacy is something that happens within a mind. It's a confusion,
a mental misstep, whereby the mind moves away from truth, or at least
the best it can do given the available evidence. Thinking is best
when it's logical. Fallacies are ways that thinking strays from
this.
A conversation is two or more people talking. A conversation about
ideas, such as a debate, is cooperative thinking. You each try to
learn from the other and enlighten the other. You try to stimulate
logical reasoning in the other person's mind. At least, that's what
happens in a good conversation.
In a bad conversation, people see each other not as collaborators but
as adversaries. Their purpose is not mutual enlightenment, but
winning. This leads to all sorts of unfortunate concepts, like the
idea of making it a fair fight. That in turn leads to rules, and
rules lead to the concept of a foul. I brought in hearsay, or I
didn't meet some "objective" standard of proof, or I didn't cite the
proper authorities, or I made a wisecrack. The penalty for a foul
seems to be that you must apologize, or be thought of as a cheater.
Don't confuse these things. Logic is the study of how the faculty of
reason moves toward or away from truth. Conversation is talk. The
reason to avoid insulting a person you are conversing with is not
because it's illogical or unfair, but because he is a person. In
addition to making the conversation unpleasant, it also tends to
excite the parts of the mind that interfere with reason. When people
do not feel respected, they have a tendency to seek revenge. Say, by
humiliating you by making you look or feel stupid. They'll ignore or
distort anything insightful that you say, because listening to it
doesn't serve the purpose of revenge. If you want to have a good
conversation, don't push that button. You'll find that both your and
your friends' reasoning is less tainted with
ad hominem. You
might even have more friends.
- Conversations with lots of friends is well and good, but if you and your friends employ fallacies during your conversations, any conclusions that you reach are worthless.
The ad hominem in rhetoric
A word of warning to any would-be applied logicians out there: while
the
ad hominem leads to bad judgement and ruin, it has great
persuasive power. (I refer here to genuine
ad hominems, not
insults.) If you're on the receiving end of the examples in the
first section above, the other person has just spanked you publicly.
The same applies to all the other fallacies named in classical and
medieval times.
The way to counter a material fallacy, as illustrated above, is to
expose the false connection implied in the fallacy--to distinguish
what was confused. However, the
ad hominem is particularly nasty
because it taints anything that you say from then on. After the ''ad
hominem,'' most people will hear anything you say as just a desperate
rationalization, no matter how logically sound or factual. They
won't
hear you anymore. The fallacy, skillfully applied, is like
cutting off your microphone.
The
ad hominem exploits our meme-filtering cognitions: it moves
such irrelevant considerations as one's position in the social
hierarchy into place to block out genuinely relevant facts. It takes
you down a notch in the social hierarchy so no one feels like they
need to listen to you anymore. One of our own, intelligent,
cherished Wikizens even started a page (
ConsiderTheSource) in which
the
ad hominem is touted as a good reason to not take an idea or
a person seriously--a very explicit (and favorable!) description of
the
ad hominem as a tool of disrespect.
Watch out for this thing. It's a powerful poison, no one is immune,
and probably the majority of humanity will never understand what an
ad hominem is or why it's bad. That includes people who use the
term to criticize what other people say (usually just as a synonym
for "insulting remark").
Immunity to the ad hominem pays off
A mother brought her son several hundred miles to see Gandhi. "I
keep telling him not to eat sugar, but he won't listen to me. But he
admires you and he'll listen to you." Gandhi said ok, and asked the
mother to return with her son in a week. The mother was a bit
nonplussed, but she made the long trip home and then made the long
trip back the next week. "Ok, here we are again. Now will you tell
my son to stop eating sugar?" And Gandhi says, "Sure. Kid, stop
eating sugar." Now the mother is furious. "That's it? Why couldn't
you have said that last week?" And Gandhi says, "Because last week,
I was still eating sugar."
Are the people in this story engaged in the worst sorts of
AdHominem
and
AdVerecundiam confusions? Yes! But the kid stopped eating
sugar. (Or so the story goes.)
- Which suggests that it is not they, but rather you, who are confused. Gandhi made no argument about eating sugar, thus the notion of "fallacy" doesn't apply. And if he had made an argument, it would likely have been based on his authority as a right-liver, which would have been undermined by his eating sugar. You might eliminate some of your confusion by looking into the downfall of LogicalPositivism, and the general flaws of "logicism".
Discussion
AdHominem is only a mistake in the context of deductive reasoning and
logic. If, however, Joe and I are having a debate and I am able to
effectively destroy Joe's credibility with an
AdHominem attack, it
can only be because Joe's credibility was somehow susceptible to that
destruction. It is not enough for me to say "Joe is a twit; don't
listen to him". But if I say "Joe is a marketing boob; don't listen
to him" and Joe
is in fact a marketing boob
and that's
relevant to what is being debated, then Joe's piteous cries of
'
AdHominem' don't carry much weight. --
AndyPierce
The point is, it's not relevant. That's why it's called a fallacy of
relevance. If Joe is a marketing boob and he gives a cogent argument
that marketing serves a useful purpose, the fact that this cogent
argument is coming from a marketing boob is irrelevant. If a Ouija
board made the argument, it would carry exactly as much relevance as
if Gandhi said it. The source of an idea becomes relevant only when
delegating cognition to others: when accepting their
testimony--either reports of observations or relying on their
expertise. Hence the proviso above. (See my remarks on
ConsiderTheSource.)
- The fact is that the cogency of arguments depends on the credibility of those making the argument, since in real life we don't subject all arguments to formal logical proof, especially since they are often empirical and not subject to deductive reasoning. This is why juries are instructed to judge the credibility of witnesses. This does not make the legal system fallacious (though it may well be on other grounds); rather it means that you are committing the logicist fallacy.
But yes, as the explanations above indicate, crying "
AdHominem"
doesn't carry much weight with most people, even when a real
AdHominem has just gone down. In fact, it only makes you look like
more of a wuss.
Currently (early 2001) the phrase is enjoying a popularity that
borders on the faddish... unfortunately with a distorted meaning,
more or less synonymous with "you have no right to call me a dirty
so-and-so, you dirty so-and-so; that's
AdHominem, so there".
Where are you finding this?
As per Andy's remark above, by the time a discussion has degenerated
into name-calling, the phrase is no longer appropriate, since the
"fallacies of relevance" only apply in the narrow context of
arguments with a logical structure. It reflects poorly on the Wiki
community as a whole when the phrase is used as an easy justification
for lack of same.
''It can also be used in less structured arguments, such as
legislative debates. And the logical context isn't very narrow. Most
coolheaded arguments are logically structured at some level.''
BTW, every argument has a logical structure:
this, so this. It's
not always stated explicitly, but it's always there. Fallacies of
relevance confuse the issue. For example, confusing the topic of "is
sugar bad for you?" with "does Gandhi eat sugar?" The solution to a
fallacy of relevance is always to
distinguish the topics.
It is you who are confused. Gandhi stopped eating sugar so that he would be in a better position to convince a child that eating sugar was bad; he (an accomplished lawyer) did not believe that whether he ate sugar had a bearing on whether sugar was in fact for the child.
On a wiki,
AdHominem attacks are kind of pointless. If you consider
the reader that comes by five years down the road, she doesn't know
who any of the opponents are, let alone whether the personal
accusations are true. Moreover, I doubt she ever cares about the
particular ego drama that happened ever so long ago, except maybe out
of quaintness. The worthiness of a wiki is to extract value from
discussion. That's why a wiki is persistent. It's also why most wikis
forget; so mistakes like
AdHominem attacks can disappear with no
hard feelings (memories). However, if you don't believe that, someone
later can still come along and pick up the argument where you punched
your opponent below the belt. So you only "win" temporarily. And you
might lose in the long term when your argument gets shredded for
being poor form without you there to defend it. --
SunirShah
Are you using "ad hominem" in the way criticized above, as a synonym for "insulting remark" rather than a logical fallacy, a mistake in reasoning (or a rhetorical move that guides others to make this mistake)?
No. Anything that derails an argument fallaciously is bad to the
distillation of knowledge. Furthermore, above it's noted that
AdHominem's are the worst because they ruin the rest of the
discussion. Also,
AdHominem attacks are often harbringers of real
disrespect... or symptomatic. Address the root cause. The argument
doesn't exist in a vacuum, at least not on a wiki. The same
AdHominem
may derail further discussions elsewhere. --ss
Hmm, I haven't seen much yet on Wiki that sounds like AdHominem. I've seen a lot of condescension, occasional outright insults, and some hysterical expressions of hostility, but very little attempt to rub the faults of an idea-holder off onto the idea itself. Could you point me to some examples? I, er, collect them. --bk
An
very inoccuous example from
KantsCategoricalImperative:
-
- Kant's reasoning is obsolete, full of loopholes and nonsense. For example, Kant was a Christian theologian so he had an axe to grind against suicide. Kant used a ludicrous characterization of 'despair' to arrive at the conclusion he wanted despite the fact that suicide is universalizable. Given these facts, Kant's language isn't to be treated lightly.
- This isn't ad hominem because it isn't a counterargument to Kant; rather, it's a historical explanation of the source of Kant's outmoded thought. If someone seriously wants to challenge the claim that Kant's thinking is outmoded, that would be another discussion.
Of course, the
facts aren't. Suppositions as to the internal
state of Kant's mind cannot be facts.
Nonsense; it is factual that Kant held certain beliefs, and some of those beliefs are evidenced by his writings and behavior. Suppositions as to the internal state of Kant's mind can be factual just as suppositions as to the internal state of the Sun can be factual; mind states have no special epistemological status. (Although, I admit, it's
probably a likely force.) His argument hasn't been refuted by appeals
to background. Actually, most of the paragraph is informative. The
first sentence is the most contentious.
I'll let you wade through the more damaging examples on Wiki
yourself, but they usually get deleted. Moreover, most of the older
content was non-argumentative as Wiki was used primarily to collect
and organize personal experiences. Actually, one just from
RecentChanges. See bottom of
RecentChangesOnOtherWikiForums. That one
also has
AdVerecundiam. --ss
Thanks for the example, Sunir. You should have seen KantsCategoricalImperative a while ago, before I edited out the worst of the invective. It's interesting, though, that all of the above could be AdHominem or not, depending on what the point is. If the point is that imperatives can only be hypothetical, not categorical, then it's all AdHominem. If the point is that Kant was a twit, then it's not AdHominem. The context suggests that it's an explanation of how some article by Shandon Guthrie misinterprets Kant, but it doesn't do a very good of explaining that. The conversation there seems to have degenerated to a level of confusion for which is no name. --bk
Not to be confused with
this attack, which is strictly
AddHomonym.
And if you throw grits, it is an Ad Hominey attack.
Also known as Microsoft Standard Argument Technique:)
--
ThaddeusOlczyk
Contrast
ZenSlap for a bizarre twist on this.
See
GodwinsLaw for another twist on this.
Scope Within Personal Attacks
The term is often mistakenly used to mean "an insult," especially by people who have just been insulted. E.g., "Theadic rixation is impossible under those conditions, you moron!" "Ah, so we descend to ad hominems, do we?"
It's often used interchangeably with "name calling". Although perhaps not technically accurate, most people still understand what is meant. If you feel an explicit distinction should be made, we can explore opening another topic for name-calling in general.
A distinction is being made between AdHominem and name calling. For example, the first example of an AdHominem on this page isn't name calling. In the other direction, name calling outside of an argument, isn't an AdHominem.
Ad hominem attacks are ultimately self-defeating. They are equivalent to admitting that you have lost the argument.
Some people use them as a punishment tool, not a communication tool. They may be thinking, "I'm going to punish this person for thinking poorly by calling them names". Whether it achieves that goal or not is another matter.
If it's used as a punishment tool, then it isn't an
AdHominem. Some thing when used as a communication tool. It's only when used to support an argument that it becomes an
AdHominem.
Contributors:
BenKovitz, and many others who didn't sign their work (but are invited to)
See:
FallaciousArgument,
AttackIdeasNotPeople
CategoryJargon,
CategoryCommunication