When is it a Fallacy
Ad Hominem Fallacies,
Abusive Ad Hominem
Damer, Edward T. (2001) Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments (pp. 172 -173)
(emphasis mine)
Definition: This fallacy consists in attacking one's opponent in a person and abusive way as a means of ignoring or discrediting his or her criticism or argument.
An ad hominem argument is an argument directed "toward the person." The personal attack often takes the form of calling attention to some distasteful personal characteristic of an opponent. What that might be in any particular situation depends on what the arguer finds repugnant. A person may be abused for being messy, unshaven, fat, foreign, a failure, a pacifist, an atheist, a lawyer, a feminist, liberal, conservative, gay, lesbian, ugly, physically uncoordinated, a tobacco chewer, or any number of other toward another person. There is nothing fallacious about calling people names or saying ugly things about them. The fallacy is committed when one engages in a personal attack as a means of ignoring, discrediting, or blunting the force of another's argument.
Although some faulty arguers may call attention to distasteful features of their opponents in order to manipulate the responses of their audience, most abusers apparently believe that such characteristics actually provide good reasons for ignoring or discrediting the arguments of those who have them. Logically, of course the fact that any of these characteristics might fit an opponent provides no reason to ignore or discredit his or her arguments or criticism.
It is very important however, that a distinction be made between the argument and the testimony of a person. For example, if a known liar or psychotic is testifying or giving an opinion, the fact that he or she is a liar or psychotic is indeed relevant to the credibility of such opinions or testimonials. However, if the liar or psychotic formulates and presents an argument, that argument can and should be evaluated independently of its source. It makes no difference whether it comes from a demented mind, a convicted felon, or a Nazi; an argument can and must stand on its own. After all, even the most despicable of persons may be able to construct a good argument. We could concluded, then, that although there may be a personal characteristics of a person, such as his or her bias, psychotic nature, or lack of truthfulness, that might rightly affect our assessment of his or her opinions or testimony, it should have nothing as all to do with our evaluation of person's arguments.
The abusive ad hominem obviously fails to meet the rebuttal criterion of a good argument since it is primarily a device to avoid complying with the rebuttal requirement. But it could also be construed as a violation of the relevance criterion, because the counter-argument. Therefore, any argument that uses what the arguer finds personally distasteful about an opponent as reason for ignoring or rejecting his or her idea cannot be a good one.
Damer, Edward T. (2001) Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments (pp. 172 -173)
(emphasis mine)
Comments
Dude, he really did look like Satan. I swear.
meh. you're fat. pffft.
Exactly. "You are wrong because you look like Satan" is an ad hominem fallacy. "You are wrong and you look like Satan" isn't.
Would it be an ad hominen to say that he lacks credibility as an academic because of his poor grammar?
Outside the realm of formal debates, considering the source of an argument is valuable not for dismissing ideas out of hand but rather for determining what level of skepticism is appropriate. There simply isn't time to analize everyting to exacting standards.
Not all of the information on Fox News is incorrect but enough of it is for me to know not to waste my time. So I am making an ad hominem argument every time I skip that channel.
First you should distinguish between ad hominem and the ad hominem fallacy. Certainly it is ad hominem (against the person) , and in this case it is also the ad hominem fallacy, if the implication is that someone with bad grammar can't conduct reliable research. What would grammar have to do with the quality of his research?
rocknerd, it's not an ad hominem argument to skip Fox News. It's not an argument at all to ignore something, really, but more than that, distrusting information because of an assessed lack of credibility of the source is a completely reasonable thing to do. The term "ad hominem" isn't really meant to apply to whether or not you trust information, but how you evaluate an argument. In theory, the soundness of a logical argument is independent of whether or not you accept its premises. On the one hand, there could be a perfectly sound argument based on false premises. For example:
Therefore:
Premise 1 is false, though if it were true, then the conclusion in 3, reached by a sound syllogism, would be true.
On the other hand, an argument can have premises and conclusions that are all true, but is still a bad argument. For example:
Therefore:
All of these are true, but the argument structure, whatever its intention might have been, is not logically sound.
Asserting that an argument is invalid because it was uttered in an ungrammatical fashion is ad hominem, in formal logic, since again, in theory, logical arguments are supposed to stand on their own, independent of their source (or manner of delivery).
Whether or not a premise is true, though, cannot be derived from the argument alone, and so bringing in external knowledge about the source with respect to the content of an argument is entirely appropriate.
How odd. Some sort of automatic script renumbered my lines. The second "1" in each case should be a "3".
I dunno if this really is understood, but I'd rather make absolutely sure that it is (while happily risking the possibility of looking like a terrible nerd -- which I am) -- I didn't mean to suggest that the guy was wrong because he looks like a Mephisto-ish B-movie character. I just thought it was kinda funny that he looked that way. It's like someone showing up on a talkshow to talk about Jesus, while being dressed and groomed to look like a traditional depiction of Jesus.
The fact that he uses the word "Lucifer" to describe the Devil is another matter.
Colin, Good points. You just seem to be taking this more seriously than I am.
Now the question is "when is an argument not an argument?" I was working under the assumption that my skipping of Fox was an ad hominem argument because I usually say outloud "fucking douchebags" as I flip past. That is my argument- done deal Fox loses. Does vocalizing the argument make it real? What I skipped on Fox may have been credible but I pre-emptively dismissed it with profanity. I suspect that I am not the only one guilty of this.
How about this argument
Watching Bill O'Reilly causes spontaneous regergetation
I don't like shampooing carpets
Therefore
Or
The attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President
The president has no idea why the attorneys were fired
Therefore
How's that for ad hominem?
These are all just arguments based upon false premises. Although I'm not sure which of those assertions is, in fact false, since you may love shampooing carpets for all I know. I bet watching O'Reilly in a puddle of vomit must be twice as unpleasant. Personally I've never been squeamish. I can tolerate Fox w/in reason.
"First you should distinguish between ad hominem and the ad hominem fallacy. Certainly it is ad hominem (against the person) , and in this case it is also the ad hominem fallacy, if the implication is that someone with bad grammar can't conduct reliable research. What would grammar have to do with the quality of his research?"
Isn't that something this blog did when collecting a clip of Bush pronouncing some word or another incorrectly a few months ago, and then calling him an idiot for it? I mean, isn't that exactly this, as a lot of intelligent people pronounce certain words in a non standard way
No one is using his lack of facility with the language to argue about policy questions. For example Bush's policy in Iraq is bad because he doesn't speak well, or Bush's No Child Left Behind program isn't any good because of his speaking disability . Those would be examples of ad hominem fallacies.
That said the way George Bush pronounces certain words goes way beyond non-standard. The way he constructs sentences, if they aren't written for him leads to confusion. So when people call him an idiot the implied question is are effective communication skills important to doing the job of President.
Does it matter if the president constantly stumbles over the most ordinary sentences. I don't think anyone is trying to make the argument that he is an idiot in a technical sense, but rather use the word to describe someone who is so lacking in communications skill that he appears to be an idiot to those who hear him speak. I don't think it's an example of the ad hominem fallacy.
I agree with Rocknerd although, for me it isn't so much about the carpets but how I actually feel when watching Fox news. It's more of an instinctual disgust than a formulated argument. And if one can say (such as Dawkins) that there doesn't have to be a manfest reason or argument for existence then I see not need to have one not to watch FOX.
I'm happier for it..
Anyone else see Dennis Miller on The Daily Show the other day? Dennis did his conservative attack on Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats, but his comments were all Ad Hominem attacks. The conservative arguments, at least Dennis Miller's, are reduced to making fun of the Dems. Beats trying to defend the war, I guess.
Wukoki,
Comedians violate informal fallacies all the time. It's called artistic license. They are exempt from the rules of logic. Thats part of what makes them so funny.
Troo. I have a way of doing that sometimes.
My point above was simply meant to distinguish between the content and the structure of an argument, two facets of debate that often seem to get conflated.
All that aside, rocknerd, your mom's an ad hominem argument.
however, syngas, whereas one comedian might think it funny to ridicule the physical or cultural characteristics of a public figure (those having nothing to do with the figure's fitness for office), another might choose to ridicule the figure's proven dishonesty or stupidity.
the latter form is essential to the proper exercise of democracy, while the former is just mean.
rob,
One thing you can be sure of with art is it will likely offend someone. Don't take Dennis Miller or Jon Stewart too seriously, I am quite sure they don't ;-}
"First you should distinguish between ad hominem and the ad hominem fallacy. Certainly it is ad hominem (against the person) , and in this case it is also the ad hominem fallacy, if the implication is that someone with bad grammar can't conduct reliable research. What would grammar have to do with the quality of his research?" Oh, I meant it to be tounge-in-cheek, in that almost all of us have flamed someone for their poor grammar as an excuse for why they're an idiot. But I guess it came off more as a true question then a friendly jab.
Syngas,
I don't take it too seriously either, but I think the style of attack points out the essential difference Jon Stewart and that half-hour attempt at news humor they had Fox. Jon Stewart also has plenty of fun attacking the individuals, yet it seems to me he works hard to critique the policies. The current administration is making his job pretty easy.
I agree with Rob, the Fox 'comedy' and, sadly, Dennis Miller just come off as mean and, in my mind, bitter.
Perhaps it just my viewpoint coloring the humor.
Syngas has a point. Regardless of the political affiliation of the person, one can be funny and if a chord is hit because your favorite official, actor, etc. is being ridiculed often an unconscious or conscious bias is inevitable. The distinction is to realize that irrespective of the individual being satirized , the comedy is appealing. Although humor is a very subjective sense, some attempts at comedy are at the extremes of cultural values and aren't funny even objectively (i.e. a reasonable person will not find the piece funny). Fox Red Eye is abhorrently unfunny. At some point they restrict themselves to the obvious hoping it will be funny. When Jon Stewart made fun of Al Gore's "flame retardant baby", Fox Red Eye, days later, joked about Gore calling the baby retarded.
I would like to memorize this entire passage to utilize the very next time I encounter it.
Better yet RealityBytes,
Check amazon for a book titled With Good Reason - An Introduction to Informal Fallacies. I just checked and the one I refer to often (old college textbook) is available for $2.28. Ad Hominem is just one of many informal fallacies that are abused by politicians, TV hosts, advertisers, reporters and worst of all, teachers every day.
Understanding how fallacies are used to fool people will be an essential tool in protecting yourself and your family from the scam artists that manipulate public opinion.
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