Posted: Mon 02 Jul 2007 22:00 Post subject: 2.2 What is ad hominem?
What is ad hominem?
It is attacking the character or motives of a person who has stated an idea, rather than the idea itself. The most obvious example of this fallacy is when one debater maligns the character of another debater (e.g, "The members of the opposition are a couple of fascists!"), but this is actually not that common. A more typical example is attacking a source of information -- for example, responding to a quotation from Richard Nixon on the subject of free trade with China by saying, "We all know Nixon was a liar and a cheat, so why should we believe anything he says?" Ad hominem also occurs when someone's arguments are discounted merely because they stand to benefit from the policy they advocate -- such as Bill Gates arguing against antitrust, rich people arguing for lower taxes, white people arguing against affirmative action, minorities arguing for affirmative action, etc. In all of these cases, the relevant question is not who makes the argument, but whether the argument is valid.
In this site, ad hominem is when you bring up something derogatory about a person with whom you disagree, other than the "bone of contention" itself. You may point out the flaws that you see in you opponent's argument. But you may not try to discredit the other person by bringing up something from outside the thread or from a previous debate. For example, if someone argues that the intermarriage rate will soon fall, you may demand evidence of this, submit contrary evidence, challenge how intermarriage is measured, or even dispute its definition in the context of the thread. But you may not say that your opponent has evil motives in making the claim. You may not say that your opponent was wrong about a different topic entirely. Each topic should be debated as on its own and on the basis of data presented on this site.
It is usually possible to restate many ad hominem arguments so as to redirect them toward ideas rather than people, such as by replacing "My opponent is a fascist" with "My opponent's argument is fascist." Conversely, the mere fact that someone has demolished your argument does not per se mean that they engaged in ad hominem.
Last edited by fwsweet on Wed 15 Oct 2008 12:15; edited 2 times in total
What about snide remarks that an opponent is "always wrong"?
If one person argues that the other is always wrong on other topics, then it is ad hominem, since it refers to something outside the topic being debated. On the other hand, if one person says that the other's argument is wrong, and is always wrong on that specific topic, then it is not ad hominem. Indeed if neither participant thinks that the other's thesis is wrong in some way, there is no dispute. Obviously, merely repeating that the other person is wrong, without disputing nor presenting evidence, is a childish and unpersuasive way to argue, but there are no rules against being childish and unpersuasive.
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