![]() ![]() There is common confusion about what is, and what isn't, ad hominem - that is, what does and does not employ fallacious reasoning. By sufficient association with negative personal traits, rejecting an argument (with or without thorough evaluation) becomes a favoured option. With respect to cognitive ease, by repeating the ad hominem enough times, the cognitive strain required to reject someone's argument is lowered. Thus, if you can attribute a bad trait to your opponent, others will tend to doubt the quality of their arguments. treating an attractive person as more intelligent or more honest. The halo effect is a cognitive bias in which the perception of one trait is influenced by the perception of an unrelated trait, e.g. This is a special case called ad hominem tu quoque.Īd hominem arguments can work to convince people via a combination of the halo effect and cognitive ease. ![]() In arguments about morality, one could make the argument that the opponent does not practice what they preach. One could point out bad things that the opponent has done in the past, for instance, or establish an untrustworthy track record. This is often termed poisoning the well where it occurs before an argument has been made, and is a form of psychological priming. Often, ad hominem attacks are used subtly in order to influence the views of spectators. "Separating the art from the artist", therefore, has become a core area of debate in literary and artistic criticism. Lewis very convincing because Pullman has a vested interest in promoting his own series as a direct competitor to Lewis's work. Much less infamously, most people don't find Philip Pullman's condemnations of C. Examples include Charles Manson's status as a multiple murderer and cult leader would affect reviews of his song-writing similarly with Jimmy Savile and Gary Glitter's sexual assaults tainting their previous work and also regarding Richard Wagner's well-known anti-Semitism and later associations with the Third Reich, although this hasn't deterred notable Jewish Wagner enthusiasts including Gustav Mahler and Stephen Fry. A good rule of thumb to spot the fallacy here is that this sort of argument devalues the denial, but does not bolster the original assertion.Ī personal attack can also be a cause for aesthetic judgement, such as in condemning a creative work created by an infamous person. All "well they would say that, wouldn't they?" arguments are based on this form of ad hominem and can regularly be found propping up conspiracy theories when their existence is denied by an authority. The "circumstantial ad hominem", or "appeal to motive", happens where an opponent's argument is discarded on the basis that they have some motivation for making it for example, that it is in a banker's best interests to say he has not stolen from his company's accounts, so obviously he has. As a result, these can go unacknowledged as fallacious. ![]() While an ad hominem attack is not synonymous with "crass insult" ( see below) it is also true that you can make a fallacious ad hom argument without being rude or crass about it. P2: There is something objectionable about person A. 8.1 Want to read this in another language?Īn ad hominem argument has the basic form:.Of note: if the subject of discussion is whether or not somebody is credible and/or competent - e.g., "believe X because I am Y" - then it is not an ad hominem to criticize their qualifications. The fallacy is a subset of the genetic fallacy, as it focuses on the source of the argument, at the expense of focusing on the truth or falsity of the actual argument itself.Īn ad hominem should not be confused with an insult, which admittedly attacks a person, but does not seek to rebut that person's arguments by doing so - that type of rhetoric is better termed as poisoning the well. There are many subsets of ad hominem, all of them attacking the source of the claim rather than attacking the claim or attempting to counter arguments. So I feel that that's actually a statement by them that I must be right.Īrgumentum ad hominem (from the Latin, "argument to the person") is an informal logical fallacy that occurs when someone attempts to refute an argument by attacking the claim-maker, rather than engaging in an argument or factual refutation of the claim. “ ”If people are calling names then that means they don't have a good argument against what we're doing.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |