[Nicky91]

Tu quoque

Tu quoque appears as:

*A makes a claim a.
*B attacks the character of A by saying they hold a property x, which is bad.
*A defends themself by attacking B, saying they also hold the same property x.

Here is an example given by philosophy professor George Wrisley to illustrate the above: A businessman and politician is giving a lecture at a University about how good his company is and how nicely the system works. A student asks him "Is it true that you and your company are selling weapons to third world rulers who use those arms against their own people?" and the businessman replies "is it true that your university gets funding by the same company that you are claiming is selling guns to those countries? You are not a white dove either". The ad hominem accusation of the student is relevant to the narrative the businessman tries to project thus not fallacious. On the other hand, the attack on the student (that is, the student being inconsistent) is irrelevant to the opening narrative. So the businessman's tu quoque response is fallacious.

Canadian philosopher Christopher Tindale approaches somewhat different the tu quoque fallacy. According to Tindale, a tu quoque fallacy appears when a response to an argument is made on the history of the arguer. This argument is also invalid because it does not disprove the premise; if the premise is true, then source A may be a hypocrite or even changed their mind, but this does not make the statement less credible from a logical perspective. A common example, given by Tindale, is when a doctor advises a patient to lose weight, but the patient argues that there is no need for him to go on a diet because the doctor is also overweight.

Circumstancial

Circumstantial ad hominem points out that someone is in circumstances (for instance, their job, wealth, property, or relations) such that they are disposed to take a particular position. It constitutes an attack on the bias of a source. As with other types of ad hominem attack, circumstantial attack could be fallacious or not. It could be fallacious because a disposition to make a certain argument does not make the argument invalid; this overlaps with the genetic fallacy (an argument that a claim is incorrect due to its source). But it also may be a sound argument, if the premises are correct and the bias is relevant to the argument.

A simple example is: a father may tell his daughter not to start smoking because she will damage her health, and she may point out that he is or was a smoker. This does not alter the fact that smoking might cause various diseases. Her father's inconsistency is not a proper reason to reject his claim.

Philosopher and pundit on informal fallacies Douglas N. Walton argues that a circumstantial ad hominem argument can be non-fallacious. This could be the case when someone (A) attacks the personality of another person (B), making an argument (a) while the personality of B is relevant to argument a, i.e. B talks as an authority figure. To illustrate this reasoning, Walton gives the example of a witness at a trial: if he had been caught lying and cheating in his own life, should the jury take his word for granted? No, according to Walton.

Abusive Ad Hominem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_calling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_abuse

Abusive ad hominem argument (or direct ad hominem) is associated with an attack to the character of the person carrying an argument. This kind of argument, besides usually being fallacious, is also counterproductive, as a proper dialogue is hard to achieve after such an attack.

Key issues in examining an argument to determine whether it is an ad hominem fallacy or not are whether the accusation against the person stands true or not, and whether the accusation is relevant to the argument. An example is a dialogue at the court, where the attorney cross-examines an eyewitness, bringing to light the fact that the witness was convicted in the past for lying. If the attorney's conclusion is that the witness is lying, that would be wrong. But if his argument would be that the witness should not be trusted, that would not be a fallacy.

Usage in Debates

Ad hominem fallacies are considered to be uncivil and do not help creating a constructive atmosphere for dialogue to flourish. An ad hominem attack is an attack on the character of the target who tends to feel the necessity to defend himself or herself from the accusation of being hypocritical. Walton has noted that it is so powerful of an argument that it is employed in many political debates. Since it is associated with negativity and dirty tricks, it has gained a bad fame, of being always fallacious.

Author Eithan Orkibi, having studied the Israeli politics prior to elections, described two other forms of ad hominem attacks that are common during election periods. They both depend on the collective memory shared by both proponents and the audience. The first is the precedent ad hominem, according to which the previous history of someone means that they do not fit for the office. It goes like this: "My opponent was (allegedly) wrong in the past, therefore he is wrong now". The second one is a behavioral ad hominem: "my opponent was not decent in his arguments in the past, so he is not now either". These kinds of attacks are based on the inability of the audience to have a clear view of the amount of false statements by both parts of the debate.

Whataboutism

Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

https://examples.yourdictionary.com/...-examples.html

all from this nice educative wikipedia article on debating



reason why i made this thread, i admit i also have been feeling annoyed about some very hateful nasty personal attacks what i see in this SD & N section

so here some information what it is basically called, and yes it are Latin words

i do not wish to get in any trouble with you mods & admin, but i somehow want this hateful personal attacks in debates in here also to stop, so i had been doing some research on ''personal attacks in debates'' via googling

[Toy Soldier]

TiBB; a brief guide.

[LeatherTrumpet]

Hitler used all of them

[Kate!]

Flipping heck Nicky that's one hell of a post. I freely admit I do not understand it.

[Nicky91]

Originally Posted by Kate!

Flipping heck Nicky that's one hell of a post. I freely admit I do not understand it.

well i honestly did not know how else to put it, other than finding sufficient information regarding ''personal attacks in debating'' and this is what i had found

and this had been on my mind for a longer time since i am just sick and tired with the nastiness what i am never looking forward to reading in SD