Philosopy Homepage » Logic Homepage » Informal Fallacies » ad Hominem

“John W. Bricker Accuses Secretary Dulles,” Library of Congress, P&P Online, LC-USZ62-132247
Ad Hominem and Related Fallacies

1. The Ad Hominem Abusive and Circumstantial Fallacies Described

   Ad Hominem Fallacy: (abusive and circumstantial): the fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of seeking to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument.
   
   Often the fallacy is characterized simply as a personal attack. However, a personal attack is a claim, not a fallacy. Thus, a character or a circumstantial attack simpliciter is not evaluated as an ad hominem argument or an ad hominem fallacy.
   
   
   

   Informal Guide to Ad Hominem Fallacy
   

   Person L proffers claim p.

   Person L's circumstances or character is unsatisfactory or L does not act in accordance with p.

   ---

   Claim p is implausible or unlikely.

   
   
   
   1. The Ad hominem abusive is the fallacy that that an agent's belief has not been proved (or is mistaken) because that person is somehow deficient as evidenced by some undesirable aspects of that person's character, personality, morality, or competence.[1] Consider this example:

      “After a 35-year career in agriculture, which took me to all corners of the world in segments ranging from animal productivity to plant protection, genetics, and biotechnology, I … reviewed Prince Charles' speech. I found foolishness and arrogant condescension.”[2]

      Rather than commenting on the content of Prince Charles' speech, the author attempts to discredit Prince Charles by stating his writing exhibits foolishness and arrogant condescension.
      
      
      
   2. The Ad hominem circumstantial is the fallacy that someone's belief has not been proved (or is mistaken) because that person's position is motivated by actions or personal circumstances which most likely bias that person's judgment. This is a fairly typical example:

      “[Alger] Hiss still has a ragtag remnant of defenders, historical illiterates who are disproportionately academics. They often are the last to learn things because they have gone to earth in the groves of academe in order to live in an alternative reality.[3]

      Rather than demonstrating mistakes made by defenders of Alger Hiss, the writer shifts from that issue to a claim that most of the defenders of such a view are situated as historically illiterate academics who seclude themselves from the everyday world.
      
      
      
   3. Since the circumstantial variety of the ad hominem fallacy can often be regarded as a special case of the abusive in that it is an indirect personal attack, the distinction between the ad hominem abusive and the ad hominem circumstantial is in some contexts an inconsequential distinction.[4] For example, consider the following argument wherein a politician defends objections to his bill before a municipal committee:

      “Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: I am the father of this bill, and I have listened with a great deal of attention to all that has been said against it. … The gentleman who last spoke has too good a reputation as a lawyer in Hudson County to lead me to believe that he believes what he has just stated.”[5]

      The lawyer's circumstances are used to establish his character in an effort to deprecate his objections to the bill. Notice, as well, that the appeal to character in an ad hominem fallacy need not always be abusive.
      
      
      
   4. An ad hominem argument can be a response to any multi-person advocate or agent, not just an individual. Consider this argument in defense of the U.S. Emergency Tariff Act of 1921:

      ”The Democrats have no right to attack a Republican protective tariff measure on the ground that it would increase the cost of living, for … [u]nder a recent Democratic administration the living cost was higher than at any other time during the history of the country.”[6]

      This argument is fallacious in that does not endeavor to prove the Democrats are mistaken in their claim that a protective tariff would increase the cost of living; instead, the argument diverts attention from consideration of the tariff to a previous failing of a Democrats. (The version of ad hominem in this argument is the tu quoque fallacy discussed below.)
      
      
      
   5. Occasionally, in the literature, the definition of argumentum ad hominem includes arguments that someone's belief is true or probable because that person's character or circumstances is eminent, authoritative or trustworthy.[7] Such virtue argumentation or positive ethotic arguments are relevant in the evaluation of evidence in witness testimony. [8]
      
      
      1. Christopher Johnson points out:

         [T]he stronger or more coherent the character portrait that develops from consideration of these virtues and traits, the more compelling the ad hominem appeal, and the less the objection of ad hominem fallacy, in making a decision between arguments.”[9]

         Honest persons are likely to speak truthfully.
         
         
      2. Indeed, often such arguments as these are non-fallacious since the premises of a reliable source of information provides evidence for the truth of conclusion.
         
         
         
   6. Many textbook accounts of ad hominem arguments assume all instances are mistakes in reasoning since the evaluation of arguments depends on the nature or the argument rather than the character of the arguer. On this view, the argument, itself, is to be evaluated, not the individual adducing the argument. However, an ad hominem argument can be transposed as Merilee Salmon has proposed into a (formal) inductive argument[10] :
      
      

      Most of what person L states about subject S is true.

      Person L states claim c on subject S.

      ---

      Claim c is probably true.

      
      

      Christian Dahlman, et al. have proposed an intriguing formal approach to the ad hominem arguments which provides a more consistent and thorough description its subtypes. They propose reconstruction of ad hominem arguments as deductively valid arguments with a false premise and then classify the kind of arguments in terms of the kind of false premise.[11]
      
      This approach works well as a principle of organization, but neglects the character of informal arguments as providing degrees of support and different standards of evidence rather than limiting informal logic to appraisal in terms of deductive inferences.[12]
      
      
      
   7. Informal logic is characterized by its lack of formal structure and can be viewed as an activity of discourse where an arguer's character or circumstances lend credibility to that individual's claims. So, on this point of view, informal logic is concerned with pragmatic analysis of dialectical interaction in discourse rather than the textual analysis of the logic of statements as is realized in deductive logic.
      
      Argumentative discourse, oral or written, is meant to resolve a difference of opinion, but when an ad hominem fallacy is used as a tactic to disqualify an opponent's arguments, the discussion is derailed.
      
      

2. The Question of Relevance in Ad Hominem Arguments

   Argumentum ad Hominem: reasoning by appealing to the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a claim in order to determine the plausibility of that claim. The argumentum ad hominem is not always fallacious; an individual's personal character and circumstances are sometimes logically related to the issues under discussion.[13] As Douglas Walton notes, “Evaluation of each individual case should be made in relation to the corpus of argument and the context of dialogue.”[14]
   
   
   
   1. The informal fallacy of argumentum ad hominem occurs when an examination of issues is discontinued in pursuance of an irrelevant personal attack against the advocate of the issues — e.g., impeaching the testimony of a reliable eye witness to a felony.
      
      
      1. When an examination of issues is logically benefited by reference to the character or circumstances of an individual, no informal fallacy occurs — such as impeaching the testimony of a visually impaired eye witness to a felony.
         
         
      2. Note that for the argumentum ad hominem fallacy to occur, (1) an irrelevant appeal is fabricated and (2) a logical argument must have been submitted.
         
         
         
   2. The commonsensical assumptions upon which the argumentum ad hominem is based generally include (1) the belief that flawed persons are not credible or logical or, as well, in a different case, (2) the belief that decent persons are trustworthy and reasonable.
      
      
   Aristotle points out that in matters of uncertainty, the speaker's character can be relevant to the given argument:

   “Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. … [T]his is … absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.” Rh. 1.2.1356a (trans. Roberts)

   Obviously, however, the fact that an argument is given by a person of good character does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion.
   
   
   
   3. The fallacy version of ad hominem draws its appeal from the technique of “getting personal.” But the fallacy does not occur when unfavorable evidence adduced for the accused proponent is logically dependent on the argument being put forward by the proponent.
      
      
      1. If the grounds for the claim about character or circumstances are logically independent of the antagonist's argument itself, then the claim, not being relevant, can be to be assessed in accordance with other (relevant) reasons. But that would be to miss the point.
         
         
      2. But, with regard to monotonic reasoning, as James Cargile writes, “[E]vidence that the source of a claim is likely to be wrong is not evidence against the claim. The tendency to overlook this is the essential feature of the ad hominem fallacy.[15]
         
         
         
   4. Unfortunately, a criterion of relevance (or for that matter, a criterion of irrelevance) associating the circumstances and character of an arguer to the arguer's argument is extraordinarily difficult to establish for all types of ad hominem arguments.
      
      
      1. What is relevant to a particular argument depends upon the context within which the argument is proposed. Currently, difficult cases are hashed out in reasoned dialogue, although, it must be admitted, the fallaciousness of many individual occurrences of argumentum ad hominem is in dispute in the current informal fallacy literature.
         
         
      2. The defeasibility
         close ×

         Defeasible Reasoning

         Nondeductive reasoning wherein supportive evidence for a conclusion is given, and it is possible that the argument can be defeated by additional evidence. Hence, the premises of the argument could be true and the conclusion false. Defeasible reasoning includes inductive, abductive and analogical reasoning.
         of ad hominem arguments is shown by the presence of other factors in some arguments which render exception to the charge of fallacious reasoning. In many textbooks, relevance in informal logic is taken to be undefined: a primitive term or an intuitive notion.[16]
         
         
      3. Simply criticizing an adversary as a digression from a controversy is not necessarily an ad hominem fallacy unless the personal attack is intended to dismiss the arguments which are unrelated to the adversary's character.[17]
         
         Stephen Toulmin states, ”[R]elevance is a substantive matter, to be discussed in science by scientists, in law by lawyers, and so on. There are very few ‘conditions of relevance’ of an entirely general kind that hold good in all fields and forums and apply to apply types of arguments.”[18]
         
         

3. Some Varieties of Ad Hominem: Ad Personam, Ad Feminam, Tu Quoque, Two Wrongs Fallacy, Ex Concessis, and Ex Aliquem

   Although there is no generally accepted consensus, many logicians today distinguish several prevailing indistinct varieties of fallacies related to the argumentum ad hominem fallacy.
   
   
   
   1. In the ad personam fallacy the statement or argument at issue is dropped from consideration or is completely ignored, and the adversary's character or circumstances is subjected to personal attack.[19]
      
      
      [画像:Ngram graph showing historical frequency of argumentum ad hominem and argumentum ad personam in Google books 1700-2008]
      
      FIG. 2. Historical Frequency of Use of “argumentum ad hominem” and “argumentum ad personam” in Google Books 1700-2008
      
      
      Recently in several logic sources, the ad personam is taken to be a name replacement for the traditional ad hominem because ad hominem, which means “‘to’ or ‘toward’ a human being (or the person),” might be misinterpreted if the Latin phrase is translated to mean “‘to’ or ‘toward’ the man.”
      
      
      1. This latter translation may well be part of the reason some recent writers have added the separate fallacy of ad feminam to their list of informal fallacies[20], a fallacy sometimes defined as an attack on a woman's character or circumstances in order to cast doubt on her claims.
         
         
      2. Consider this example of an ad personam (which can also be classified as either an ad hominem abusive fallacy or a name calling fallacy):

         “Secretary of State John Kerry says that there is less violence than usual in the world right now. Meanwhile the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, says the opposite, that terrorism is more violent and dangerous than ever. Since Clapper is Director of National Intelligence, maybe Kerry should have the title Director of National Stupidity.“[21]

      3. A well known ad personam example of the ad hominem (circumstantial) variety is Voltaire's criticism of Rousseau's Emile, or Treatise on Education by reason of Rousseau's dereliction of his own children:

         “Excessive pride and envy have destroyed Jean-Jacques, my illustrious philosopher. That monster dares speak of education! He abandoned his children and the tramp with whom he made them.”[22]

         Voltaire dismisses Rousseau's theory of education on account of Rousseau's hypocrisy in sending his children, on the occasion of their birth, to the Paris Foundling Hospital.
         
         
      4. Unfortunately, the ad personam fallacy has not been consistently used and defined from an historical point of view. The ad personam is often defined as an abandonment of the object of argument for an appeal to personal interest or the interest of interested observers.
         
         
      5. Schopenhauer designates our contemporary sense of the “ad hominem” abusive informal fallacy, where the object of a dispute is cast aside and its proponent is attacked, an “ad personam.”[23] And James H. Hyslop defines the ad personam as any argument not directed correctly to the issue (i.e., it's not an argumentum ad rem, an argument directed to the point in dispute). Thus, Hyslop defines the ad personam as including these five types of traditional fallacies: the ad judicium, ad populum, ad hominem, ad verecundiam, and ad ignorantiam.[24]
         
         
         
   2. The tu quoque fallacy, where the proponent responds to an ad hominem attack with the same accusation against the person to whom the proponent is confronting, is a narrower form of the ad hominem circumstantial fallacy. In other words, rather than trying to disprove an accuser's proposed argument against one's own position, one responds by asserting that the same kind of argument applies to the accuser. The inconsistency of a claimant is shown by accusing the claimant of the same sort of allegation for which a proponent has been denounced. Consequently, what the accuser accuser does and what the accuser says are shown to be at variance.
      
      
      

      Informal Guide to Tu Quoque

      Person L proffers negative claim y against person M.

      Person M retorts the same negative claim y applies against person L.

      ---

      Person M is exonerated.

      
      
      Whenever the response in kind to an advocates' claim or argument does not involve a personal attack either of character or circumstances, the tu quoque fallacy would not be considered a type of ad hominem fallacy.[25]
      
      
      [画像:Ngram graph showing historical frequency of argumentum ad hominem and tu quoque in Google books 1700-2008]
      
      FIG. 3. Historical Frequency of Use of “argumentum ad hominem” and “tu quoque” in Google Books 1700-2008
      
      
      
      1. In cross examination or in debate, the tu quoque fallacy is sometimes depicted as “My argument might be bad, but yours is worse.” Thus, the conversational implication is my argument is good by way of comparison. Note that this fallacy is usually only rhetorically effective in the presence of a third party.[26]
         
         
      2. If the basis of dispute is the criticism of a someone's argument, the fallacy can be summarized as “O.K., I understand your criticism of my contention, but the same criticism you point out applies to your thinking as well.” As Aristotle wrote, “[F]or it is the absurdity of impudence to arraign others for the very same things of which we ourselves have been guilty,”[27] and again, “The second way is, when a defender discredits his accuser, by retorting his own accusations.”[28]
         
         
      3. By way of example of the fallacy of tu quoque, consider this anecdote told by an early feminist social reformer:

         “In the discussion after a Forum lecture in Boston, an address on some aspect of the Woman question, a man in the gallery, who evidently took exception to a dull rose fillet I wore in my hair, demanded to know how women could expect to equal men ‘so long as they took so much time fixing up their hair and putting ribbons in it’? There was some commotion, and cries of ‘Put him out!’ but I grinned up at him cheerfully and replied, ‘I do not think it has been yet established whether it takes a woman longer to do her hair than it does a man to shave.’ This was not an answer at all, but it seemed to please every one but the inquirer.”[29]

         Notice how the lecturer recognizes the irrelevancy of her response to the audience member's impertinent remark.
         
         
      4. The imputation of tu quoque can be defended by pointing out essential differences between the accusation of the arguer and the accusation of the critic. However, the supposed difference of transgressions can only be determined individually by sorting out the transgressions.
         
         
      5. A fallacy closely related to tu quoque is the fallacy of two wrongs make a right — in fact, some logic texts equate the two fallacies. The two wrongs-fallacy attempts to rationalize the rightness of a wrong action on the basis that the action is merely a justified response to a previous occurring wrong action of another or of a similar kind.
         
         
         1. Since the relationships among the ad hominem circumstantial, the tu quoque and the two wrongs fallacy are classified differently in the current logic literature, it's perhaps prudent not to insist upon distinct definitions.
            
            
         2. Usually, however, in the two wrongs fallacy, the first wrong is not taken as an ad hominem recrimination, whereas in the tu quoque fallacy, the initial wrong is taken as an ad hominem attack.[30]
            
            
         3. A fairly typical example of the two-wrongs fallacy is that reported of a London music dealer who was brought before the London Magistrates' Court charged with pirating music:

            “His excuse, such as it was, had not even the merit of novelty, although he pleaded that he sold pirated music on principle and not for profit! He said that there was a music right in London, which certainly paid royalties to authors who could command their prices, but they said nothing of the small authors, whom they bled for all they were worth. The charge for music was extortionate and exorbitant, but he had no wish to rob an author, who had a right to the value of his work.[31]

            The music dealer pleaded that since the publisher paid composers so meagerly and sold the music so substantially, he was justified in freebooting. The magistrate noted the two-wrongs fallacy that robbing a music publisher does not benefit the author of the music and so ruled guilty and imposed a fine.
            
            
            
   3. The argumentum ex concessis is, generally speaking, an argument composed only from declarations or admissions by an opponent (and not from statements generally considered acceptable). The several varieties of ex consessis include comparison of the opponent's concession with another statement either by the opponent or by the proponent of the argument and is not always fallacious.
      
      
      

      Informal Guide to Ex Concessis

      Person L proffers claim c.

      Person L previously held view d inconsistent with claim c

      ---

      Claims c and d cannot both be true.

      
      
      Historically, the wide adoption of the ex concessis as a method of argumentation based on an opponent's own premises was anticipated by Aristotle:

      Moreover, as in rhetorical arguments, so likewise also in refutations, you ought to look for contradictions between the answerer's views and either his own statements or the views of those whose words and actions he admits to be right, or of those who are generally held to bear a like character and to resemble them, or of the majority or of all mankind.[32]

      The fallacy occurs whenever an opponent is charged with taking a position or acting in such a manner (in which case ex consessis converges with ad hominem circumstantial) inconsistent with, or conflicting with, a previous position the opponent accepted. The fallacy is usually based on the comparison of two conflicting positions of the opponent. The charge of mistaken reasoning is supported by any resulting logical inconsistency.
      
      In Biblical scholarship, for example, the use of argumentum ex concessis is used to evaluate consistency between the Old and New Testaments.[33]
      
      
      1. Here's a typical example of the ad hominem ex concessis fallacy:

         “[An] octogenarian professor from the University of Texas named Lino Graglia … dutifully informed the committee that ‘a law ending birthright citizenship should and likely would survive constitutional challenge.’ But consider the source: [he is] a man who by his own account takes ‘a very limited view of the power of the Supreme Court‘ and breezily dismisses contrary precedents.”[34]

         As noted above, this particular type of ex concessis may also be appraised as an ad hominem circumstantial argument. Also, note that the argument does not prove anything with respect to the object of the dispute (i.e., ending birthright citizenship); the argument only points to the opponent's purported inconsistency.
         
         
      2. Nevertheless, in many of the first historical uses of the argument, the argumentum ex concessis is composed upon the statements of the opponent, whether they be true or false: the argument is designated an ad hominem or “personal argument” and is not necessarily fallacious. Revealing an inconsistency in an opponent's claims in a dialectical exchange is, of course, in itself, a legitimate argument.
         
         For example in 1689, John Locke characterizes a way of reasoning in order “to press a man with consequences drawn from his own principles, or concessions.” Locke describes this kind of reasoning as a type of argument rather than as a type of fallacy.[35]
         
         In the early 1700's Isaac Watts describes (without naming) argumentum ex concessis:

         “When it [i.e. an argument] is built upon the profest [i.e., professed] Principles or Opinions of the Person with whom we argue, whether these Opinions be true or false, it is named Argumentum ad Hominem, an Address to our profest Principles.”[36]

         In 1826, Richard Whately defines the argumentum ad hominem in terms of ex concessis and only as a fallacy when “unfairly used” as a “personal argument” rather than an “argumentum ad rem.” Yet, it can be allowed, he says, “in order to silence those who will not yield to fair general argument” and can be allowed in “shifting the burden of proof.”
         
         Whately further points out:

         “[T]he conclusion which actually is established, is not the absolute and general one in question, but relative and particular; … that ‘this man is bound to admit it, in conformity to his principles of Reasoning, or in consistency with his own conduct, situation,’ &c.”[37]

         He adds that such an argument will often justly shift the burden of proof to the opponent.
         
         
         1. This form of the argumentum ex concessis occurs when someone is accused of being hypocritical and is personally accused of not believing in, or not acting in accordance with, commitments he has taken on another occasion.
            
            For example, in his “An Essay on Miracles” David Hume points the inconsistency in the everyday believer by describing supposed miraculous events he presumes no person would presently accept and then submits that it is so likewise reasonable to conclude such incredulous events would not have occurred in the past either.[38]
            
            
         2. Interestingly, in the 1850's, William and Robert Chambers argued that this variety of argumentum ad hominem can be viewed as nonfallacious in cases where the conclusion is the legitimate exception to a rule. E.g., a foundational “commitment” is expressed in the book of Exodus, where God says to Moses:

            “Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore: for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.”[39]

            Yet, in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus justifies to a group of Pharisees (religious leaders who based Judaism in part on the Laws of Moses) his task of healing on the Sabbath as follows as an exception to the law:

            “2 And, behold there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.

            3 And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?

            4 And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;

            5 And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightaway pull him out on the sabbath day?

            6 And they could not answer him again to these things.”[40]

            Thus, in suggesting the practice of healing does not violate the precept of the Pharisees that work defiles the Sabbath, the practice is seen as being in accordance with their beliefs. The practice is seen as acceptable to the Pharisees, but not proved to be acceptable in itself.
            
            
         3. So, in this use of ex concessis argumentum ad hominem, Moses Stuart points out in 1829, “[W]hat is called the argumentum ad hominem or the argumentum ex concessis … the argument is not conclusive in itself, its conclusiveness would be admitted by those who admitted what is implied in the premises.”[41]
            
            
   4. Obviously, a simple inconsistency in thought or action is not a fallacy unless the inconsistency is part of the same argument under consideration. The ex concessis variety of the ad hominem fallacy occurs when the previous commitment or position is not specifically germane to the specific subject under consideration.
      
      
      1. The ex concessis form of the fallacy is committed when an interlocutor states that his opponent's argument must be mistaken because his opponent has previously given an argument or taken a position which is inconsistent with the present argument or position. But the fact that the opponent might, at one time, have believed something different from what the present argument provides, does not necessarily imply the present argument or claim is mistaken as a matter of fact.
         
         
      2. Schopenhauer clarifies another variant of this form of fallacious reasoning: “Should your opponent be in the right, but luckily for your contention, choose a faulty proof, you can easily manage to refute it, and then claim you have refuted his whole position. This trick … is, at bottom, an expedient by which an argumentum ad hominem is put forward … ” [42]
         
         
      3. Another traditional type of ad hominem which can be considered as ex concessis occurs in the course of convincing an opponent when the proponent's view can be shown to be a conclusion of an opponent's prejudices or questionable beliefs.
         
         
         1. Obviously, even if the opponent concedes the view, the view has not been proved to be the case. In this form ex concessis, the argument is directed to the opponent, but the opponent is not being attacked.
            
            
         2. For example, W.E. Taylor notes Bishop Joseph Butler's analogies are an “argumentum ad hominem in defense of miracles and Biblical inconsistencies as they “show indeed that his own conclusions are capable of valid proofs even on the principles laid down by his [naturalistic] opponents.”[43]
            
            

4. Fallacies Related to ad Hominem: Personal, Attack, Name Calling, Poisoning the Well, Guilt by Association, Genetic Fallacy

   Other fallacies associated with, or overlapping with, the main types of ad hominem outlined above include the personal attack, name calling, and poisoning the well, guilt (or honor) by association, and the genetic fallacy.
   
   
   1. The personal attack fallacy is often regarded as a harsh ad hominem abusive fallacy, but it can also occur as an ad hominem circumstantial fallacy. Note the disproportionate criticism in the following example:

      “We hold that the deceitful and vacuous writings presented by Lyotard, and by many of his fellow postmodernists, are texts that purposely lead their readers to stray into errancy. … Often, they reject all and any truth, and merely spread ignorance and mendacity. Hence, these deceitful vacuous writings belong in the dustbin of history!”[44]

      The personal attack is based on what the locutor is accused of doing; name calling is based on who the person is accused of being.
      
      
      
   2. The fallacy of name calling , also often a variant of the ad hominem abusive fallacy, occurs on those occasions where loaded or negatively-slanted epithets or appellations characterizing a speaker are used to cast doubt on the worth of the speaker's beliefs. Often such insults are used to devalue the opposition's arguments or beliefs.
      
      
      1. For the name-calling fallacy to occur, the critic must have used irrelevant name calling as a reason for doubting the advocate's argument or conclusion. Thus, any evidence of the name's propriety is not necessarily evidence against the argument or conclusion itself.
         
         
      2. The following point of view is a typical example of name calling:

         “Justice Antonin Scalia was right. Not about gay marriage, of course. Scalia is so antediluvian he has trouble forcing himself to call it by its proper name.”[45]

         The ad hominem fallacy occurs here since the writer asserts that the reason Supreme Court Justice Scalia does not use the proper term for same sex marriage is that the Justice is antediluvian.
         
         
      3. Note that simply using abusive names to belittle a person is not fallacious in itself. Occasionally name calling is done in order to divert attention away from the argument under discussion. The following passage seems fallacious, but it is an instance of nonargumentative name calling. Lexically, the example can be properly termed an ad hominem, but, logically, not an ad hominem fallacy.

         “Politicians and lawyers pretend they are important people doing important work, but often they're important because they are parasites. They feed off others, while creating no wealth of their own.[46]

         This type of character attack is based on the slanted language of emotive significance rather than based on a logical mistake.
         
         
         
   3. The fallacy of poisoning the well is, in a sense, a kind of preemptive ad hominem argument. In poisoning the well, a disputant claims that an adversary's arguments cannot be trusted to be credible because of an adversary's prior fixed opinion or previous commitment. Such a person is said to be untrustworthy in present assertions because, it is claimed, that person has always been prejudiced and narrow-minded. In nearly all poisoning-the-well examples a person's motives are used to attempt to discredit the claims of that person and so are instances of the ad hominem circumstantial fallacy.[47]
      
      
      

      Poisoning the Well Informal Guide

      Person L proclaims person M has an objectionable standpoint or associations.

      ---

      Person M's claims are implausible or unlikely.

      
      
      
      1. Since we normally assess the truth of a claim by a body of existing beliefs, if the existing belief-set is suspect, then our ability to assess the claim is seriously undermined. So in the fallacy of poisoning the well, odious information about an adversary is preemptively adduced in order to discredit any possible response made by the opponent.[48]
         
         The fallacy is illustrated in the following example where a conservative British politician's assessment of the European Union referendum and Brexit are thwarted by this criticism:

         “The poisonous rancour of Norman Tebbit is nothing new, but even their lordships gasped at his complaint about ‘looking after foreigners and not the British.’”[49]

      2. E.g., consider the following example of accusing an opponent of the kind of fixed bias implicit in poisoning the well:

         “Michael closed his eyes as if to shut out the world around him. ‘You'll never understand what it means to swear allegiance to the flag and to your country. You'll never understand what it means to be a soldier.’

         [Samantha] ‘You're right, Michael, I don't understand, and I will never understand why men have to kill each other. It is beyond my comprehension why you had to fight in this useless war. A war that is so wrong and should have never happened.’”[50]

         Michael's argument here is that since Samantha cannot understand what it means to be a soldier, she cannot understand the values of a soldier.
         
         
      3. In gender studies, for example, poisoning the well occurs when it is sometimes assumed that women and men will never understand each other's point of view because of their inherent differences. From the outset, this assumption forestalls the possibility of a common neutral understanding and sets up an irremediable barrier to meaningful interactive discourse. When examined, such a presupposition would imply that no one could ever understand anything inherently different from one's own point of view. Ultimately, examples such as this one are fraught with difficulties similar to the intractable problem of other minds. For this reason, these types of poisoning the well can be rhetorically defended via a tu quoque maneuver:

         Mary: Your views on limited government can have no possible standing because you're a Republican, and it's a view all Republicans are necessarily possessed by.
         
         John: Well, of course, you cannot understand the need for a limited government since that wouldn't support your own interests as a Democrat.

         I.e., John returns the same kind of biased-based poisoning-the-well disqualification to Mary.[51]
         
         
         
   4. The fallacy of guilt by association, a fallacy resembling in some ways poisoning the well, often makes use of ad hominem considerations. In the fallacy of guilt by association, the contentions or arguments of a proponent are judged on the basis of the proponent's discredited or suspicious affiliations. Thus, the adversary's position is attacked on the grounds that the adversary belongs to some kind of questionable or suspect social group. The allegation is as follows: because the advocate is somehow affiliated with a discredited enterprise, the agent's claims are not credible.
      
      The positive analogue of this fallacy is honor by association where an advocate is connected to an esteemed group and is thereby considered credible. The fallacy of honor by association is one aspect of the cognitive bias first named by Edward Thorndike as the halo effect. Psychologically, a person is often judged in accordance with judgments about associated persons, but this judgment only carries logical import when that association is relevant to the issue at hand.[52]
      
      
      

      Informal Guide to Guilt (or Honor) By Association

      Person L proffers claim c.

      Person L has qualities in common with disreputable (or reputable, if by honor) group G.

      ---

      Person L's character is disreputable (or reputable, if by honor) or claim c is implausible (or plausible, if by honor).

      
      
      
      1. Many instances of this fallacy are instances of what Stuart Chase has termed “guilt-by-verbal-association,” and not physical association. These examples are clearly imparted as examples of the syllogistic formal fallacy of the undistributed middle term. Chase formalizes an example which was used by the real estate lobby during the McCarthy era in the U.S.:

         Communists are in favor of government housing.

         Sen. Taft is in favor of government housing.

         ---

         Therefore Sen. Taft is a Communist.

         As Chase points out, “It is the standard bludgeon of what we now call ‘McCarthyism.”[53]
         
         
      2. And here's a more recent example of what might be called guilt by physical association:

         “[Rep. Michele] Bachmann has raised questions about Huma Abedin, a Muslim-American, who is deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Bachmann's concern is Abedin's relatives in the Middle East some of whom — such as Abedin's mother — she claims ‘are connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.’ Abedin's job, according to Bachmann, ‘affords her routine access to the secretary and to policy making.’ And, as a result of that access, says Bachmann, ‘the State Department, and in several cases, the specific direction of the secretary of state, have taken actions recently that have been enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.’”[54]

         Adducing circumstantial evidence in this fashion of “raising doubts” is also a common tactic in one form of an ignoratio elenchi fallacy.
         
         
         
   5. The genetic fallacy can converge with the ad hominem circumstantial and abusive fallacies, but not all variations involve personal attacks. (C.f., for example, the explanation of the causal genetic fallacy.)
      
      The genetic fallacy is an irrelevant attempt to refute or establish a claim or argument on the basis of its origin or history. The mistake in reasoning occurs because the historical temporal or causal origins of a viewpoint is confused with its logical or justifiable merit.[55]
      
      In other words, the discourse of a historical account of how something came to be is different from the discourse of an analytical account of that thing. Some logicians maintain that ad hominem arguments are directed at a single person or a persons of a certain category whereas genetic arguments involve only circumstantial or ideational sources — other logicians do not make this distinction.
      
      
      

      Informal Structure of Genetic Fallacy

      Standpoint or circumstance x is the historical source of conception or claim y.

      Standpoint or circumstance x is unsatisfactory in some way.

      [Standpoint or circumstance x or its aspects are irrelevant to understanding the conception or claim y.]

      ---

      Conception or claim y is unlikely.
      
      
      The source of how evidence is obtained is often irrelevant to logical significance of the evidence. I.e., the logical correctness of an argument is usually independent of the source or historical origin of that argument. The correctness of a conception should be judged on its own basis rather than judged on the basis of its sources or adherents.
      
      
      1. If the origin of an argumentative claim arises from an agent or person of some kind, the cogency of that claim or belief is not justified when the source is not logically related to the claim. A claim is to be justified on the basis of its own merit.
         
         
         1. Here's a brief allusion to a fallacy which can be properly reconstructed as an ad hominem fallacy or a genetic fallacy:

            “Would one regard a theorem in mathematics less praiseworthy because its discoverer was uneducated, or otherwise disreputably credentialed?”[56]

         2. James William Lett provides two interesting examples of this type of genetic fallacy:

            “Alfred Russell Wallace reportedly conceived the principle of natural selection while in a delirium; to dismiss the theory of evolution of that basis would be to commit the genetic fallacy. Postmodernists who reject scientific claims to knowledge on the grounds that those claims emerged from the hegemonic discourse of a powerful elite are likewise guilty of the genetic fallacy.”[57]

            Note the overlap in Lett's postmodernist example of the genetics fallacy with the fallacy of poisoning the well.
            
            
      2. A second type of genetic fallacy occurs often in the sciences where an entity, state, or activity is reduced to, or identified with, the phenomena or physical processes which occasion it.
         
         
         1. E.g., William R. Klemm appears to commit this fallacy when he writes:

            “[C]onsciousness is constituted by neural events and does not have to intervene in neural processes because consciousness is a neural process.”[58]

            Simply because consciousness arises from neural events, it does not necessarily follow that consciousness, itself, is the same thing as a series of neural events.
            
            
         2. The mind-brain identity theory is often challenged on the same basis:

            “The classic mind-brain identity theory, according to which pain is necessarily C-fiber stimulation, does not allow for pain to be anything other than C-fiber stimulation.”[59]

            The basis for the charge of mistaken reasoning is the claim that since pain originates in C-fiber stimulation, pain is nothing but C-fiber stimulation.
            
            
      3. A third type of genetic fallacy is the presumption that a descriptive historical account of the origin of biological, psychological or ethical aspects of organisms is always sufficient for a logical understanding or a normative justification.
         
         E.g., Peter Godfrey-Smith points to the tenuousness of Thomas Nagel's suggestion that the use of reason should be justifiable on the basis of its biological origin:

         “Nagel does not merely ask for an explanation of how our powers of reasoning come to exist, and how they came to work as well as they do, but also asks that the evolutionary story give us ‘grounds for trusting’ them. This is a demand, though, that no evolutionary account needs to meet.[60]

      4. A fourth form of the genetic fallacy is based upon a distinction made by Hans Reichenbach which “springs from a confusion of context of discovery and context of justification.”

         “The act of discovery escapes logical analysis; there are no logical rules in terms of which a ‘discovery machine’ could be constructed that would take over the creative function of the genius. But it is not the logician's task to account for scientific discoveries; all he can do is to analyze the relation between given facts and a theory presented to him with the claim that it explains these facts. In other words, logic is concerned only with the context of justification.”[61]

         Karl Popper states:

         “The question how it happens that a new idea occurs to a man … may be of great interest to empirical psychology; but it is irrelevant to the logical analysis of scientific knowledge. This latter is concerned not with question of fact … but on with questions of justification or validity.”[62]

         The context of discovery is examined through descriptive and explicative methods of empirical inquiry, whereas the context of justification is the logical analysis of the resultant outcomes of discovery.
         
         
         1. Reichenbach and Popper, notwithstanding, in some arguments factors in the context of discovery are relevant to the import of the conclusion. Often discoveries are made solely by logical reasoning in mathematics and the theoretical sciences. As well, justification in various modes of inquiry often evolves as addition data is adduced. Falsification by means of further discovery can alter theoretical conclusions.
            
            In such cases, a premise stating a relationship between discovery and theory can be correctly part of the context of justification. Obviously, such genetic arguments as these require valuation on a case-by-case basis.
            
            
         2. E.g., the evolutionary and historical origins of some psychological, religious, political, or ethical metaphysical doctrines can be rendered less likely since they are satisfactorily accounted for on empirical principles and the principle of simplicity. This includes using the historical origins of fields of inquiry such as the varieties of conflicting religious beliefs, and interpretation of doctrines; altered states of consciousness and mystical, out-of-body, and deja vu experiences; varieties of conflicting political systems; as well as biological origins of some ethical and epistemological intuition.[63]
            
            
            
   6. Richard Kitchener considers a number of arguments against the genesis–justification distinction, as well as insights against the kinds of genetic arguments raised above:

      (1) the fact–norm distinction,

      (2) the discovery–justification distinction,

      (3) the conceptual–empirical distinction, and, following Quine[64],

      (4) the analytic–synthetic distinction.

      His arguments indirectly indicate that a genetic epistemology is possible; hence, Kitchener effectively shows the possibility of the relevance of discovery or genesis of an idea to its justification.[65] Consequently, with genetic arguments, the question of relevance is crucial in assessing the inferential legitimacy of the argument.
      
      
      
   7. In the following definitions from Dagobert Runes' Dictionary of Philosophy, Ledger Wood limits the application of the genetic fallacy to instances where the original source is deprecated:

      “Genetic Fallacy: The misapplication of the genetic method resulting in the depreciatory appraisal of the product of a historical or evolutionary process because of its lowly origin.

      Genetic Method: Explanation of things in terms of their origin or genesis.”[66]

      The definition of the genetic fallacy, however, is inaccurate since the definition of “fallacy” is broadened here to include an error of explanation involving negative emotive significance, whereas in logical inquiry, the term “fallacy” is usually defined in terms of a mistake in reasoning in arguments. I.e., the mistakes in reasoning are not that the explanation is in error and that the appraisal is negative (or positive). The mistake of the genetic fallacy is in the denial of the truth of an issue on the basis of the irrelevancy of its historical origins.
      
      
      
   8. Not all genetic accounts are defective arguments, and many are controversial. In some cases cognizance of the origins of a viewpoint or conclusion is in fact an inference to the best explanation in inductive argumentation. An evolutionary account of the development of the origin of religious or logical thinking is not always an irrelevant consideration in assessing its trustworthiness even though such an account is not deductively certain.
      
      
      1. Kim Sterelny concludes: “[T]he so-called ‘genetic fallacy’ (the erroneous supposition that a defect in the genesis of something is evidence that discredits the thing itself) need be no fallacy. A causal account of the origins and maintenance of belief can undermine that belief's rational warrant.”[67]
         
         
      2. The structure or correctness of a conception or argument is not necessarily logically independent of the prevailing conditions under which it came to be discovered. Sometimes the understanding of a conception is constitutively reliant on the circumstances of its discovery and development. Thus, a historically descriptive account of how a judgment commences is sometimes essentially relevant to the epistemological status of that judgment. In general, if the argument involves a justification for a person's belief, then how that person arrived at that belief can be relevant. However, if the argument is about the truth of the belief, then how that person arrived at that belief is unlikely to be relevant.
         
         

5. Evaluating Ad Hominem Arguments for Relevance

   Several considerations for evaluating ad hominem passages deserve comment:
   
   
   1. In the examination of scientific, literary or philosophical works, looking at the author's character or circumstance can sometimes provide insight into that individual's standpoint. In other words, ad hominem considerations can show motives and can sometimes provide a frame of reference for deeper comprehension. However, these perspectives do not ordinarily demonstrate the truth or falsity of the ideas. Consider the following passage:

      “John Stacy … made the connection between the radical power of Byron's poetics and his Satanic as well as melancholic genius. Accusing Byron of a ‘misanthropy run mad,’ of trying ‘to make the world believe he is miserable, and to persuade it to be as miserable as himself’, the author writes ‘I grant him genius …, an eloquence of poetry …’”68]

      The suggestion that the brilliance of Lord Byron's poetry might be due to his manic-depressive illness is a literary insight into the possible literary effect of specific characteristics of Byron's personality. No fallacy occurs here because no argument is present.
      
      
      
   2. The character of a person is often relevant for an evaluation of the sincerity of views being offered and so can be relevant for pragmatic decision-making.
      
      E.g., D. M. Varisco explains the necessity of having awareness of Edward Said's circumstances in order to make sense of Said's 1978 polemical book Orientalism objecting to the presumption of Western superiority in its patronizing description of the Eastern World:

      “From the start the reactions to Orientalism, ranging from the ad hoc to the ad hominem, read into Said the critic as well and as poorly as into what the critic was saying. Said's origins and political activism as an Arab-American intellectual can hardly be left out of analysis.”[69]

      The claim, here, is that understanding Edward Said's writing requires knowledge of Edward Said's past circumstances.
      
      
      
   3. A fallacy might occur in passages such as these if the work were to be considered misguided and discredited solely because of the degenerate character and circumstances of the author. The essential question in judging whether or not an ad hominem argument is a fallacy is whether or not the author's character and circumstances are logically relevant to the assertions or the arguments in the work itself.
      

6. Non-Fallacious Uses of Ad Hominem Arguments

   Non-fallacious uses of the ad hominem can occur in diverse descriptive and rhetorical contexts. When evidence about a person's character or circumstances is adduced to disclose the motive for that person's assertion, rather than to dispute the assertion itself, such instances often involve the presence of a causal explanation rather than the presence of an argument.
   
   
   1. In arguments where the character or circumstances are relevant to the substance of the argument, no fallacy occurs.
      
      
      1. E.g., the following passage is not fallacious:

         “If [Thomas] Jefferson's relationship with [Sally] Hemings began in the late 1780's, it would mean that he began to back away from a leadership position in the anti-slavery movement just around the time that his affair with Sally Hemings started. Jefferson's stated reservations about ending slavery included a fear that emancipation would lead to racial mixing and amalgamation. His own interracial affair now personalizes this issue, while adding a dimension of hypocrisy.”[70]

         The hypothesis is proposed that Jefferson's relationship with Hemings abated his reservations toward the anti-slavery movement.
         
         
      2. E.g., John F. Cragan and Craig W. Cutbirth argue when Adalai Stevenson was called a wimp in the 1982 Illinois gubernatorial Election, the ad hominem charge is relevant to the issue of his fitness for office and so is not a fallacious appeal. Cragan and Cutbirth rightly conclude that adducing evidence of unfitness for office is not always a fallacy.
         
         However, Cragan and Cutbirth mistakenly proceed to criticize a number of logicians for proclaiming that any attempt to show a candidate's personal unfitness for office is an ad hominem fallacy. They cite this typical example from S. Morris Engel:

         “Turning attention away from the facts in argument to the people participating in them is characteristic not only of everyday discussions but of many of our political debates as well. Rather than discuss political issues soberly, rivals may find it easier to discuss personalities and engage in mudslinging.” [71]

         Cragan and Cutbirth mistakenly conclude from this passage:

         “The implication is clear. Attacking one's opponent is by definition a fallacy.”[72]

         But this is not correct as Engel states prior to this passage that the fallacy is “an argument that diverts attention away from the question” — i.e., ad hominem qualifies as a fallacy only if it is an irrelevant to some other claim being made.
         
         
         
   2. Moreover, if a speaker merely responds to an accusation pertaining to his character or circumstances by retorting that the accuser also has the same or similar character or circumstances, no fallacy necessarily occurs if there is no (logical) argument present. In other words, if a disputant's rejoinder of the same non-argumentative accusation exhibits the rhetoric of tu quoque, it is not necessarily an instance of the tu quoque fallacy unless the claim is implicit that the rejoinder is intended to disqualify some sort of argumentative criticism from the accuser.
      
      Consider this example of a non-fallacious tu quoque and simple name-calling from the play Twelfth Night in Young England:

      “BLONDEL (indignantly).—You are not one of my century, or you would not be so discourteous. Sir, you are an anachronism.

      TELL.—Sir, you are another.”[73]

      In this exchange, there is just an exchange of incivility: no tu quoque fallacy is present.
      
      
   3. The truth or falsity of a what is said does not depend on the character of the person saying it, unless what is said is directly applicable to the person saying it. E.g., William James famously distinguishes two philosophical temperaments:

      “The history of philosophy is a clash of human temperaments. … Of whatever temperament a professional philosopher is, he tries, when philosophizing, to sink the fact of his temperament. … Yet his temperament really gives him a stronger bias than any of his more strictly objective premises. …I think you will practically recognize the two types of mental make-up that I mean … by the titles ‘tender-minded’ and ‘tough-minded’ respectively.”[74]

      If James were to claim that all philosophers were either tender-minded or tough-minded, but as a philosopher, he is not in either camp, then the argumentum ad hominem against him would not be deemed fallacious on account of the inconsistency of his claims.
      
      
      
   4. Under the U.S. Federal Rules of Evidence and Case Law there are seven proper methods of impeachment in cross-examination:
      
      
      1. Bias, interest, and motive
      2. Prior inconsistent statements
      3. Contradictory facts
      4. Prior convictions
      5. Character for untruthfulness
      6. Conduct probative of untruthfulness
      7. Learned Treatises (other admissible statements, e.g. testimony of an expert witness)[75]
         
         
      Circumstances such as these would ordinarily be relevant factors in judging the veracity of an individual's statements.
      
      
      
   5. In brief, if the characteristics of a person constitute a disconfirming instance of what that person claims, then an argumentum ad hominem is not a fallacious. If the person making a claim individually embodies a counterexample which disproves that person's own claim, then it is not a fallacy to point out this fact to that person. At the same time, many ad hominem arguments provide some evidence and in those cases cannot be considered completely irrelevant arguments.
      
      

7. The Ad Hominem Argument in Rhetoric

   A number of logicians have argued that the argumentum ad hominem is never a fallacy. They argue the ad hominem has been thought fallacious since its instances do not meet the conventional logical standards of deductive validity or inductive correctness of probability.
   
   
   1. On this view, in most everyday contexts of reasoning, validity or formal inductive plausibility is thought out of place. Nevertheless, ad hominem considerations, it is argued, do render some evidence, however weak, and so should not be thereby presupposed to be impertinent.[76] This standpoint serves to emphasize the constitutive contextual nature of informal fallacy identifications.
      
      
      
   2. As mentioned before, when the character or circumstances of an individual are relevant to what that person advances as a claim, the fallacy of ad hominem does not occur. For this reason, Douglas N. Walton has proposed re-naming the ad hominem abusive as the ad hominem direct to reflect the fact that the argumentum ad hominem describes both fallacious and non-fallacious arguments.[77]
      
      Again, as Cummings aptly notes:

      An inquiry that assumes a hierarchical structure, in which reasoning proceeds linearly from propositions that are well known to propositions that are less well known, is ill-equipped to accommodate the reasoning strategies that occur in contexts of knowledge deprivation and epistemic uncertainty.[78]

      Upon occasions of having to make a practical decision in situations of everyday uncertainty, Alan Brinton argues for a rhetorical rather than a logical approach to ad hominem arguments. In these situations, he states ad hominem arguments involve a rhetorical appeal based upon the speaker's character or personality He writes:

      “[T]he most appropriate occurrences (and probably most actual occurrences) of the ad hominem — especially in the public sphere — are to be found in contexts which are in the appropriate ways analogous to the contexts of classical oratory. It is most obviously (although not exclusively) in deliberative contexts that the ad hominem has a place and should be regarded as an acceptable form of argument. These are contexts in which there is a concern with matters of policy and practice.”[79]

      Consequently, the context in which ad hominem occurs is an essential factor in its evaluation.
      
      

8. Ad Hominem Examples with Explanation

   The following examples of the argumentum ad hominem are fairly straight-forward and suggested answers are explained. In each case, note whether or not the character and/or circumstances of the individual being depicted are germane to the claims made.

Ad Hominem Examples

1. “Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. Secretary of State, responding to a question about former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's criticism of her in his memoir: ‘Don can be a grumpy guy. We all know that.’”[80]
   
   Comment: Rather than addressing Mr. Rumsfeld's criticism, Ms. Rice ignores the question, imputes ill-temper to him, and thereby commits the ad hominem fallacy.
   
   
2. “[W]hen consultant/pundit/Democrat Hilary Rosen commented on CNN that Ann Romney had never held a job (and therefore was ill-suited to advise her husband on women's employment concerns), … the Catholic League … tweeted: ‘Lesbian Dem Hilary Rosen tells Ann Romney she never worked a day in her life. Unlike Rosen, who had to adopt kids, Ann raised 5 of her own.’”[81]
   
   Comment: The allusion as to whether reared children are adopted or not is not directly relevant in the context provided for the purpose of deliberating women's employment concerns; thus, the ad hominem fallacy occurs.
   
   
3. “In America, the go-to guy on ADHD is Dr. Russell Barkley … Barkley is on record saying that although behavior therapy (behavior modification) can be a useful supplementary treatment, no approach to ADHD has ever or is probably ever going to completely replace pharmaceutical therapy. In this regard it is significant to note that Barkley has had ties to … the developer of the popular ADHD drug Strattera.”[82]
   
   Comment: Normally the evidence for the truth or falsity of the claim would be, strictly speaking, independent of Dr. Barkley's past connections. However, Dr. Barkley's expertise cannot be entirely disregarded since his testimony and experience is relevant to the issue being discussed. Although biased innuendo is expressed against Dr. Barkley in the original dialogue, this does not necessarily result in an informal fallacy being committed since the fact of much of Dr. Barkley's background is relevant. Nevertheless, this consideration does not entirely justify Dr. Barkley assessment. The best that can be said is that calling attention to Dr. Barkley's association with the developer of an ADHD drug is uncharitable without explaining what those ties are.
   
   
4. ”President Trump is apparently convinced that his son-in-law, who serves officially as a senior adviser, can fix anything. Make that everything. … Kushner is supposed to bring the mindset and practices of the business world to the public sector. Given that his father went to jail for crimes including tax evasion, and that his boss declared four businesses bankruptcies, we can only hope Kushner looks far afield for role models.”[83]
   
   Comment: The implicit argument is that Jared Kushner is unlikely to be successful in his duties by the reasons that his father is a felon and Donald Trump declared bankruptcies. Hence, the ad hominem circumstantial fallacy (guilt by association) is committed.
   
   
5. “Once he [Benjamin F. Butler] was cross-questioning a witness in his characteristic manner (with him politeness, or even humanity, was out of the question). The judge interrupted to remind him that the witness was a Harvard professor. ‘I know it, your Honor,’ replied Butler; ‘we hanged one of them the other day.’”[84]
   
   Comment: Mr. Butler argues that his rude cross examination of a Harvard professor is unexceptional since a Harvard professor was hanged recently — implying the witness' character is determinable by association with other Harvard professors. Again, the ad hominem circumstantial fallacy (guilt by association) is committed.
   
   
6. ”[The New York Times] chronicled the enormous benefits French citizens receive. Paid child care, free higher education, free health care, a mandatory five weeks of paid vacation, monthly government payments for each child … There comes a point when ideology has to be put aside and what's good for the country must be embraced. France is a selfish nation that is going down the drain economically because the folks there want stuff and economics be damned.”[85]
   
   Comment: Although the author of this passage, Mr. O'Reilly, provides cogent reasons that government regulation and high taxes are part of an unsustainable economy, assessing reasons for this conclusion by attacking the character of the French people as wanting stuff, not caring about economics, and being selfish, is not directly relevant: ad hominem abusive.
   
   
7. “Marvin Greenberg … spent many painful years in the garment business. As he sees it, consumers willing to pay more for better — and American — made clothes will remain a definite minority. The vast shopping public demands basement-scraping prices on two-for-one deals. Patriotism ends at the cash register. He's seen it happen. ‘Back in the '50's there was a union protest in Fall River (Mass.) about saving jobs, stopping imports,’ Greenberg recalls. ‘People carrying signs were wearing imported clothes.’”[86]
   
   Comment: Assuming an implicit argument, the conversational implication is that Americans will not pay more for American apparel good because even American garment workers themselves do not do so. Also the reasoning is based on one group of workers to a conclusion about all Americans and the fallacy of converse accident is suggested. Nevertheless, the implicit argument qualifies as a weak inductive argument rather than a clear fallacy.
   
   
8. “The recent hype about global warming comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Most of its members are serious scientists. But reporters don't realize that those scientists, like bird flu specialists, have every incentive to hype the risk. If their computer models (which so far have been wrong) predict disaster, they get attention and money. If they say, “I'm not sure,” they get nothing.”[87]
   
   Comment: The ad hominem fallacy occurs since Mr. Stossel ignores the empirical issues relating to global warming by claiming that the conclusions of the scientists on the Intergovermental Panel are not as much based on empirical evidence as they are based upon scientists attempting to secure recognition and government funding.
   
   
9. “Actress Salma Hayek has just been honoured at Equality Now's ‘Make Equality Reality’ event, for co-founding ‘Chime for Change’, which fights for women's rights around the world. At the ceremony, which also honoured Gloria Steinem, Hayek said: ’I am not a feminist. If men were going through the things women are going through today, I would be fighting for them with just as much passion. I believe in equality.‘ … This is about the astonishing persistence of what I'd term small-f feminist-woman. … The kind of woman, such as Hayek, who accepts an award for helping women at an event also honouring Gloria Steinem (Gloria Steinem!) and then has the graceless gall to use it as an opportunity to announce that she isn't a feminist … You have to wonder — what's with these women and their seemingly all-consuming need to distance themselves from feminism? An unworthy thought crawls through my brain: is this a man-pleasing exercise … Or does it go yet deeper, darker, than that, into the realms of female self-hatred? … While some may view this as an overreaction to some red carpet waffling, to me, this is about small-f feminist-woman and how her unique brand of self-hatred is taking far too long to die out.”[88]
   
   Comment: In addition to the verbal disagreement concerning the meaning of feminism, Ms. Hayek is accused of either “man pleasing” behavior or “female self-hatred” for her statement that she is not a feminist. That restriction, in itself, poses a false dilemma. The journalist commits an ad hominem abusive attack decorated with a persuasive definition and the fallacy of complex question.
   
   
10. “Norman Vincent Peale, a broadcast preacher and author of The Power of Positive Thinking … said [Adlai] Stevenson was unfit to be president because he was divorced. Stevenson said: “I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling.”[89]
    
    Comment: Mr. Peale and Mr. Stevenson both commit the fallacy of ad hominem. Mr. Peale's personal attack turns on a non causa pro causa (that being divorced is a cause a being unfit for the presidency), and Mr. Stevenson's attack turns on name-calling.
    
    
11. Huey Long (Louisiana senator, 1935): “[L]et us take a look at this NRA [Roosevelt's 1933 National Recovery Administration] that they opened up around here two years ago. They had parades and Fascist signs just as Hitler, and Mussolini. They started the dictatorship here to regiment business and labor much more than anyone did in Germany or Italy. The only difference was in the sign. Italy's sign of he Fascist was a black shirt. Germany's sign of the Fascist was a swastika. So in America they sidetracked the Stars and Stripes, and the sign of the Blue Eagle was used instead. And they proceeded with the NRA.‘[90]
    
    Comment: Huey Long, politician and populist, poisons the well by associating the Roosevelt administration with Fascists Hitler and Mussolini in order to castigate the National Recovery Administration, a New Deal agency. However, Long's analogue is not totally misguided as in the same year this speech was broadcast, the Supreme Court ruled the NRA unconstitutional since it violated the Constitution's separation of powers.
    
    
12. “Traditional empiricism insists that the social identity of the observer is irrelevant to the ‘goodness’ of the results of research. It is not supposed to make a difference to the explanatory power, objectivity, and so on of the research's results if the researcher or the community of scientists are white or black, Chinese or British, rich or poor in social origin. But feminist empiricism argues that women (or feminists, male and female) as a group are more likely than men (non-feminists) as a group to produce claims unbiased by androcentrism, and in that sense objective results of inquiry. It argues that the authors of the favored social theories are not anonymous at all: they are clearly men, and usually men of the dominant classes, races, and cultures. The people who identify and define scientific problems leave their social fingerprints on the problems and their favored solutions to them.”[91]
    
    Comment: Certainly the claim that feminists as a group are more likely than nonfeminists to be unbiased by androcentrism (i.e., taking a masculine point of view) is trivially true. Nonetheless, the conclusion drawn that feminists are more likely to produce objective claims of inquiry than those produced by traditional empiricism does not logically follow from this tautology. Further evaluation of this argumentative passage depends to a great extent on the context of the presentation and the background assumptions upon which the argument is based. Nevertheless, the author argues that feminists, unlike nonfeminists, are not androcentric and thus produce claims which are objective results of inquiry. Since the adequacy of scientific theories is measured in part by comparison of observed results to expected results (an independent confirmation whose veracity is not dependent upon whether or not the originators of the hypotheses in question happen to be androcentric or gynocentric), the genetic fallacy occurs in this quoted selected passage. Note that biased selections of empirical observations in order to present specific points of view, whether complied intentionally or unintentionally, are precluded by traditional empiricism as improper scientific method. Additionally, scientific theories and hypotheses are repeatedly experimentally tested in accordance with procedural methods in observation and experiment as part of the normal course of scientific development. Thus, there is a justifiable “logical distinction between the psychological processes which occur when a scientist thinks of new ideas and the logical argument which exhibits the degree to which those ideas are supported by the facts and other evidential considerations.”[92]
    
    

Arguments | Language | | Fallacies| | Propositions | Syllogisms | Translation | Symbolic