{"id":68,"date":"2004-06-09T23:47:38","date_gmt":"2004-06-10T04:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/server97.snhdns.com\/~ravik\/wp\/?p=68"},"modified":"2004-06-09T23:47:38","modified_gmt":"2004-06-10T04:47:38","slug":"what-is-an-ad-hominem-argument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/classic\/200406\/what-is-an-ad-hominem-argument\/","title":{"rendered":"What is an ad hominem argument?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I got into a rather nit picky argument about whether an argument I made was ad hominem <\/i> or not. The debate is here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Here is a kind of preparatory test for Cartel membership. Which of the following arguments are ad hominem<\/i> fallacies?
\n
\nA:<\/b>
\nX:<\/i> The BJP failed to win nationally because they abandoned their core principles.
\nMe:<\/i> The BJP “stuck to its core principles” in TN and see where it got them. They went along with Jayalalitha because she passed the anti-conversion bill. They aligned with something called the Hindu Munnani, and see where they are now? <\/p>\n

B:<\/b>
\nDoctor:<\/i> You have cancer.
\nPatient:<\/i> I know from your records that your previous fifty diagnoses have been proven wrong. Why should I believe you?<\/p>\n

C:<\/b>
\nAlleged Rape Victim:<\/i> The accused raped me.
\nLawyer:<\/i> Is it true that the night previous to the alleged rape, you willingly slept with the accused?
\nA R V:<\/i> Yes
\nLawyer:<\/i> In that case, why should we believe that the accused raped you?<\/p>\n

D:<\/b>
\nCEO:<\/i> I have a plan for turning around the company.
\nShareholder:<\/i> All the previous companies that you managed have declared bankruptcy. Why should we approve your plan? <\/p>\n

Answer<\/b>
\nNone of them<\/i> are, prima facie<\/i> ad hominem attacks. <\/p>\n

For an argument to be ad hominem<\/i>, it is not enough that the argument attacks the person. It should attack the person instead <\/i> of the person’s argument, i.e. the attack on the person should have no relevance at all to the argument. That is not the case with B, C or D. In all three cases, the questions about the person’s ability or credibility are relevant to the argument. Obviously, if the doctor has a history of misdiagnosing diseases, in the absence of more information<\/i>, I’d be wary of trusting him. If a woman has willingly slept with the accused the night before, she wouldn’t have much credibility is she claims that the accused raped her the next night. Likewise, if we aren’t allowed to question a CEO’s record, how on earth are we to judge anyone at all? <\/p>\n

However, it would<\/i> be a an ad hominem<\/i> argument if we persist in disbelieving in a claim even if there is other evidence to back it up, solely because of the credibility of the person making it<\/i> If the doctor backs up his diagnosis with convincing evidence (I suppose it will have to convince other doctors) or if the woman shows evidence of signs of struggle, then it would be ad hominem<\/i> to disbelieve this evidence solely based on the doctor’s or the woman’s (lack of) credibility. Clear? Now don’t quibble with me saying “But that is not how I<\/i> define ad hominem<\/i>” My definition takes care to distinguish between a fallacy and a reaonable guess. Your’s doesn’t. So there.<\/p>\n

What about A? Ah there I made a switch. Yes I recast the argument, but that is the point. The substance of my argument remains the same regardless of who is my opponent.<\/i> “The strategy faiiled in TN, so why should we trust it to succeed all over India?” is a good argument regardless of who is claiming that the BJP did badly because it abandoned its core principles. The counter argument “TN is a special case. Not generalisable all over India” is not fallacious either. It simply means that we disagree on a question of fact. (I of course, countered that counter-argument too. But let’s not get into that now.)<\/p>\n

Anyway the point I am trying to make is that we should be careful before we go about accusing people of fallacies. Not all mistakes are fallacies, and just because a person has committed a fallacy, it does not mean that he has made a mistake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I got into a rather nit picky argument about whether an argument I made was ad hominem or not. The debate is here. Here is a kind of preparatory test for Cartel membership. Which of the following arguments are ad hominem fallacies?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}