Category Archives: Ad Hominem

Ad hominem circumstantial, Appeal to the People, David Brooks, False equivalences, hollow man, oversimplified cause, Plain Bad Arguments, specious comparisons, Suppressed Evidence, Weak Analogy

Inner Witlessness

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David Brooks has a problem with all you people and your outrage over the rape of young boys.  So take a break from feverishly trying assuage your liberal guilt with innumerable OMG SANDUSKEEZ A PERV OMG #librulzrule tweets and witness the real root of your outrage: your own vain refusal to acknowledge the capacity of human beings to deceive themselves about their willingness to act.

I know. A shocking thesis. Let's hear it again.

People are outraged over the rape of young boys because they are trying to mask their own guilt at knowing they would probably also do nothing.  Quoth Brooks:

First came the atrocity, then came the vanity. The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been accused of doing at Penn State. The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in Joe Paterno’s shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary’s shoes, they would have behaved better. They would have taken action and stopped any sexual assaults.

Unfortunately, none of us can safely make that assumption. Over the course of history — during the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide or the street beatings that happen in American neighborhoods — the same pattern has emerged. Many people do not intervene. Very often they see but they don’t see.

So, if people can't stop a genocide, they can't stop a rape.  That seems off to me, but who am I to say? After all, Dave has SCIENCE!

Even in cases where people consciously register some offense, they still often don’t intervene. In research done at Penn State [ed. note: site where study occurred chosen, like, totally at random] and published in 1999, students were asked if they would make a stink if someone made a sexist remark in their presence. Half said yes. When researchers arranged for that to happen, only 16 percent protested.

In another experiment at a different school, 68 percent of students insisted they would refuse to answer if they were asked offensive questions during a job interview. But none actually objected when asked questions like, “Do you think it is appropriate for women to wear bras to work?”

First, we're given no indication of (1) the source of these studies, (2) the size of the samples, or (3) whether or not they were published, and therefore subject to the rigors of peer review.  For all we know, this was some odd balding guy with wire-rimmed glasses and a bow tie and a New York Times press pass, wandering around Happy Valley and Different School University creeping out students with odd questions.  Second, of course self deception could be only explanation for the responses to these studies.  It couldn't be that college age individuals are often poorly educated as to what constitutes sexual harassment or inappropriate sexual behavior, or that the studies appear, at least on their face, engineered to elicit a specific response.  Nope. The only explanation is that people deceive themselves as to the extent they would act to stop another human being from being harmed. Why, you might ask? Dave has answers, bros:

In centuries past, people built moral systems that acknowledged this weakness. These systems emphasized our sinfulness. They reminded people of the evil within themselves. Life was seen as an inner struggle against the selfish forces inside. These vocabularies made people aware of how their weaknesses manifested themselves and how to exercise discipline over them. These systems gave people categories with which to process savagery and scripts to follow when they confronted it. They helped people make moral judgments and hold people responsible amidst our frailties.

But we’re not Puritans anymore. We live in a society oriented around our inner wonderfulness. So when something atrocious happens, people look for some artificial, outside force that must have caused it — like the culture of college football, or some other favorite bogey. People look for laws that can be changed so it never happens again.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the tendencies noted in the second paragraph stem from an adherence to the codified moral systems whose absence from present day society is implied by the same paragraph! But perhaps I'm simply deceiving myself. After all, as someone who considers himself a vehement opponent of old men raping children, I'm obviously just pontificating from my perch high atop the moral high ground. Right, Dave?

Commentators ruthlessly vilify all involved from the island of their own innocence. Everyone gets to proudly ask: “How could they have let this happen?”

The proper question is: How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive. That was the proper question after Abu Ghraib, Madoff, the Wall Street follies and a thousand other scandals. But it’s a question this society has a hard time asking because the most seductive evasion is the one that leads us to deny the underside of our own nature.

Seems to me the proper question is how we can stop 55 year old football coaches from using the facilities of one of the most illustrious athletic programs in the nation to rape boys.  Seems to me the proper question is how we might rebuild the power structure at Penn State to ensure that the full powers of that institution of higher learning are never put in service of the protection of a child rapist.  Seems to me the proper question is why a judge that worked for the foundation this man used as his child rape pool, was allowed to hear this man's case and then set him free on unconditional bond.  If my thinking that these are the proper questions make me someone who is simply trying to assuage liberal guilt, then I prefer the deception to the alternative.

Which, on the basis of Brooks' claims, seems to be nothing.

Ad hominem circumstantial, General discussion, Inexplicable, Pat Buchanan

Gospel of greed

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According to Pat Buchanan, taxing investment at something north of half of the rate work is taxed is

rooted in the philosophy of envy and the gospel of greed.

(Video here.  Why's that?

Mr.Buffett says he is unhappy because he doesn't pay as high a tax rate as he says his secretary does.

I suppose he envies his secretary's high tax rate and is greedy for more tax payments.  Watch the clip, not even John McLaughlin can make any sense of this.  Asking Buchanan to explain how it is that Buffett's claim that it is unfair that he pays a lower tax rate on his investment than his secretary does on work might amount to greed or envy, Buchanan retorts:

I think he's a plutocrat who is playing to the crowd.

Plutocrats, always playing to the crowd by demanding higher taxes on themselves.  This has to be the worst ad hominem circumstantial in the history of the McLaughlin Group.

Ad hominem circumstantial, Ad hominem tu quoque, Argument from Double Standards, Argument from Inconsistency

The symbols of my religion are religiously neutral

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Joseph Ianfranco and Byron Babione's recent post at the American Spectator, "Atheists Attack 9/11 Cross," deserves some comment, as it instantiates a troubling bit of doublethink when it comes to defending state-sponsored religious symbolism.  On the one hand, there is the line that these symbols are representative of the religion of the society, and so what's wrong with a democracy that reflects the religious views of the majority?  On the other hand, there is the line that recognizes the necessity of restraint, but also holds that using the specific symbols in question doesn't amount to government endorsement of any particular religion.  The trouble is that you can't have both. 

They run their first line of argument by quoting the majority (with Kennedy as the lead writer) in the SCOTUS Salazar v Bruno case regarding a giant cross erected in the Mojave desert:

The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion's role in society.

That's fine, but the key is that using that symbolism for lots of people's acts displays those people's acts in the light of those religious stories.  There's having holidays on days that people of the dominant religion will likely take off, then there's using their symbols to invoke public virtues.  This puts too much stress on the establishment issue, so defenders of religious symbolism then demur that the symbolism is all that religious to begin with.

Who drives by such a cross and immediately sees an "establishment of Christianity" instead of a memorial? Not most Americans, 72 percent of whom favor inclusion of the 9/11 cross at the New York memorial and see no constitutional violation.

Huh. That's funny, as invoking the opinions of the majority of people won't save the case that is the tyranny of the majority.  As if the issue was settled as follows:  You say this is the majority overreaching its bounds?  Well, 75% of the people we polled say this is just fine with them!

But the deeper issue is the strange cultural blindness that Christian monoculture imbues people with.  The state erecting a giant cross doesn't look in the least like an endorsement of Christianity, because crosses just mean piety and holiness and such.  That's just what crosses mean, right?   It seems reminiscent of the Wittgenstein joke about the Frenchman who said that French is the best language, because the words come out in the order that you think them.

 

Ad hominem tu quoque, Appeal to Fear/Threat, Argument Analysis, Argument from Double Standards, Argument from Inconsistency, Specious allegations of fallacy

Scare quoque

Mallard Fillmore's recent take on the President's rhetorical strategies:

This is an argument about arguments — namely, that scare tactics are bad, but it's worse to be a hypocrite about using them.  So the score tally goes:  Republicans -1 for using scare tactics, Obama +1 for chastising them for using the tactic.  Obama -1 for using scare tactics, and -1 for being a hypocrite about using them.  (And +1 for Fillmore for pointing out the scare tactic, and +1 for pointing out the hypocrisy.)

Now, a question.  Surely arguing that policy X will have bad consequences (or not following policy X will have the bad consequences) appeals to people's fears, but (a) so long as those things are bad and worth fearing, and (b) X is a crucial element in either avoiding or bringing about those consequences, aren't arguments from fear also good arguments from prudence?  The scare tactic is not composed of simply pointing out that something bad will happen if we don't do something — it's comprised in shutting down discussion about what is the best way to avoid the bad consequences.  Take for example the insurance salesman who says something like: people your age often can get sick and die with no warning — that's why you need St. Bartholomew Insurance to take care of your family if that happens.  The fact of the sudden death may mean that you should get insurance, but it certainly doesn't mean that you should get St. Bartholomew Ins.  We don't get why the Republicans or Obama are using scare tactics here, but it is a real question for us when we're being scared to accept a conclusion that doesn't follow.

Ad hominem circumstantial, Appeal to the People, ignorance of basic matters of logic

Wave the flag, miss the point

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Melissa J. Ferguson, at Cornell University, just released findings showing that exposure to the American flag inclines you to vote Republican.  The more you saw the flag before the '08 election, the more likely it is that you voted for McCain.  The more you saw the flag in '10, the more likely you voted Republican — even if you self-identified as a Democrat.  This is troubling for two reasons.  First, it seems that patriotic displays count in favor of Republicans.  And so the causal connection is actually the other way — it's not that Republicans wrap themselves in the Flag because they're Republicans, it's that they're Republicans because they wrap themselves in the Flag.  That occasions the second piece of troubling news — it's imagery that's having the effect on people, not reasons, evidence, or anything like that.  Change a few features of your environment, and next thing you know, you're a conservative.  That should give conservatives pause about what basis they really hold their convictions.

But all that is beside the point when Lisa Fabrizio at the American Spectator responds to the news.  You see, she can't take the good news (that her ideological stripes have an advantage) without being suspicious of who's bringing it:

What is intriguing though, is the motivation behind these studies. Because they expose the tremendous anxiety of liberals when confronted by American patriotism, they reveal more about the observers than the observed. Because, in the main, liberals are ashamed of our country and all that it has represented and all that represents it: mainly our military and our flag.

But it seems she hasn't been paying attention. It's not the imagery that's the problem.  It's the ideology that the imagery serves that's the problem for those liberal folks.  To get hung up on the images is to miss the point.

Even the colors of the flag are cause for concern amongst those who despise what it stands for: purity, vigilance and valor. No, in modern America, liberal hearts do not beat true for the red, white and blue.

Now it's about color schemes.  Surely there's a correlation between you wearing an American Flag jacket or  John Phillip Sousa on your ipod and how you vote.  But the findings show that for many conservatives, it's the imagery that makes the determinations.  How does the motivation behind the researchers (whether or not they are liberals, commies, or whatever) influence the troubles for conservative conception?  Maybe, as noted before, it really is more a game of identity politics than anything else. You already know what to expect when you see someone wearing a tricorn hat.

Ad Hominem Abusive, Appeal to the People

Everyone ’round here loves the ad populum!

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Quin Hillyer, over at the American Spectator, is running the "We don't cotton to his kind" argument about President Obama's policies and style of governance. Hillyer has recently moved to Mobile, Alabama after years in Washington, D.C.  He's now writing about how everyday Americans in RedState American cities (or, as Hillyer calls them, "The Real America") have their American sensibilities offended by so obviously an un-American President. 

More than anything else, though, again and again and again, the question comes at me, with a deep concern almost plaintive in nature: Who is out there who can beat Obama and do an okay job? This isn’t merely a “Clinton is a scuzzbucket” or a “Carter is inept” sort of sentiment. This is different. This is an expression of the conviction that what Obama is doing, along with the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, is alien to our very idea of what being an American means.

All of the alien ideas are: the health insurance mandate and government stimulus spending.  But what Hillyer takes as the indicator that Obama is so alien isn't really that he objects to his policies.  He takes it that because Obama doesn't go in for flag-waving extravaganza, he's not one of us.  Same goes for pretty  much anyone associated with him:

Does anybody doubt that Van Jones would sneer at the tri-colored bunting? Does anybody doubt that White House Science Czar John Holdren would look askance at the propagation of so many carbon-emitting children? Does anybody really think that Obama himself feels real joy at hearing a 13-year-old recite the Declaration’s words about rights endowed by a Creator?

Yes, it's come to this — the lefties are sneering cheese-and-brie-crowd haters of America and Americans. 

Ad hominem tu quoque, Argument from Double Standards, Argument from Inconsistency, specious comparisons

Slut walk? I’ll watch!

Chrisopher Orlet begins his column at the American Spectator, "Feminist Foolery," with an interesting observation about the slut walk phenomenon.

In the interest of clarity, a SlutWalk — the latest gambit in the increasingly raunchy women's movement — is when college gals dress up like tramps in order to protest something no one believes anyway (at least no one who isn't a complete Neanderthal), i.e., that suggestively dressed women deserve to be sexually harassed.

So far, Orlet is on the map in terms of reasonable positions to take: i) sex-awareness movements needn't be so explicit, and ii) the revealing clothing message is old news.  That's not to say I think he's right, but these aren't ridiculous views, and it does seem to show he's been paying attention (and perhaps, that he's learned a lesson).  Oh, and then he follows it up with:

Not surprisingly, SlutWalks are quite popular on college campuses. Especially with frat boys who get to ogle scantily clad young women sashaying round the quadrangle.

Yeah, maybe he doesn't really understand, and all those reasonable views were held on accident.  Not surprising, really, given that he recently argued that he could be more civil in argument, if that might make it more likely that he could get lucky.  Yeah, the justification for an argumentative norm is that it is conducive of coitus (though I think it was a joke). And here's the evidence that he doesn't get the point about sexual harrasment and rape. He thinks there's a double standard being used everywhere else in the slutwalkers' lives:

… [D]espite what the SlutWalkers preach, we are judged by what we wear (and how we talk, and how we behave, even how we chew gum) and no number of skanky protests is going to change that.  Just try showing up for a job interview dressed like Amy Winehouse or Courtney Love and see how far that gets you. I'm willing to bet my last dollar that these same SlutWalkers, when they interview job seekers or size up potential dates, judge people by what they wear.

Fine, but, you know, there's a difference between judging people by what they wear and groping and raping them on the basis of that.  In the interest of clarity, it seems we must state again that it was that last thing that the protests were about.

Ad hominem tu quoque

Ironic, in other words, tu quoque

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Target stores are doing their best to fight the unions.  They've made some anti-union videos to be shown during training sessions.  They employed union actors to make the videos.  Here's the story in Salon.com, and the author, Justin Elliot, sees the tension:

Oh, the irony! Target Corp., long locked in a battle with labor organizers, filmed a notorious internal anti-union video with union actors and under the jurisdiction of one of the biggest unions in the entertainment business.

The trouble with the observation, at least argumentatively, is that it's clearly a critical statement, but it's not clear yet what the criticism amounts to.  What follows from the fact that Target used union workers to make a video against unions?  The actor who is one of the spokespeople in the video, Ric Reitz, felt it was "awkward" for him, not for Target.

Tu quoque arguments, like with many of the fallacy forms, usually are deployed cursorially, and one element of this cursorial presentation is conclusion suppression.  And so it has been said: 

Have you ever noticed that liberals want to kill babies but save the lives of hardened criminals?

Have you ever noticed how Christians worship someone who calls himself the prince of peace, but they themselves are crazed warmongers?

What follows from either of these tu quoque cases?  Not clear in either, but they are clearly critical.  And so some reconstruction is in order.  Perhaps with the liberals one, the observation is that the values are upside down, and so we know something about the kind of person who'd make that error.  Perhaps with the Christians case, the point is about self-deception.  Those are pretty charitable, but, hey, even fallacy forms deserve a little love.

So what's the charitable interpretation of the Target case?  One interpretation of Target's actions is that they did not look into whether the actors were union-affiliated, or if they knew so, their being in a union is immaterial, because these employees are utterly temporary, and Target won't have to deal with them again.  Store employees are different, and that's what they are out to prohibit.  Another charitable interpretation of Target's actions is that they genuinely do believe that unions get in the way of good business practice, but they won't begrudge individual actors and actresses who've made the error of joining one.

How about charitable interpretations of the argument as criticism, though? Here's one: Target has a double standard. On the one hand, there are actors, and they deserve the protections that unions can provide.  And on the other hand, there are the people that Target employs.  Target treats them however they like. Here's another: Target will play ball with unions. They just don't like to.  Here's one more: Target recognizes the quality of work that unionized workers provide, and they use them for crucial jobs.  But store workers are replacable, and so get no such treatment.  So far, they are just ad hominem arguments about character, but that's an improvement from cursorial tu quoque.

Ad Hominem, Fallacies and Other Problems, General discussion, Ignoratio Elenchi, Informal Fallacies, Red Herring

A Missing the Point and Red Herring Sandwich

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Cleaning out my drafts folder I came across this from a few months ago. I've always been baffled by those who argue against someone's concern for animal {suffering, lives, rights, etc.} by asking why they aren't concerned with some other form of injustice or suffering. Most of the time it isn't so wonderfully clear a case of missing the point.

Came across a nice case of "missing the point." In the aftermath of the release of an undercover video revealing animal abuse at an Ohio farm, Farm and Dairy editor Susan Crowall wrote a column in favor of the truth about the animal abuse, much of which raises skeptical questions about whether abuse was perhaps sponsored by the undercover agent, etc.. But, at the end of her column she shares the reflections of her husband on this incident.

There is no way to talk about the alleged incidents of animal abuse at the Ohio dairy farm without becoming emotional. When I went home from work last week and shared the emerging story to my husband, however, he found a way to put it in perspective in a new way.

Where are the undercover videos, where are all these well-funded activists, he asked, when it comes to children instead of animals?

. . ..

I’m not trying to downplay the incident. I watched the video once and I will not watch it again. Wanton animal abuse or neglect is inexcusable.

But I also agree with Keith. There are no multimillion dollar-backed undercover investigators, no news conferences, no outraged blog posts or online comments, no protests around homes, in 99% of the child abuse cases. There are just underpaid, overstressed social workers, and a society that cares too little, too late.

As nice a case of missing the point on Keith's part as you can find in a textbook. It may well be true that we should have more undercover investigators exposing child abuse, but, Keith is really just missing the point, and Crowall seems willing to use his non sequitur as part of her red herring strategy to change the subject in whatever way possible.

But, that's not all we find of logical interest in her column. Earlier, we find a nice attempt to impugn the motives of the organization that released the video:

“Animal agriculture is incapable of self-regulation,” condemns Mercy For Animals on its blog. MFA was the group behind the undercover footage and its packaging and release on the Web.

But readers need to be aware of the group’s ulterior motive, and that is promoting a vegan diet (vegans try to eliminate the use of animals for food, clothing or any other purposes). Nothing excuses the actions of the dairy farm employee, but you need to know where this group is coming from.

Not exactly an ad hominem, but certainly seems ad hominish.

And then we get a nice red herring rhetorical move in the form of a series of questions all of which are meant to suggest that there are big unanswered questions that might shed light on the incident.

Who was the undercover “investigator” from Mercy For Animals? When was he hired, if he was posing as an employee? Did he know Gregg before he arrived on the farm? When was Gregg hired? What is the farm’s process for checking references? Who were these guys’ references?

After these sorts of videos come out, it is now standard practice for the industry to attack the undercover investigator (or is that "investigator"?) for complicity in the animal abuse, and now, the industry and its lobbyists are attempting to make such investigations illegal, though several state legislatures have not passed the proposed legislature (Minnesota and Florida).

Ad hominem tu quoque, Argument Analysis, Argument from Inconsistency, Argument Schemes, Fallacies of ambiguity, General discussion, Good Arguments

Your wife or a snake?

Critics of anti-speciesist arguments, like presumably the Foundation for Biomedical Research in my previous post, often fall back onto simplified hypothetical moral situations in order, typically, to elicit an inconsistency in the opponent's belief sets or between their beliefs and actions. These arguments typically take the form of asking "your dog or your child?" On the basis of the inconsistency, there are a number of possible consequences that they might wish to suggest or draw, including:

a) Opponent's anti-speciesist view is false.

b) Opponent's anti-speciesist view is weakened.

c) Opponent is an unreliable judge of the moral issue due to the incoherence of their belief set.

d) Opponent is an unreliable judge of the moral issue due to hypocrisy.

As we've commented before, these Subjunctive Tu Quoque arguments are often fallacious, though sometimes they have some probative significance (e.g., by dialectically shifting the burden of argument). But, there is another case of argument that looks like the Subjunctive Tu Quoque, but operates differently.

P1: Opponent S asserts p, either generally or in situation A, on moral ground U.

P2: But, opponent S would assert ~p, in situation B.

C3: Opponent S should not hold p on moral ground U either generally or in situation A.

Here's an example from philosopher Carl Cohen.

"Tom Regan enjoys outdoor activities, and we can well imagine that on some cross-country hike a child of his may be bitten by one of the Eastern diamondback rattlesnakes abundant in those North Carolina woods, or a cottonmouth, or copperhead perhaps, or during a winter holiday in Martinique his wife may be struck by the fer-de-lance, a snake whose bite is often fatal if not swiftly treated with an antivenin. Happily, there is treatment readily available for such excruciatingly painful bites, an antivenin that is waiting for the Regan family or any family in need of it, at any good hospital in North Carolina or the Caribbean. But would Tom Regan's child be allowed to receive it? Here is the problem. The needed treatment for the bites of the family of pit vipers is Antivenin (crotalidae) Polyvalent-serum globulin obtained from the blood of healthy horses that have been injected with snake venoms to cause of the development, in their blood, of the needed antibodies. Those horses have been used without their consent, with some pain to them. But, if the antivenin is not administered quickly, children bitten by rattlesnakes (or other pit vipers) will suffer terribly, may lose an arm or leg, or even die." (Carl Cohen and Tom Regan, The Animal Rights Debate, Rowman and Littlefield, 2001. p 242.)

Here Carl Cohen is following out what he takes to be the consequence of Tom Regan's animal right's position. I don't think that he is actually arguing against Regan's view here, instead he is setting out the practical stakes of Regan's position before examining "with a very skeptical eye the philosophical arguments by which it is claimed that 'animal rights' are established" (p.243).

But, one might formulate an argument as follows:

P1: Tom Regan asserts that animals have rights not to be used for human purposes generally.

P2: But Tom Regan would/should assert that humans have the right to use animals (horses) in situation B.

C1: Tom Regan should not hold that animals have rights not to be used for human purposes generally.

or, C2: Tom Regan's judgment in P1 is unreliable.

This argument might have a similar structure as the standard reconstruction of the Socratic Elenkhos articulated by Gregory Vlastos, an instance of the Argument from Inconsistency. Though in the Elenkhos, we would add some additional premises to which the interlocutor agrees that entail C1, or for Socrates (on Vlastos' interpretation) the stronger claim that the original belief (animals have rights not to be used for human purposes generally) is false (Vlastos, Gregory "The Socratic Elenchos" Journal of Philosophy 79 (11), 1982, 711-714).

But, there is an important difference between arguments of this sort and the reconstructed implicit argument of FBR's billboard. In the case of Cohen's hypothetical, the hypothetical is an instance of the principle in question. In the case of FBR's billboard, the hypothetical is not. To put it simply:

Cohen: Using horses to produce anti-venom is a counter-example to the principle that animals have rights not to be used.

FBR: Saving a little girl rather than a rat is not an instance of the general category of using animals in research.

So, FBR cannot, I think, defend the implicit argument by modelling it on an implicit Elenctic argument. Conclusions about the use of animals in research is a non-sequitur from the assumed answer to the billboard's question.