“How ‘confident’ could a person be if they are wearing ten pounds of makeup?”
Ad Hominem: a fallacy that occurs when an arguer is guilty “of attacking his opponent rather than his opponent’s evidence and arguments.”1
An ad hominem attack is a way for one debater to discredit another debater’s attempt to argue for a position. It attacks the person’s character and motivation, rather than attacking the actual argument itself. The expected outcome is that the hearers will no longer give an ear to the discredited debater’s position due to their ill-will against him/her personally. Since this argument fails to address the actual issue(s) being debated, it is an error in reasoning.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states, “According to Van Eemeren and Grootendorst [1992], an instance of ad hominem is a violation of the first rule for critical discussion, which maintains that ‘Parties [to a dispute] must not prevent each other from advancing standpoints or casting doubts on arguments.’ Different kinds of ad hominem (abusive, tu quoque, and circumstantial ad hominem) are different violations of this rule. In this case, it suffices to say that the debater’s attack on his opponent can be seen as an illegitimate attempt to deny him his right to make a case for his position.”2
A personal example: A couple years ago, a person posting in one of my forums commented on my use of makeup. His comment was something like, “How ‘confident’ could a person be if they are wearing ten pounds of makeup?” So the goal was to discredit my arguments by commenting on my personality or character. The reader was supposed to think that because I wore make-up in my picture, my arguments were not valid. This is a clear example of ad hominem; attacking the person instead of addressing their arguments. (I did break down his ad hominem argument…”Exactly how much make-up, would you say, constitutes a person’s lack of evidence for an argument? I suppose if you are addressing my grooming habits instead of the evidence presented for the resurrection, you must not have anything to say against my arguments.”)
A political campaign version: It is not my intention here to promote one candidate over another in this use of an example from the last senatorial race. However, the example was so evidently ad hominem that I thought it would be another good real-life illustration.
Jack Conway ran a commercial against Rand Paul that started with these words, “Why was Rand Paul a member of a secret society that called the Holy Bible a hoax; that was banned for mocking Christianity and Christ [the image shows this as during his college years]? Why did Rand Paul once tie a woman up, tell her to bow down before a false idol, and say his god was Aqua Buddha? Why does Rand Paul now want to end faith based initiatives and deductions for charities? Why are there so many questions about Rand Paul?”3 The viewer was supposed to react with a strong distrust concerning Rand Paul’s character and consequently pay no attention to his arguments for his platform. They were also supposed to insinuate Paul’s motivation for his proposal with regard to faith-based initiatives and deductions for charities as based in a suggested dislike of Christianity. This was a clear-cut example of attacking the man rather than his stated arguments or position.
Throughout the presidential campaigns, look for instances of ad hominem and notice how campaign marketers hope to manipulate voters through emotions rather than to earn votes through their candidate’s position on the actual issues.
MJ
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[1] “Informal Logic.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available from: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-informal/#One. Accessed on May 13, 2011.
[2] Ibid.
Hi MaryJo,
Great Blog! I am going to be teaching a logic class for high school students who are home schooled, so I'm very interested to read the rest of this series as I'm looking for examples and ways to communicate this information to them.
I wanted to ask you a question in hopes that you may be able to expand a little more to help me think through this. In the example you gave where a commercial was run against Rand Paul attacking his character, wouldn't you say that when it comes to the election of public officials, their arguments as well as their character are to be taken into account? If this is the case, then is this really an ad hominem if they were simply trying to show flaws in a man's character instead of a flaw in his arguments?
I'd love to get your thoughts. Thanks!
Blessings,
Miguel
Miguel,
Thanks for your question. Of course character is an important part of a candidate. The problematic logic in the Conway commercial occurred when Conway attempted to argue against the issue of Rand Paul's faith-based initiatives cuts by attacking his character. Conway could have avoided ad hominem and legitimately questioned Paul's character…if he had specifically aimed the commercial at doing so. It is not a logical fallacy to question someone's character.
Notice in the commercial, though, that Conway's reasoning for questioning Rand Paul's cuts is based in a character attack. Conway did not stick to establishing Paul's "questionable" character. He used the character attack as evidence that Rand Paul had anti-Christian motives for his proposed faith-based initiative cuts. If Conway wanted to prove that Rand Paul has an anti-Christian motive(or bias), he should have stated this goal clearly and provided evidence of Paul's bias in the commercial. Instead, he merely suggests that Rand Paul's background gives Paul an anti-Christian motive for cutting faith-based initiatives. Conway attempted to damage Paul's public image, instead of directly handling the arguments for and against cutting faith-based initiatives.
This commercial seems like an attempt to throw Christian voters off the trail of researching Paul's reasoning for cutting faith-based initiatives…and perhaps from researching Conway's stance on this, as well. Therefore, the commercial also utilizes a red herring fallacy. Conway should have argued against Rand Paul's reasoning for cutting faith-based initiatives. Then he could have responded to these cuts with a line like, "I'm Jack Conway, and I won't be cutting faith-based initiatives…so vote for me if you want to see those initiatives remain as they are." No ad hominem. No red herring. No fallacies.