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Wireless Philosophy
Course: Wireless Philosophy > Unit 1
Lesson 2: Fallacies- Fallacies: Formal and Informal Fallacies
- Formal and Informal Fallacies
- Fallacies: Fallacy of Composition
- Fallacies: Fallacy of Division
- Division and Composition
- Fallacies: Introduction to Ad Hominem
- Fallacies: Ad Hominem
- Ad Hominem, Part 1
- Ad Hominem, Part 2
- Fallacies: Affirming the Consequent
- Fallacies: Denying the Antecedent
- Denying the Antecedent and Affirming the Consequent
- Fallacies: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
- Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
- Fallacies: Appeal to the People
- Fallacies: Begging the Question
- Begging the Question
- Fallacies: Equivocation
- Fallacies: Straw Man Fallacy
- Fallacies: Slippery Slope
- Fallacies: Red Herring
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Fallacies: Introduction to Ad Hominem
In this video, Julianne Chung offers a brief introduction to ad hominem fallacies, or fallacies of personal attack. She surveys six different types (abusive ad hominem, circumstantial ad hominem, tu quoque, guilt by association, genetic fallacy, and ad feminam), offering examples of each along the way. For a more detailed discussion of ad hominem fallacies, please see the video on ad hominem fallacies by Paul Henne.
Speaker: Julianne Chung, Yale University.
Speaker: Julianne Chung, Yale University.
Want to join the conversation?
- Can you give me the reasons for the ad feminam fallacy?
I honestly don't see the need for it when the other fallacies seem to cover it, if that is a fallacy then why not the 'ad blackam', 'ad jewam' etc, etc,,, this honestly makes no sense to me... :S(12 votes)- Ad feminam is used very little in philosophy and it's a subset of the abusive ad hominem fallacies because it attacks the personal characteristic of gender. Prejudices against race and religion are also abusive ad hominems and they're no better or worse than ad feminam: It's just that people have made the ad feminam fallacy because they think people have historically used that fallacy a lot to undermine women. "Feminam" isn't a real Latin word, but that doesn't mean the fallacy doesn't exist. If you wanted to, you could make up "ad blackum" and "ad jewam" if you wanted to, but because you made those terms up, you would always want to define the terms in the beginning of the article/paper so people would know what you were talking about. In fact, I would suggest doing the same with "ad feminam" because it's almost never used.
Again, "ad feminam" doesn't come up in philosophy much and personally, I would always use abusive ad hominem over ad feminam.(7 votes)
- So what is the answer to the last question?(5 votes)
- I think it's Guilt by Association: If you argue AGAINST a viewpoint by claiming someone you DON'T like agrees with that viewpoint, then doing the opposite - arguing FOR a viewpoint by claiming someone you DO like agrees with that viewpoint - is the same fallacy.(7 votes)
- Is there anyone else who found "Ad hominem" ti be your favorite fallacy? It has always been mine. There a lots of ways to engage in fallacy, but among them is there any better than Ad Hominem?(2 votes)
- My favorite is the fallacy fallacy where you erroneously claim that, just because your opponent committed a fallacy, that s/he is wrong. A fallacy only shows the evidence doesn't support the conclusion...something wrong with the argument. It cannot reveal the truth or falsity of a claim.(13 votes)
- Is it just me, or is she heavily biased in favor of altruism? Shouldn't these videos, especially the introductory ones, be neutral and focus on the concepts, not a particular philosophy?(3 votes)
- Perhaps, you mean that example about money and charity? You can think so, yeah. Anyway, it seems inevitable because those fallacies can easily be connected to ethical questions. It's one way or another, but I don't think that content creator was making it intentionally.(4 votes)
- P1: A characteristic is defined as a 'distinguishing attribute, quality or trait'[1].
P2: Gender is a 'distinguishing attribute'.
P3: An ad feminam argument is one which attempts to ignore a person's argument on the basis of their female gender.
P4: An abusive ad hominem argument is one which presents a person's characteristic as a reason to ignore their argument.
C1: Therefore, gender is a characteristic.
C2: Therefore, an ad feminam argument is an abusive ad hominem argument.
[1]. The definition of a characteristic according to Collins dictionary. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/characteristic(3 votes) - Are there any examples of fallacies similar to ad feminam, but pertaining to race, religion, sexual orientation, or something of the like?(2 votes)
- They are all potentially ad hominem. Ad hominem is latin, literally meaning "to the person". Appealing to 'race' (a problematic concept to begin with), sexual orientation, or sex/gender would all be arguments directed "to the person" instead of the topic of discussion. That is, saying "your argument is bogus because you are black/female/straight" would be an ad hominem.
If the topic of discussion is religion then one can present arguments for and against it, but one shouldn't say that because an opponent subscribes to religion X therefore their argument is suspect (that would be an ad hominem). But saying religion X has a feature Y which is troublesome for reasons Z would be fine – there nothing is argued "to the person" but to the topic of discussion, which is a certain ideology that happens to be one that the opponent (currently) subscribes.
Notably, race (as commonly understood) and sexual orientation (as commonly understood) are also biological properties one cannot help, but a religion is an ideology, which are always up for debate (with proper arguments, preferably).(2 votes)
- With the genetic facility example of the criminal entrepreneur being used to prove that the business as a whole is corrupt, wouldn't the accuser be guilty of a fallacy of composition? If so, what is the difference between the two?(1 vote)
- The genetic fallacy is committed when an idea/person/thing is erroneously judged as per its origins e.g. the idea of religious tolerance came from the Mongols who were a barbaric cruel people. Therefore, religious tolerance is a bad thing. The origin of a person/idea/thing has historic value and helps us in understanding a people, a religion, a worldview, etc. but this has no influence on the merits and demerits of an idea/person/thing.
A fallacy of composition occurs when the collective WHOLE is erroneously said to possess an attribute of the PARTS. For example, atoms are invisible. I am made of atoms. Therefore, I am invisible(2 votes)
- Is the last example one of the guilt by association fallacy, used to support an argument rather than condemn it? Instead of attacking a statement by saying some unsavory person supported it, they are elevating it by saying a well-respected person supported it.(1 vote)
- I think the answer to the last question is guilt by association. Am I correct? If not then please clarify.(1 vote)
Video transcript
(intro music) Hi, my name is Julianne Chung, and I'm a graduate student
at Yale University. Today, I am going to talk
about ad hominem fallacies. "Ad hominem" is a Latin term that can be translated into
English as "to the man," which is a very literal translation, or "against the person," which
is a bit more descriptive. Ad hominem fallacies are
also very often called "fallacies of personal attack." This is because such
fallacies are commited whenever one attempts
to challenge a position by criticizing something
having to do with its source, thereby shifting attention
away from the points at issue, and focusing it instead on
those who are arguing for them. There are many different
kinds of ad hominem fallacies. We are going to briefly survey six here. They go by the following names. First, abusive ad hominem. Second, circumstantial ad hominem. Third, tu quoque. Fourth, guilt by association. Fifth, genetic fallacy. And sixth, ad feminam. Abusive ad hominem arguments present personal
characteristics of individuals as good reasons to discount their ideas. However, although certain
personal characteristics might give us reason for suspicion, they do not affect the virtues of claims considered on their own. Here's an example of such an argument: "We should never think that
anything politicians ever say "is true, because they're
all dirty, lying scumbags." It should be easy enough to see that this argument does not give us reason to discount everything
that politicians say. Indeed, even those who
are the least admirable likely say true things at
least some of the time. Whereas an abusive ad hominem argument works by attacking an individual directly, a circumstantial ad hominem argument attempts to challenge a person's position by suggesting that she
is advancing it merely to serve her own interests. Although this can be seen as abusive, circumstantial ad hominem arguments differ from abusive ad hominem arguments in that they focus on
their target's situations, rather than on their
personal characteristics. Once again, however,
although such arguments may give us reason to question
an individual's intentions, they do not impact whether
her claims themselves are nonetheless worth taking seriously. Consider this argument: "Summer vacation should be abolished. "Any student who argues otherwise
should not be listened to, "because he or she stands to
benefit from its continuation." Although me might wonder
whether a student who opposes getting rid of summer vacation is doing so solely out of self-interest, that has no bearing on
whether it should indeed be eliminated or not, or whether such a student's
arguments are any good or not. Plenty of excellent
positions and arguments also happen to benefit
those advocating them. That does not diminish
their merit, however. Another tactic that is
often used to attack claims by undermining their
advocate's credibility involves allegations of a
certain kind of hypocrisy. This fallacy goes by the name "tu quoque," which in Latin means
"you too," or "you also." When one commits the tu quoque fallacy, one accuses the person
of acting in a manner that contradicts some
position that she supports, and concludes that her view is worthless on account of the fact that she failed to follow her own advice. However, whether someone
is acting in a manner that is somehow in tension with the position she is advancing has no bearing on whether
it is right or wrong, although it can admittedly
strike us as somehow dishonest, or less than noble. Here's an example: "I can't believe you're
trying to convince me "that I should give more money to charity, "when you don't give
nearly as much as I do." Whether the person that
this argument attacks (let's call him "person B")
gives as much money to charity as the person advancing
this argument does (let's call her "person A") has no bearing on whether
person A should or should not give more money to charity. Presumably, that depends on other things besides what B is doing, say, for example, how
much money person A makes, how much money person A
presently gives, and so on. The guilt by association fallacy is committed whenever one tries to argue against a certain view by pointing out that some unsavory person is likely to have agreed with it, as in: "Chocolate chip
cookies can't be any good. "My philosophy professor loves them, "and she is the meanest
teacher I have ever had!" As we all know, chocolate
chip cookies are delicious, despite the fact that some
mean people think so as well. A claim can be true
despite its being endorsed by someone we don't like. However, while arguments that commit the guilt by association fallacy aim to cast a claim into question by condemning someone who is
likely to have agreed with it, the genetic fallacy occurs
whenever an attempt is made to cast a claim into question
by condemning its origin. Here's an example of an argument that commits the genetic fallacy: "The founder of organization X "served time in prison for embezzlement, "so we can conclude that the organization "must still be corrupt." We can imagine this
argument being advanced in order to argue against a claim to the effect that organization X offers many excellent services and deserves financial support. However, the mere fact that
the founder of organization X was a criminal does not
show that the organization currently acts in a way that
is morally unacceptable. Things could have
changed a lot since then. As a note, arguments that
commit the genetic fallacy can also be used positively,
to support claims rather than undermine them. The last fallacy that I am
going to talk about today goes by the name "ad feminam." Ad feminam arguments
attempt to discredit a claim on the grounds that a
female person proposed it. Such arguments often include
statements to the effect of: "Why should I believe
anything you have to say? "After all, you're just a woman." I take it to be more or less obvious as to why such arguments
are deeply problematic. How about this example? Does it commit one of the
fallacies just considered? If so, which one? "Ronald Reagan was in
favor of similar policies, "so they must be the right thing to do." Subtitles by the Amara.org community