AD HOMINEM FALLACY: WHAT IT CONSISTS OF AND EXAMPLES - PHILOSOPHY - 2025

The ad hominem fallacy or ad hominem argument (against the person) describes a situation in which, instead of attacking the argument, the person is attacked despite the fact that the personal attack is irrelevant for the purposes of analyzing the argument that makes person.

For this reason, the ad hominem argument is called in various ways: personal abuse, against the person, against the man, abusive fallacy, personal attacks, insults, condemning the source and rebuttal by caricature. This is one of the hundreds of fallacies that exist to manipulate others consciously or unconsciously.

The term fallacy describes a type of error present in an argument or reasoning. Very clear examples of ad hominem fallacies we see daily in press statements or in debates between political leaders or candidates who occupy positions of popular representation.

The ad hominem argument is almost always a device used to desperately attack another when there is no better or more decent argument. The ad hominem fallacies have two variants: the ad hominem circumstantial and the ad hominem tu quoque.

What is the ad hominem fallacy?

The ad hominem fallacy is a Latin term whose meaning is "against man." As the literary term expresses it, it involves commenting on or against an opponent and discrediting him to nullify his arguments.

For whatever reasons, consciously or unconsciously, the opponent's arguments are questioned by attacking the person instead of evaluating the validity or not of the arguments used.

In general, these types of arguments are confused with personal insults, but in reality they are not the same. These have a different nature, although the differences are very subtle.

Someone who is unfamiliar with the basic principles of logical argumentation may end by uttering an insult, or perhaps mentioning some unpleasant aspect of another person with whom you are arguing about an issue.

But there are people who consciously use the ad hominem fallacy as a device to combat an argument and mislead the public.

Ad hominem fallacy in politics

This type of fallacy is commonly used deliberately in political activity. Political candidates or leaders employ the ad hominem fallacy with the intention of discrediting their opponents or overthrowing their arguments.

It occurs even in oral and public trials that are held in court, where lawyers appeal to discredit the witness to undermine his testimony.

By making a comment of a personal nature against another person, you diminish your credibility with others or at least that is what is intended with this kind of fallacy.

Personal attacks are likely not enough to rebut an individual's argument. However, they can help undermine someone's opinion, criticism or argument if they are not noticed in time.

Classification

Fallacies are generally divided into two classes: formal and informal. Informal (inductive) fallacies are very frequent in everyday life, as they depend on the content (argument) and the purpose of the reasoning.

The purpose of these types of fallacies is to convince a person or group with irrelevant information. In these, emotions are appealed and not logic.

Ad hominem arguments belong to the so-called informal fallacies and are classified in the subgroup of relevant fallacies.

In addition to the ad hominem fallacies, this same subgroup includes other fallacies such as the argumentum ad verecundia or appeal to authority, the ad populum fallacy (appeal to popular opinion) and the bandwagon fallacy, which appeals to fashionable arguments or attractive for their popularity.

Variants of the ad hominem argument

Ad hominem circumstantial

It is used to discredit the person by appealing to their past and their convictions or circumstances. Despite being a more subtle attack plot, it is still an attack of a personal nature.

Ad hominem tu quoque (you too)

It is a fallacy or sophistry by which the person is discredited by confronting them with comments or actions that they have said or done previously.

This fallacy appeals to the coherence that the person must have in time, completely discarding his argument properly.

Function

A writer's background plays a decisive role in rating their work. Hence, a book written on a certain topic will be perceived differently, depending on the author's background.

In this sense, it must be understood that the features and circumstances in which the writer lives play a fundamental role in the way he expresses himself, in his ideas and feelings, and even in the way in which he constructs his arguments.

Considerations that can be made about the use of this fallacy can better explain certain arguments and the motives behind them.

However, such assessments will never be sufficient by themselves to qualify a person's opinion, nor will they be sufficient to dismiss them as false or invalid.

The ad hominem fallacy tends to suggest and even influence the public mind. And as has already been said, being a plot defect is often difficult to detect in our daily lives.

May or may not be true

It should be clear that the personal attack made against an opponent may or may not be true. The truth is that, despite its defect, it has an enormous power of persuasion. To combat it, it is necessary to point out where the false connection of the argument is to manipulate the audience.

The problem is that when ad hominem is used, the reputation of the person is stained, because there will always be doubt about the argument raised.

Examples

Example 1

"It is striking that you favor a vegetarian diet on the grounds that it is healthier, but how do you like to eat a good grilled steak, right?"

Instead of leading the argument against the vegetarian diet, the person is attacked with an element of personal order by appealing to their food tastes.

Example 2

«For my opponent it is justified to raise the price of gasoline. Of course, he has a car and a driver, we all pay for it with taxes.

The increase or not of gasoline is part of a fiscal policy of the government in order to balance state expenditures. Therefore, it is irrelevant whether or not the opponent buys gasoline for financial purposes.

Example 3

A: “All murderers are criminals, but a thief is not necessarily a murderer; therefore, he is not a criminal.

B: «Then, in addition to being a thief you are a criminal, there I leave you your poor argument».

"A" wants to make the distinction between a thief and a criminal to assess the degree of dangerousness of each, but "B" refutes it by attacking him personally.

Example 4

Carlos: «The Earth revolves around the Sun because the Sun always rises from the west and always falls towards the east».

Daniela: "You are not an astronomer, so you are wrong about the movement of the Earth."

Instead of establishing whether the argument used by Carlos is false by dismantling its content with another argument, Daniela attacks him only because she is not an authority on the matter, without taking into account that to know about a certain topic it is not necessary to have a related profession with said matter.

Example 5

"You are probably defending marriage equality because you may not have been entirely honest with us in this room about your own sexuality."

The attack goes directly against the person and their sexual orientation, which may or may not be LGTB, to refute their argument in favor of that type of marriage.

References

1. Argument ad hominem. Retrieved March 10, 2018 from sophisme.com
2. The Nature of Fallacies. Consulted from philosophy.lander.edu
3. Ad Hominem (Abusive). Consulted of logicallyfallacious.com
4. Ad Hominem Examples. Consulted of examples.yourdictionary.com
5. Ad Hominem. Consulted of literarydevices.net
6. Ad Hominem Fallacy. Consulted from iep.utm.edu