A has (perhaps accidentally, unknowingly, or compulsively) done something counter to these views.
Therefore A necessarily does not really support these views.
Examples:
Al Gore supports legislative measures to retard global warming.
Al Gore uses a lot of energy/has a high carbon footprint.
Therefore, Al Gore does not really support working against Global Warming.
(Just because he uses too much energy doesn’t change what he thinks is RIGHT, he’s just bad at it).
Some guy says he’s a feminist
Said person also enjoys porn (which in the arguer’s world view, is anti-feminist)
Therefore he does not really support feminism.
(Pretty much the same as above)
Jim says he supports prohibition.
Jim is an alcoholic.
Therefore, Jim isn’t really in support of prohibition.
(Jim being an alcoholic may be the REASON he supports prohibition, he thinks it will help him quit)
John says he does not believe you should curse in front of children.
John said “Fuck!” in front of his son when he cut his finger off while chopping wood.
Obviously, John really thinks its okay to curse in front of children.
(Jim, in extreme pain, is liable to forget his surroundings. It could also be a compulsive reaction to extreme pain.)
I don’t think this would necessarily be a formal fallacy, because in some cases the reasoning is stronger (usually with multiple notable instances contrary), and maybe even sound, consider:
John says he’s against gun rights
John is a card carrying member of the NRA, and makes frequent donations to them.
John lied in 1., he is likely for gun rights.
The more I think about it, the more I think it’s just vanilla No True Scotsman, because fundamentally the definition of “belief” does not entail “action.” But it also shares similarities with Tu Quoque (the fact you do the opposite does not make the advice bad).
So is it just No True Scotsman and I’m overthinking it, or is this some other beast/not a fallacy at all?
It’s garden variety hypocrisy. Not a fallacy. There’s no logical proposition to be false. There’s a false premise involved, but a fallacy is a faulty logical process, not faulty data.
Yep, hypocrisy.
In the field of public policy, it’s not even necessarily hypocrisy - it’s not hypocritical to play the rules as they are while wanting the rules to be changed. Rich people can pay low rates while wanting their tax rates to be higher; Republican governors can oppose the stimulus and then take stimulus funds for their state; etc.
The hidden premise is that people never even accidentally perform actions that could be seen to be inconsistent with their beliefs. This premise is false.
However, a hidden premise that is more specific might be true. And if you throw in fuzzy logic, which is a better model for human behavior than binary logic, and you’ll find even more cases. For example:
John says he is against gun rights.
John is a member of the NRA
(implied) Members of the NRA are very unlikely to be against gun rights.
Therefore John is very likely lying about being against gun rights.
The hypocrite is the object of the argument, not the one doing the arguing. I guess No True scotsman almost covers it, but as defined No True Scotsman is about defending an absolute statement, while this argument is using an absolute statement to attack.
No True Scotsman:
1: All Scots love haggis
2: My uncle, a Scot, hates haggis
1: All true Scots love haggis
Reverse Scotsman
1: No true environmentalist would have a large carbon footprint
1: Al Gore has a large carbon footprint
1: Al Gore isn’t actually in support of fighting Global Warming
It could be if the OP is referring to his conclusions in the 3rd item. The evidence in the examples that counter the initial claims don’t necessarily invalidate them. I didn’t read it that way initially, but perhaps that’s what he’s asking about.
It’s not really a fallacy of any type. One way of inferring beliefs is by observing actions, on the premise—which is generally, but not absolutely, true—that people act in conformity with their beliefs. And that people do not always truthfully report their beliefs (sometimes this is a product of a conscious desire to mislead, other times not).
For instance, we might all agree that it is better to be frugal and to save our money, but we all also probably have our own extravagences. Thus, if we were to lecture someone about how they should avoid frivolous purchases, they might point out our own improvidence. This could perhaps be called tu quoque, if you need a Latin spell to defeat your opponent. And there is a measure of truth in observing that a good message is not necessarily negated simply because it finds itself on the lips of a flawed messenger.
But we also know, particularly when it comes to advising others how to act, that sometimes we hold people to standards much higher than we hold ourselves and make judgments about failing to reach that standard. And we might want to hear how those judgmental types excuse themselves, so that we might also avail ourselves of that excuse.
TL;DR: there is no magical Latin (or Wikipedia article head) to be used here, instead you must do the rhetorical heavy lifting of explaining why one exception is reasonable and another exception is not.
Nitpick. This is an inductive argument (with a hidden premise something like “If someone actively supports the NRA they very probably favor gun rights”), and therefore cannot be sound. Only deductive arguments can be sound. It does, however, seem to be inductively strong and (if 2 and the hidden premise are true) cogent.