Is this an ad hominem?

Great Debates
1

So I’m over at the LBMB. I say that someone was using an ad hominem attack against someone (this is not important), but then someone on that board said that I used one. I asked where?

He pointed out to a thread which was about whether the story of Sodom was not necessarily saying homosexuality was wrong. An interesting discussion occured, until someone brought up NAMBLA. Anyway, here is the exchange as it occured:

Him:

My response:

The person who accused me says that calling him “the king of fallacies” (or even in the running for such a crown) was an ad hominem.

I replied, bullshit. (Okay, I can’t use that word there, but I wanted to). I was responding to the arguments he said - in this case, refuting them by calling them fallacies - and saying essentially “All of your arguments are fallacies,” only in the snide way that this dude deserved.

This was countered that the moment I said “You,” I was talking about the person.

Bullshit again, say I! If I was calling the person a walking, talking fallacy, then yes, that would be bad. But I was not doing this, because frankly, that’s a rather wack interpretation.

I mean, “You are a fallacy” might make a funny diss on the playground or in a Flypside post, but it doesn’t make much sense.

So, I ask all of you to tell me. Was what I said a fallacy itself? Or was I simply being a jerk, which is perfectly acceptable in debate (as David B will attest! Sorry, I couldn’t resist!)?

Yer pal,
Satan

2

Here is how SingleDad’s link descripbes it:

So it doesn’t look like you’ve committed this fallacy. If you had said, “You’re wrong about what you’re saying because you’re such a King of Fallacies”, then yes, you would have committed it. Merely pointing out someone else’s fallacies is not in itself a fallacy.

3

I think that what you did was simply a funnier (to me, at least) version of saying “you are wrong Wrong WRONG!”

Now, somebody could disagree with that, but it’s certainly acceptable in debate to tell someone that they are wrong. It’s even acceptable to say that you think that everything that they have said has, so far (in your opinion), been wrong.

If someone said I am the king of the typos, I would disagree but still see their point–my typos are numerous! If someone said I’m the worst typist who ever lived, I would know that they are either joking or unaware. If someone said I couldn’t type to save my ass which is not worth saving and my family sucks and I will die alone and miserable and they hate my very existence on this earth…

THAT would be an ad hominem.

Your buddy,
Bucky

Oh, well. We can always make more killbots.

4

Let me see…you’re posting to a message board populated by people who are devoted to a series of books about people who are not raised bodily into heaven and are thus pretty much condemned to a thousand years in a lake of fire, and you’re worried about whether there’s a problem with calling one of them the King of Fallacies?!? If “King of Fallacies” was the worst you called any of them, I am in awe of your restraint.

But to answer your question, I would say no, you did not commit an ad hominem because you correctly labelled all opposing arguments as fallacies rather than blowing off the arguments with an attack. Had you not addressed the arguments, or if you answer future arguments with “you’re the King of Fallacies so you must be wrong” then you’re GAC.

5

You didn’t use the “King of Fallacies” line as an attempt to prove yourself right or him wrong, as near as I can tell. Abusive, perhaps. Insulting, maybe. Logical fallacy? Hell, no.

6

Well, Satan, what you have made is an ad hominem attack. You attacked him personally rather than confining yourself to demolishing his argument.

However, you did not make is an ad hominem argument. An ad hominem argument would be: “You argument is fallacious because you are damn fool.”

What you did is show how his argument is fallacious and then call him a damn fool. Your personal attack (and a mild and humorous one at that) was not part of your argument.

By the way, do the fine folks at the LBMB know that you post here as Satan?

You don’t have a thing to worry about. I’ll have the jury eating out of my hand. Meanwhile, try to escape.

Sig by Wally M7, master signature architect to the SDMB

7

They do now… :smiley: Seriously, most of them do.

So what’s the difference between an ad hominem attack and an ad hominem argument?

Seems to me that as long as you are not doing the latter, you are not comitting a fallacy.

In other words, if one was to refute several points within the fair spirit of debate, and end it all up with, “And on top of that, your mom dresses you funny,” this is not a fallacy, just being a jerk, yes? No?

I am fully prepared to apologize over there if I am wrong. I just don’t think I am, and thus far, popular opinion seems to mostly back me up… But I will NOT apologize to someone who compares homosexuality to necrophiilia simply for being a jerk, because he deserved that treatment, IMHO.

Thanks…

Yer pal,
Satan

8

And who is “billy the witness”? Is that a Xtian version of Billy the Kid?

9

Satan wrote:

Right, except you’ve got it backwards. It’s the attempt to make an argument by means of an irrelevant personal attack that constitutes an ad hominem fallacy.

One common error that people make is to confuse these two senses of ad hominem, the fallacy and the insult. Often, when people encounter an insult in discourse, they call it an ad hominem and then by equivocation treat it as a fallacy. (note: the fallacy of equivocation occurs when two different senses of a given word are treated as the same)

An insult is only a fallacy if a conclusion is supposed to follow from it. If an argument is salted with an insult, but no conclusion is claimed to follow from that insult, then it is irrelevant to the validity of that argument that this is an ad hominem attack because it is not an ad hominem fallacy. For example, the following is not an ad hominem fallacy:

If you hadn’t been so atrociously undereducated, you would have known that the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410, and therefore Rome was clearly not at the hight of its power in the 5th century CE.

The fact that an ad hominem attack occurs does not affect the validity of the argument.

To avoid this confusion, I only use the term ad hominem when referring to the fallacy. In the case of an insult, I use the word insult.

10

falicys dont mean the arguement is untrue either.

Also necrophilia should be treated on par with homosexuality. Treating necrophilia worse than homosexuality would be like saying other religions are worse than christanity.

11

Otto mused:

I know that is not a fallacy, at best is a mis-understanding of what the majority of people that frequent the site in question believe. So, I guess you are assuming what our beliefs are, and are lumping all poster of said Message Board into one group.

It might be better to frame your statement in the form of a question, so that you can better understand our beliefs, and make more intelligent generalizations.

Peace.

† Jon †
Phillipians 4:13

12

On topic. I would say that Brian made an ad hominem attack, but did not make an ad hominem fallacy.

An agrument often carries more weight if it doesn’t end with a remark of sarcasm.

Well that is my opinion, anyways. :wink:

Peace.

† Jon †
Phillipians 4:13

13

Asmodean wrote:

Arguments are neither true nor untrue. They are either valid or invalid, and invalid means the same thing as fallacious.

Navigator wrote:

You’d think so, wouldn’t you? In reality, wit of any kind will usually add vitality and purchase to an argument, though it will not add any validity. No one is more impressed by logic than by rhetoric, though many people kid themselves that they are. Yeah, I know; you’re an exception, I’m an exception, everybody here is Mr. Fucking Spock.

14

According to my reading of your response, you committed no logical fallacies at all.

Your first two statements correctly point out logical fallacies in the argument.

Since the author most definitely committed two fallacies (which is obvious from the original argument) your third statement is supported by the first two true assertions. It is not in any way fallacious.

It is clearly not offered as an argument for or against whatever proposition you happen to be discussing; thus it is a rhetorical point, and not the fallacy of Personal Attack.

Given the tone of the other post you quote, it seems a certain degree of rhetorical latitude seems acceptable.

I sucked up to Wally and all I got was this lousy sig line!

15

Actually, strictly speaking, the first is not a false dilemma. Creation and natural evolution can be considered comprehensive, mutually exlusive alternatives. Regardless, the first poster did not use the dilemma to make a point, but to discuss consequences of the alternatives.

He did make two fallacies, though. The first is assuming facts not in evidence: that individual reproductive success is the only criteria for genetic propogation. There are a lot of mechanisms that contribute to genetic selection, e.g. the “altruistic uncle effect”, where non-reproductive members contribute to the reproductive success of family members, causing that gene to propagate “by proxy” as it were.

The other fallacy is the Natural Law Fallacy. The observation that nature operates in a certain manner is not an argument for moral or logical correctness of that operation; that nature does not operate in a certain manner is not an argument for its incorrectness.

And I am the King of Fallacies! In the positive sense, though! :wink:

I sucked up to Wally and all I got was this lousy sig line!

16

Uhhuh-huhuh-uhuh

He thed “fallacy.”

Insanity destroys logic, but not wit. Nathaniel Emmons

If we are out of our mind, it is for the Lord; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 2Cor.5:13

17

Well, I disagree. Creationism and evolution are not comprehensive or mutualy exclusive. Furthermore, by refering to Creationsim when in fact the orinal post was refering to specific Christian beliefs, you seem to have fallen for the fallcy that if Creationsim is true, then Christianity is true.

It certainly looked like the poster was heading in that direction, but I didn’t see him actually get there. Did you?

Furthermore, I object to Satan’s statement that the poster was comitting a straw man fallcy. In order to commit a straw man fallacy, one must first put forth an intentionally weak argument, then defeat that argument, and finally either state or imply that one has defeated an entire position by defeating a specific argument. I sort of see the intentionally weak argument, but I don’t see any explicit refutation of the argument, nor do I see any conclusions drawn from such a refutation. Is there a separate fallacy for linking two positions together (e.g. “If you think that homosexuality is okay, you must think that all of these activities are okay”)? If he were actually saying that by attacking necrophilia, he was also attacking homosexuality, that would be one thing, but instead he’s asking for his opponents to defend a bunch of positions en masse, which is, I suppose, still a fallacy, but not a straw man. Perhaps this should be called an “en masse fallacy”?

18

The Ryan wrote:

It doesn’t have to be explicit, so long as it is refuted by implicature. The question then is whether the reader is supposed to take it as read that a refutation follows, and even if the reader is, can the author weasel out of his own implicature?

19

Brian,

I would say your comment was within the classical definition of argumentum ad hominem. In classical debate settings, comment addressing the person in any way is deviation from the matter under argument, and therefore in scoring terms, a full point off for the particular address. Assuming the argument itself had any merit, this might allow a score of zero, at best, for the address being judged. Your comment was not germane, after the analysis of his errors. Having described his fallacies, you had possibly negated a point from his previous offering, but then failed to make a point yourself. If you were being judged, the best you could hope for was a tie at zero to zero.

Internet exchanges rarely meet the criteria of formal debate. The classic logical fallacy is still bad reasoning, in any setting. The fact that the man is a jerk does not bear any validity in overturning his contentions. His argument must stand on its merits. An idiot can be correct. A correct answer does not change the fact that he is an idiot, nor does his idiocy prevent his idea from having merit. Argument or attack of the person is logically invalid without regard to the reasons or intentions of the attack, or argument.

Tris

Imagine my signature begins five spaces to the right of center.

20

Such a fallacy is possibly a weak analogy, where superficial similarities are used to construct an inaccurate analogy, which is in turn used to support a conclusion. In rhetorical arguements, weak analogies usually cary a taint of the fallacy of Suppressed evidence; often it is fair to assume that the one making the weak analogy is refusing to acknowledge/ignoring important data that weakens the analogy.

This fallacy may also be considered to be a Fallacy of Composistion, where the aspects of a part are wrongly atributed to the whole. In this case, the “whole” would be “non-typical sexual practices, as seen by the OP”, with Necrophilia and Homosexuality as two parts of this whole. THe fact that the OP mentions several other “deviant” sexual practices in his post suggests that he is, in fact, commiting a fallacy of composistion.