# Understanding Tu Quoque **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 11, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737 "2009-09-11T21:38:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/21 "2009-09-12T09:07:04Z")
“Too quo-kway” ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/22 "2009-09-12T10:48:19Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > I think a large part of what’s at issue here is that many of us have been arguing with each other about the same old shit for nearly a decade. We keep having to repeat ourselves only because those other guys just won’t listen, they’re impervious to facts, they’re driven by partisanship, they have ideological blinkers, etc. 😉 My personal favorite type of _tu quoque_, one which the OP knows well himself through his own frequent use of it, is the imagined one: “Well, if the names were reversed, it’s a certainty that you people would be doing the same kind of thing!”. You can see a current example in his ACORN thread, in which he for once tried to demonstrate that very thing (and failed). True, that’s covered by more egregious use of baser fallacies, such as false equivalence: “If you tolerate ACORN tolerating the submission of false voter registration forms, then you must tolerate Bush and Cheney tolerating torture”. But that’s another thread. IOW, “Counselor, heal thyself”. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/23 "2009-09-12T15:10:25Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > My personal favorite type of _tu quoque_, one which the OP knows well himself through his own frequent use of it, is the imagined one: “Well, if the names were reversed, it’s a certainty that you people would be doing the same kind of thing!”. Well, it’s pretty much that, when you debate somebody, you can either assume they’re arguing in good faith or not. Often times, people don’t argue in good faith. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/24 "2009-09-12T15:19:13Z")
Certainly true. And the Gods know that I’ve done my fair share of pointing out bullshit in people’s arguing style’s as much as I have in their factual claims or logical underpinnings. But that doesn’t make it a good argument let alone a solid rebuttal. It’s an emotionally satisfying bit of snarling and not a logical evisceration. Even a hypocrite can be right, and have a point, about one of the two ‘sides’ who they’re accusing. If someone’s logic is tight and their facts are accurate, then their claims should apply to both ‘sides’. Pointing out that they don’t isn’t a refutation of the argument and might even mean that it’s accurate but the thump should be passed around more freely to both ‘sides’. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/25 "2009-09-12T15:55:26Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > But the irony that they never seem to understand is that they, the accuser, do the same thing. They have the same mentality, and the same thought process. Not only that, but their motivation for making this accusation at all stems from the same hostile partisan mentality that they’re criticizing. If it were instead a desire to root out hypocrisy and Fight Ignorance, how could you tell the difference? Here’s a way - try to find a tu quoque that isn’t so strained as to be laughable, but actually addresses the topic at hand. You can accuse your accusers, as you just described, _but only if you actually have statements or beliefs or actions in mind that support it_. Otherwise, the statement you just made above is a _tu quoque_ in itself. Worse, it shuts yourself off from the possibility of actually learning about the issue, of actually understanding a POV you didn’t already have coming into it. It ridiculously puts all problems on the same level of morality and reason. Sometimes you really are in the wrong, but this way you’ll never know. > [@](#): > > Speaking of this issue, how does one pronounce “Tu Quoque”? “To quack” is close enough. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/26 "2009-09-12T15:55:53Z")
Oh my goodness folks, there’s a website called _Logical Fallacies_, let’s all judge the political discourse of our nation and the effectiveness of nation’s elected officials based upon what this website or some musty book called _How to Think and Argue Logically_ says! :rolleyes: The fallacy of the “_tu quoque_ fallacy,” is overrated. Its generally a very fair and reasonable approach to evaluate anything by examining how it performs on a given parameter relative to its peers. For example: Argument 1: Teacher A produced a class of high-school juniors with an average SAT score of 1300 points. This score is insufficient to gain admission to Harvard, therefore this teacher sucks. Argument 1 avoids committing a _tu quoque_ fallacy. Argument 2: Teacher A produced a class of high-school juniors with an average SAT score of 1300 points. Teacher B, Teacher C, and Teacher D at the same school teaching classes of similar education backgrounds, socio-economic status, and prior educational achievement produced junior high-school classes with average scores of 1120, 1160, and 980 respectively. Although Teacher A has failed to produce a class with an average SAT score capable of attending Harvard, Teacher A has outperformed their peers on this metric of teaching performance. Therefore, Teacher A is likely to be a good teacher. Argument 2 uses what is effectively a _tu quoque_ “fallacy,” but I think you’d be hard pressed to find reasonable people that would value Argument 1 over Argument 2. The value of formal logic in evaluating public issues is overrated. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/27 "2009-09-12T16:12:39Z")
That is not a tu quoque fallacy. That’s a comparison. TQ isn’t even really hypocrisy. In response to claims against you, you respond “Oh yeah, well you do too!” rather than addressing the merit of those claims. With political discourse it generally works “You dems/repubs do thus and such” which is responded to with “Oh yeah? Well, you repubs/dems do thus and such!” And yes, paying attention to logical and rhetorical fallacies is absolutely necessary for the strength of public discourse so as to differentiate reasoned discourse from gradeschool “No, you’re a poopyhead!” arguments. Strip away our aversion to fallacy, and (for instance) you have no real response to the propter hoc argument that people feel society went downhill after school prayer was removed, so we should have school prayer again. At least, not any real response other than “nuh unh!!!” ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/28 "2009-09-12T16:21:12Z")
Way. No U. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/29 "2009-09-12T23:27:57Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > This issue bugs me a lot. > > People get stupid when they get rabidly partisan. They do indeed say hypocritical things all the time. If a certain act is taken by your party, you will immediately rush to defend it, regardless of how you’d actually feel about the issue if you gave it some thought. And if it’s done by the other party, you unthinkingly attack it. So if the situation changes, and the person saying this thing is from a different side, then the blind attack/defend cycle will cause you to flip your position. Except that most people, even partisan people, aren’t like that. But the people who are tend to be the louder ones, AND the ones whose postings are frequently more idiotic. And the more idiotic the post, the easier it is to attack. So they get all the responses. Even a basically reasonable poster likes to respond to a post where the poster is WRONG WRONG WRONG rather than has-a-good-point-but-misses-some-subtleties. So it’s easy to skip over 3 or 4 posts which are partisan but within the bounds of reason and attack the one on the looney fringe, so that’s where the debate heads, and it all falls apart. There are plenty of people in this forum who are partisan, in the sense that they agree with, and identify with, one of the two major US political parties (or, more generally, consider themselves “liberal” or “conservative”) who are capable of, and engage in, reasoned discourse, and people have a tendency to rant about, and overstate, the partisan nature of the forum. Most people are somewhere in the middle. For isntance, if I see Obama (of whom I’m a fan) engage in an action that I would have attacked if Bush did it, I’m quite sure that I will rarely, if ever, knee-jerk-defend it. But I’m more likely to just sadly shake my head and not talk about it, when if Bush did it I’d be more likely to post about it. That’s not really hypocrisy, unless one of my deeply espoused positions is “you shall always publicly post and support your position about everything that ever happens”, but it is a double standard of sorts. Too frequently, though, we get sidetracked into pointless arguments about who is and is not a hypocrite, and we totally lose track of the important public issue we should be discussing. As an example of a recent Obama incident that I have ignored, but would have been more likely to comment on had the same thing happened to Bush, there was the business with his green jobs czar. Now, obviously Obama (or someone in his administration, but he’s the one responsible) screwed up there. He’s not perfect. He blew it. And now the guy is gone. Whatever. Issue over. So I guess my position is “he made a mistake, but it’s not as big a deal as **Carol Stream** and her ilk are trying to make it. But it was a screwup”. That’s hardly a very satisfying position to argue, either from an emotional standpoint or from a engaging-logical-debate standpoint. So it’s easier to just not talk about it at all. Does that make me a hypocrite? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/30 "2009-09-13T01:37:55Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > The credibility of the person making the assertion and digging into it **cannot** be anything but ad hominem. Technically speaking, yes, but it is not necessarily an example of the ad hominem _fallacy_. It is perfectly rational to consider the credibility of the speaker when considering his statements. It only becomes a fallacy when attention is directed to the speaker to the exclusion of the actual logic and evidence behind the claim. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/31 "2009-09-13T03:11:09Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > That is not a tu quoque fallacy. That’s a comparison. Ah, therein lies the rub. Most claims of “logical fallacy,” could be reasonably argued to be an example of, well, the logical fallacy of weak analogy. Is it unreasonable to discuss the budget implications of any debate by citing the Congressional Budget Office? I certainly wouldn’t suggest so, but what’s to stop some ardent partisan from painting such a citation as an “appeal to authority?” The debate about attempts to shoehorn any issue into one of a set of well-defined “logical fallacies,” can easily take up more of the dialog than the original debate and very rarely does this bloviating create unanimity among the debating parties about what arguments are or are not various logical fallacies. They may be instructive pedagogical examples for learning to analyze arguments, but they rarely contribute anything constructive to ardent political debates. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/32 "2009-09-13T03:16:45Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > There’s a difference between something that makes an argument effective with a certain type of person, and something that makes it a good argument. Most of the rhetorical fallacies actually make very effective arguments. Many of the logical fallacies do too. This doesn’t mean that those are then good arguments. This is right. The rhetorical precepts of argumentation are talking about arguing with the preferred end goal being, essentially, to win. To compose an effective argument - it might be the correct one, and that might well lend effectiveness, but it isn’t necessary. Which can be contrasted with the logical approach to arguments, which \*is \*to arrive at the correct conclusion. I’d say in general that the questionabilty of a tu quoque lies in whether we’re accepting questionable information. It may be that the argument is a correct one, but if one of the premises is not necessarily true, then the entire argument may have to be thrown out. It doesn’t affect the truth of the argument itself, but rather whether we take the argument to actually apply. If an argument is logically sound, but with a questionable premise, then essentially we’re left with a theoretically true but practically uncertain conclusion (and entire argument). The problem with the OP’s example arguments is that they leave out one word; If. If this is the case, then therefore this too is the case. Is it? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/33 "2009-09-13T11:39:18Z")
May I suggest a modification of **Bricker’s** original point? An apparent tu quoque can be used effectively not as a rebuttal, but rather as a challenging question. Probably my favorite example of this use on this board came from **Bricker** himself. Several years ago he suggested that maybe we ought not consider it an act of unremitting evil if a president lies us into a war. His example was FDR’s lies about German actions that contributed to our entry into World War II. Why, he asked, was it okay when FDR did it, but not when Bush did it? That appears to be a strict tu quoque: since FDR did it, it’s okay. But the question is actually pretty interesting. What relevant differences, if any, are there between FDR’s actions and Bush’s actions such the we justly condone the former and condemn the latter? When used this way–as a question, not as an ad hominem–I think it’s a very useful debating tactic. My least favorite form, the one that I basically see as an abdication of any willingness to debate honestly or responsibly, is the alternate universe tu quoque. “Yeah, y’all are mad that a Republican yelled at Obama during the address. But if I invented a time machine and went back in time and stole Obama’s birth certificate and wrote “Kenyan citizen” on it in crayon and then McCain got elected instead of Obama and then McCain gave a speech to congress and Kucinich yelled at McCain, you Democrats in that alternate universe would cheer Kucinich on, therefore booyah!” If you’re ever reduced to criticizing people for what their goatee-wearing evil selves in an alternate universe would do, you have nothing further to contribute to the discussion. (Hmm. Maybe a better name for it would be the goatee tu quoque?) ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/34 "2009-09-13T11:54:40Z")
The _tu goatee_, used by the _ego goatse_? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/35 "2009-09-13T17:03:43Z")
In fact, I have one to experiment with, one I’ve been wondering about for awhile. Americans, especially conservatives, get super-freaked-out by the left-leaning Hugo Chavez and his weird usurpation of democratic institutions, especially his control of the media. However, from where I sit, the right-leaning Sylvio Berlusconi is much more corrupt and much more willing to control the media. It seems to me that anyone truly concerned about the subversion of democratic institutions ought to devote a lot more energy to getting rid of Berlusconi than Chavez. Someone, however, who’s interested in preventing the spread of leftist ideology in the Western hemisphere is perfectly rational in spending their energy attacking Chavez. So I ask the question: what relevant differences are there between Berlusconi and Chavez such that people who are genuinely concerned about democracy see Chavez as more worthy of opposition than Berlusconi? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/36 "2009-09-13T17:08:05Z")
South American dictators are more likely to start killing the regular populace than Italian PMs. (But how much that actually factors into the discussion, who can say.) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/37 "2009-09-13T17:08:23Z")
Well, if it quoques like a duck, and walks like a duck… ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/38 "2009-09-13T17:27:55Z")
Mebbe I’s just oversimplifying here, but a _tu quoque_ fallacy to me is where someone tries to shoot down an argument by saying “Your side does it too!”. It’s not relevant to whether the behavior in question is wrong. That, and there are far too many Qs and Us in _tu quoque_. We should change the name to the _na-na_ fallacy. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/39 "2009-09-13T17:31:45Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > South American dictators are more likely to start killing the regular populace than Italian PMs. (But how much that actually factors into the discussion, who can say.) I dunno–I can think of an Italian leader in living memory who went on a wee bit of a killing spree. If that’s the standard we’re gonna use, it seems like Berlusconi oughtta be due for extra-special attention. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737/40 "2009-09-13T19:00:05Z")
> [@](#): > > …who went on a wee bit of a killing spree… Benedict is a Pope, but I didn’t know until this day that is was Berlusconi all along… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-tu-quoque/509737.md?page=3)