Post #59871

Debate Better: How to Avoid 'Ad Hominem' Arguments "Attack the argument, not the person." You may have seen this advice shared online — and you'll probably have also seen many people completely ignoring it. It's known as the ad hominem fallacy, or an ad hominem attack — when criticism is directed against a person rather than at what they're saying. Or, as Yvonne Raley put it in Scientific American: "an argument is rejected, or advanced, based on a personal characteristic of an individual rather than on reasons for or against the claim itself." That's the fallacy — attacking the wrong thing, whether on purpose or not. Ad hominem is a Latin term that literally means "to the person." Online, ad hominem attacks are often simply abusive — calling people stupid, or criticizing their spelling — and they can turn a debate into a tennis match of personal insults. In politics, they're often used as a way to discredit a rival. For example, let's say a country's minister for health is known to be a smoker, or is always seen eating junk food. Critics may say that this makes the person unqualified to be in charge of the department for health. But as long as the politician's personal life doesn't influence their professional decisions, we could describe these criticisms as ad hominem attacks — and they can actually make us lose sight of the decisions a politician has made. But according to philosopher Douglas Walton, on some occasions — for example, if a politician has been caught lying, or in situations that suggest they may not be good moral judges — attacking the person might be fair, especially if they're telling people to vote for them because they can be trusted to be honest or moral. So where do we draw the line? In Scientific American, Raley suggested asking ourselves how relevant a politician's character is to their ability to perform in office — or how relevant a person's past is to their knowledge of an issue. But if you're just calling someone stupid because they disagree, that's probably not appropriate. #Reading