<p>Argument from authority (also known as appeal to authority or argumentum ad verecundiam) is a special type of inductive argument which often takes the form of a statistical syllogism.[1]
Although certain classes of argument from authority do on occasion constitute strong inductive arguments, arguments from authority are commonly used in a fallacious manner.[1][2][3]</p>
<p>The appeal to authority may take several forms. As a statistical syllogism, it will have the following basic structure:[1]
Most of what authority a has to say on subject matter S is correct.
a says p about S.
Therefore, p is correct.
The strength of this argument depends upon two factors:[1][2]
The authority is a legitimate expert on the subject.
A consensus exists among legitimate experts on the matter under discussion.
These conditions may also simply be incorporated into the structure of the argument itself, in which case the form may look like this:[2]
X holds that A is true
X is a legitimate expert on the subject.
The consensus of experts agrees with X.
Therefore, there’s a presumption that A is true.
[edit]Fallacious appeals to authority
Fallacious arguments from authority often are the result of failing to meet at least one of the two conditions from the previous section.[1][2] Specifically, when the inference fails to meet the first condition, this is sometimes called an “appeal to inappropriate authority”.[3] This occurs when an inference relies on individuals or groups without relevant expertise or knowledge.[3]
Secondly, because the argument is inductive (which in this sense implies that the truth of the conclusion cannot be guaranteed by the truth of the premises), it also is fallacious to assert that the conclusion must be true.[2] Such an assertion is a non sequitur; the inductive argument might have probabilistic or statistical merit, but the conclusion does not follow unconditionally in the sense of being logically necessary.[4][5]</p>
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<p>An ad hominem (Latin for “to the man” or “to the person”), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it.[1] Ad hominem reasoning is normally described as a logical fallacy.[2][3][4]</p>
<p>Ad hominem arguments work via the halo effect, a human cognitive bias in which the perception of one trait is influenced by the perception of an unrelated trait, e.g. treating an attractive person as more intelligent or more honest. People tend to see others as tending to all good or tending to all bad. Thus, if you can attribute a bad trait to your opponent, others will tend to doubt the quality of their arguments, even if the bad trait is irrelevant to the arguments.</p>
<p>Abusive ad hominem (also called personal abuse or personal attacks) usually involves insulting or belittling one’s opponent in order to attack his claim or invalidate his argument, but can also involve pointing out true character flaws or actions that are irrelevant to the opponent’s argument. This tactic is logically fallacious because insults and negative facts about the opponent’s personal character have nothing to do with the logical merits of the opponent’s arguments or assertions. However, verbal abuse in the absence of an argument is neither ad hominem nor a fallacy.[5]
Examples:
“You can’t believe John when he says the proposed policy would help the economy. He doesn’t even have a job.”
“Candidate Jane’s proposal about zoning is ridiculous. She was caught cheating on her taxes in 2003.”
“What would Mary know about fixing cars? She is a woman.” (an example of Ad feminam)[6]
An abusive ad hominem can apply to a judgment of cultural works or academic efforts based on the behavior or unconventional political beliefs of an artist, author, or musician, or the taste of an infamous person who loved a certain work.
Examples:
Jimi Hendrix died of a drug overdose, so his music was worthless.
Leni Riefenstahl was a Nazi, so her film The Triumph of the Will is devoid of merit.
Sylvia Plath was a depressive who eventually committed suicide, so her works are unreadable.
What Ted Kaczynski wrote about boundary conditions in mathematics is shown false due to his crimes.
Brutal autocrat Joseph Stalin’s favorite opera was Boris Godunov, so the opera must offend decent sensibilities.
[edit]Circumstantial
Ad hominem circumstantial points out that someone is in circumstances such that he is disposed to take a particular position. Ad hominem circumstantial constitutes an attack on the bias of a source. This is fallacious because a disposition to make a certain argument does not make the argument false; this overlaps with the genetic fallacy (an argument that a claim is incorrect due to its source).[7]
The circumstantial fallacy applies only where the source taking a position is only making a logical argument from premises that are generally accepted. Where the source seeks to convince an audience of the truth of a premise by a claim of authority or by personal observation, observation of their circumstances may reduce the evidentiary weight of the claims, sometimes to zero.[8]
Examples:
Mandy Rice-Davies’s famous testimony during the Profumo Affair, “Well, he would [say that], wouldn’t he?”, is an example of a valid circumstantial argument. Her point was that a man in a prominent position, accused of an affair with a callgirl, would deny the claim whether it was true or false. His denial, in itself, carries little evidential weight against the claim of an affair. Note, however, that this argument is valid only insofar as it devalues the denial; it does not bolster the original claim. To construe evidentiary invalidation of the denial as evidentiary validation of the original claim is fallacious (on several different bases, including that of argumentum ad hominem); however likely the man in question would be to deny an affair that did in fact happen, he could only be more likely to deny an affair that never happened.
Conflict of Interest: Where a source seeks to convince by a claim of authority or by personal observation, identification of conflicts of interest are not ad hominem – it is generally well accepted that an “authority” needs to be objective and impartial, and that an audience can only evaluate information from a source if they know about conflicts of interest that may affect the objectivity of the source. Identification of a conflict of interest is appropriate, and concealment of a conflict of interest is a problem.
[edit]Ad feminam
An ad feminam is an ad hominem attack, used in attempt to defeat a woman’s argument.[9] An example would be the response “Is it your time of the month?” to a woman making an argument. The term is most frequently used in this sense in feminist philosophy, to note systemic tendencies to discredit opinions of women. As such, it is similar in nature and purpose to such feminist neologisms as “herstory”. The term was coined in 1963 and is modeled on the much older ad hominem, but takes into account the genderised nature of the rhetorical and dismissive gesture.
“Ahmad’s characteristic method here of reductive ad hominem and ad feminam critique subverts his accompanying claim to Marxist subjectivity…” [10]
“Almost any ad hominem (or in this case, ad feminam) response such as this one invalidates the content of the patient’s viewpoint” [11]
In Latin the word homo (of which hominem is the accusative case) has the gender-neutral meaning of “a human being”, “a person” (unlike the words in Romance languages it gave rise to, such as French homme and Italian uomo). A translation of ad hominem that preserves this gender-neutrality is “to the person”. In contrast, ad feminam is gender-specific and used to describe attacks on women as women or because they are women.[12]
[edit]Tu quoque
Main article: Tu quoque
Ad hominem tu quoque (literally: “You also”) refers to a claim that the source making the argument has spoken or acted in a way inconsistent with the argument. In particular, if Source A criticizes the actions of Source B, a tu quoque response is that Source A has acted in the same way. This argument is fallacious because it does not disprove the argument; if the premise is true then Source A may be a hypocrite, but this does not make the statement less credible from a logical perspective. Indeed, Source A may be in a position to provide personal testimony to support the argument.
For example, a father may tell his son not to start smoking as he will regret it when he is older, and the son may point out that his father is or was a smoker. This does not alter the fact that his son may regret smoking when he is older.
[edit]Guilt by association
Main article: Association fallacy
Guilt by association can sometimes also be a type of ad hominem fallacy if the argument attacks a source because of the similarity between the views of someone making an argument and other proponents of the argument.[7]
This form of the argument is as follows:
Source S makes claim C.
Group G, which is currently viewed negatively by the recipient, also makes claim C.
Therefore, source S is viewed by the recipient of the claim as associated to the group G and inherits how negatively viewed it is.</p>