Ad hominem is a fallacy of logic where personal flaws or characteristics are attacked to invalidate an argument. It is common in law and politics and damages credibility. Personal attacks discredit a person as a reliable source. Circumstantial ad hominem assumes a person’s decision is based on their characteristics. Other types include guilt-by-association and tu quoque arguments.
“Ad hominem” is a term used in debate and law that refers to the practice of trying to invalidate a person’s argument by attacking his or her personal flaws or characteristics. It is a fallacy of logic, or faulty reasoning, that is often cited as a poor way of arguing. Ad hominem arguments are quite common in law and politics, however, and are an emotional rather than a logical reasoning. This type of argument can damage the credibility of the contender and at the same time damage the reliability of his opponent. In politics, this type of argument is often known as negative campaigning.
Personal attacks on one’s character or practices can be considered ad hominem attacks. Personal attacks very often have little or nothing to do with the matter at hand and the attack is intended to discredit the person as a reliable source of information in general rather than a source relevant to the matter at hand. An example of such an ad hominem attack follows:
“Bill shouldn’t have a say in scheduling gym activities because he was obese.”
The insinuation that Bill was obese has little or nothing to do with his ability or inability to plan activities at the gym, but the ad hominem attack is intended to discredit Bill as a source generally and attack him on a personal level.
A circumstantial ad hominem attack assumes that a person makes a decision or behaves in a certain way based on that person’s characteristics or their perceptions of that person’s characteristics. If, for example, a person says, “Jim would obviously choose to go to the playground instead of school” based on the fact that Jim prefers play to school, that is an ad hominem attack because he assumes Jim is incapable of making any other decisions. This kind of argument is only valid if Jim has some sort of conflict of interest; for example, if Jim owned the playground and wanted people to come there instead of to school, it can be safely assumed that Jim would choose the playground because he has an interest in being there.
Other types of ad hominem arguments include guilt-by-association arguments and “you quoque” arguments. Guilt by association assumes that a person behaves in a certain way because someone closely associated with that person acted in a certain way. Tu quoque arguments argue that a certain behavior that one has been accused of is okay because another person has also done it. Tu quoque arguments are sometimes known as “You too” arguments.
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