History Main / AdHominem

* Whataboutism: Overlapping with AppealToWorseProblems, deflecting another person's criticism by trying to draw attention to something criticizable that they/people affiliated with them supposedly do, even if it doesn't have anything to do with the original criticism.

-->-- '''Dendrophilian''' of Website/YouTube

* This is a favorite tactic of politicians and political dissidents who want to discredit an opponent; they usually call it "flip-flopping" or "waffling" and use it to imply that the opponent can't make up their mind.

* Criticizing someone's hypocrisy or {{double standard}}s without claiming that this makes them wrong by itself.

* All instances of "What ''they'' don't want you to know..." have at least a tacit form of the impugning motives form of an ad hominem. For example, "What doctors don't want you to know..." tacitly assumes ''all'' physicians have a vested interest in keeping you from learning about some miracle cure and are willing to ignore their Hippocratic Oaths to do so. Even if this were true, which it is not, it would be up to the "Miracle Cure Salesman" to prove his or her AllNaturalSnakeOil actually works better than the standard science-based alternative (expect an immediate case of [[UsefulNotes/LogicalFallacies Special Pleading]] to follow and/or further ad hominems if they are requested to provide necessary evidence).

* Whataboutism: Overlapping with AppealToWorseProblems, deflecting another person's criticism by citing examples of other things/people to whom the criticism also applies.

* This was a favorite propaganda technique of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In the West, it was nicknamed "whataboutism" since such arguments often began with the words "what about". In RussianHumour, this was parodied with the StockPhrase "and you lynch blacks" ("а у вас негров линчуют"), which was sarcastically used as a catch-all to dismiss criticism of the Soviet Union in situations where American race relations were not relevant to the issue.

* "Git gud": the universal bad game design defense. Whenever someone complains about a game being bad, citing either an overload of ClassicVideoGameScrewYous, FakeDifficulty, CameraScrew, poor controls etc., expect at least one person to respond, [[{{Scrub}} "You just don't like it 'cuz you suck at it."]] This has become a minor meme.

** Men can't talk about abortion because they don't get pregnant.[[note]]But they are born; fetuses are male as well as female.[[/note]]

-->-- DeadpanSnarker '''Dendrophilian''' of Website/YouTube

This is sometimes called a "tone" argument. When brought up on message boards, it's often called "tone trolling" if the post only complains of some other poster's "tone" without adding to a discussion. Since people are often passionate about things that affect them personally and ''cannot'' detach themselves from the associated feelings, this use of the fallacy is often summarized as "victory goes to whoever cares the least."

** American whites can't talk about slavery because they never experienced it.[[note]]Indentured servitude (effectively slavery with the serial numbers filed off) was extremely common in pre-revolutionary America with an estimated one-half to two-thirds of white immigrants to the Americas between the 1630s and the American Revolution arriving under a contract of indenture, far more than the number of Black slaves transported to North America during the transatlantic slave trade era. Going back further, Europeans of pretty much every group have been enslaved too (often by the Romans, but also Norse Vikings, Ottomans, each other etc).[[/note]]

* Most people can recognize a simplistic ad hominem attack as humorous, but that didn't stop [=DirecTv=] from flipping out at a spot by Time Warner asserting that "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anKkX1wvgBw DirecTv hates puppies]]".

* If an individual is supposed to be in a position that ''requires'' them to be objective, such as a judge or a journalist, pointing out a conflict of interest is a valid argument ''against their claimed objectivity'', but does not, in itself, demonstrate any claim they have made is false.

* In the Music/{{Eminem}} and Music/DrDre song "Guilty Conscience", Dre (playing Grady's [[GoodAngelBadAngel conscience]]) argues that Grady shouldn't murder his wife for cheating on him. Slim Shady tells Grady to ignore Dre - "you're gonna take advice from somebody who [[OldShame slapped Dee Barnes?]]... Mr. [[{{BFG}} AK]], Mr. Music/{{NWA}}, Mr. coming-straight-outta-Compton-y'all-better-make-way?"

A closely-related fallacy to Ad Hominem, the "style over substance" fallacy is where the manner in which an argument is presented [[YouMakeMeSic is held to affect the validity of that argument.]]

Now, simply pointing out a contradiction in someone's arguments is not a Tu Quoque. A fallacy must be a component of a logical argument, and it is not an argument unless a conclusion is drawn from the observed contradiction. Therefore, Tu Quoque only applies when it is argued the opponent's argument ''is wrong because'' it contradicts a previous position they've held. Once again, [[SoundValidTrue his reasoning might be unsound, but that does not affect the truth value of his premises]]. Bob's new argument is not invalidated by any previous position he may have held.

* All instances of "What ''they'' don't want you to know..." have at least a tacit form of the impugning motives form of an ad hominem. For example, "What doctors don't want you to know..." tacitly assumes ''all'' physicians have a vested interest in keeping you from learning about some miracle cure and are willing to ignore their Hippocratic Oaths to do so. Even if this were true, which it is not, it would be up to the "Miracle Cure Salesman" to prove his or her AllNaturalSnakeOil actually works better than the standard science-based alternative (expect an immediate case of SpecialPleading to follow and/or further ad hominems if they are requested to provide necessary evidence).

Ad hominem is very often mistakenly claimed in cases where an argument's opponent attacks its proponent ''in addition to presenting a valid counterargument''. "You're stupid, therefore your argument is invalid" is an ''ad hominem''; "your argument is invalid, therefore you're stupid" (or "Your argument is invalid ''and'' you're stupid") isn't this fallacy, only rude. Similarly, some people seem to think that Ad Hominem is necessarily abusive, which it isn't. "You've used the '[[FourTermsFallacy Four Terms]]' fallacy, you stupid idiot, therefore you're using faulty logic" is not Ad Hominem (although it might be FallacyFallacy if done badly). "Mike has clearly put a lot of thought into whether we should buy a pool, but he ''is'' a convicted felon" is.

* This commonly comes up in any discussion of police or the military overstepping their boundaries, especially in any highly-charged case. If an investigation turns up nothing, regardless of whatever internal investigations were done, there will be cries of "They just want to cover for each other and hush it up!" Of course, the FallacyFallacy also applies -- it may indeed be true that there was a cover-up. Real life examples should probably be left to the reader's imagination.
* ''Series/TheDailyShow'' had a great example of one on their March 31st, 2014 episode. Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey as of the time of writing (April 2014), was embattled in a scandal regarding blocking a bridge out of spite. Governor Christie announced the result of an inquiry done by his own hand-picked legal team. The report exonerated Christie. Jon Stewart dismissed the report just on the grounds that it came from Christie's office. That is a clear case of this fallacy. However, it would be a case of the FallacyFallacy to say that Jon's ad hominem ''proves'' Governor Christie is in the clear, as it's certainly reasonable to be suspicious. Especially after it was later proved he ''was'' involved, though not in any legally binding fashion.

* People facing ''ad hominem'' accusations of misogyny, racism or homophobia commonly respond with counter-charges of misandry, reverse racism[[note]]With the [[BeggingTheQuestion dubious]] implication that racism has default and reverse states, as opposed to a single state that appears whenever someone denigrates a racial group other than their own.[[/note]] and heterophobia, respectively, thereby fighting fallacy with fallacy. Some, however, define sexism and racism solely to be "prejudice plus power" so that the dominant group ''alone'' is guilty of it. This becomes an issue of definitions then.

This can be particularly irritating if used in combination with a Strawman version of a previous position: the final nail in this particular coffin is usually ArgumentumAdNauseam, demanding the opponent justify their current argument's alleged conflict with a position they never actually held, while refusing all attempts at clarification.

A good discussion of the ''ad hominem'' fallacy on the Internet may be found [[http://archive.today/UBJGx on the website of one Stephen Bond]]. See also DontShootTheMessage, HitlerAteSugar, NoYou, HypocriteHasAPoint. DamnedByAFoolsPraise is also closely related.