Steelman
Ad hominem
Also called argumentum ad hominem, personal attack, attacking the person, abusive ad hominem.
Attacking the person making an argument instead of the argument itself.
What it is
Rejecting a claim or argument because of an irrelevant fact about the person who makes it, such as their character, looks, age, intelligence or background, rather than because of any problem with their reasoning or evidence. “Ad hominem” is Latin for “to the person”.
The pattern
Person A argues X. Person A has some unflattering trait. Therefore X is false.
An example
“Don’t listen to Dr. Patel’s case for new bike lanes. She’s a smug cyclist who thinks she’s better than everyone.”
Whether Dr. Patel is smug has no bearing on whether bike lanes reduce injuries or congestion. Her argument has to be judged on its evidence.
Why it fails
An argument stands or falls on its premises and on how well they support the conclusion, not on who states it. A rude, young or disliked person can reason well, and a charming one can reason badly. Attacking the arguer shifts attention from the evidence to the individual without saying anything about whether the claim is true.
When it’s not a fallacy
Most lists skip this part. Calling a fair point a fallacy is a mistake too.
It can be fair when
- The person’s character is the actual question. Honesty matters when choosing a treasurer or deciding whether to trust someone’s uncorroborated testimony.
- An insult is simply added to a real rebuttal. “You’re wrong, and here’s the data” delivered rudely still rests on the data, not the insult.
- The claim rests on the speaker’s authority. If someone asks you to believe them because they are an expert or an eyewitness, questioning their expertise, reliability or bias is relevant.
Try one
A question from the app. The wrong answers are its usual look-alikes.
Dinner table. Priya: “The study followed 12,000 teens for three years. The heaviest social media users ended up with twice the anxiety, even after they accounted for family income and grades.” Dev: “Its lead author doesn’t even have kids. I’d rather hear from someone who’s actually raised a teenager.” Priya: “It’s on my phone if you change your mind.” Dev: “Maybe after the game.”
What’s the flaw?
Priya’s point is about data from 12,000 teens, and that data doesn’t change with the author’s family life. Dev sets the findings aside because of a detail about her that has nothing to do with how the study was done.
A fair reply
“Her kids aren’t in the data. If something’s off, it’ll be in how they ran the study.”
Often confused with
- Tu quoque
Tu quoque is a specific kind of ad hominem: it dismisses the argument by pointing to the arguer’s hypocrisy.
- Straw man
A straw man attacks a distorted version of the argument. An ad hominem attacks the person instead of any version of the argument.
- Genetic fallacy
The genetic fallacy judges a claim by where it came from. An ad hominem is the special case where the “origin” is the person arguing.
Where the name comes from
Ad hominem is Latin for “to the person”, short for argumentum ad hominem, “argument to the person”. Hominem comes from homo, “human”, as in Homo sapiens: the argument aims at the human, not the point. Personal attack and attacking the person say the same thing in plain English. Abusive ad hominem is the openly insulting kind, as opposed to quieter jabs at someone’s situation or hypocrisy.
John Locke named the argumentum ad hominem in 1690, alongside ad verecundiam and ad ignorantiam, though he meant pressing someone with the consequences of their own commitments. The modern meaning, attacking the person instead of the argument, took hold in 19th- and 20th-century logic textbooks.
Sources
- Fallacies, Bradley Dowden, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Fallacies, Hans Hansen, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Ad hominem, Wikipedia
In the app
Practice spotting it on arguments that sound real.
Steelman has more examples of ad hominem, how to answer it in a real conversation, and practice rounds that mix it with its look-alikes, so you learn the difference, not just the name. Coming soon to iPhone and Android.
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