Playing the man

Playing the man or playing the ball?

Not so long ago the mayor of my town organised a meeting with the inhabitants because a serious incident had taken place here. Also some other authorities that were responsible for the incident were present. At the beginning of the meeting the rules were established. One rule was “Don’t say ‘you are stupid but it is stupid that ...’ ” Actually this rule referred to one of the most important fallacies in discussions: The argumentum ad hominem. Someone who uses it attacks his or her opponent as such and not what s/he says. In sports terms we say that you play the man instead of the ball, and – like in sports – in the meeting in my town the rule was set in order to keep the meeting decent and fair and especially in order to avoid verbal aggression. For a public meeting this is important, but it’s not the real reason that you must avoid the argumentum ad hominem. The real reason is that it is a fallacy and that an argument is only good or bad because of its content and not because it is uttered by a person with such and such qualities. Bullying a person does not disqualify the truth of his or her claims.

Playing-the-man arguments often go this way:

- “You say so because you are a socialist” (Ignoring that the person concerned presents figures that show that the measured proposed is bad for poor people; you should attack the figures, not the membership of the socialist party).

- He is not a Christian, so it is not surprising that he committed the murder (As if non-Christians or non-religious persons in general do not have morals).

- He looks like a tramp so he cannot be trusted (As if a suit and a black tie or a neat dress makes you more reliable; but alas, many people think so. In a discussion it can mean that you believe a dressed up person sooner rather than a “tramp”; or just the other way round, depending on your psychological make-up).

- “How can you think so, you are only an ordinary wo/man.”

The essence of the argumentum ad hominem is that we don’t judge a person on the arguments produced in the discussion but – actually or openly – on his or her character, morals, appearance, reputation or anything else that is the supposed reason behind the argument; so actually the person is judged on our prejudices. It can happen, of course, that someone produces a socialist argument, because s/he wants to follow the party line in order to make career within the party; or the tramp lies because it is the only way to survive; etc. But this can only be a sound argument if it has been proved to be the real reasons of the socialist, tramp etc. Otherwise it has nothing to do with the arguments produced.

A fallacy related to the argumentum ad hominem is “guilt by association”. For example, you make a certain claim and another person, who happens to be a crook, makes the same claim; so your claim must be false just because of that. Two weeks ago I discussed in my blog already a special example of this fallacy, the reductio ad Hitlerum, like that you are a vegetarian and Hitler was a vegetarian as well, so it is bad to be a vegetarian. Or another example of the “guilt by association”: John cannot be trusted because he has criminal friends (does just this makes him untrustworthy?). The logical inverse of the guilt by association exists as well: the honour by association fallacy. For instance, she must be a feminist, for she comes from Sweden (supposing, as I do, that feminism is a positive value). Another related fallacy is the tu quoque argument, or the you-also fallacy, but I suppose that now you are smart enough to find out what it involves. As such I hope that these blogs about fallacies have made you smarter and that I have drawn your attention to the way you can be tricked in discussions. And you’ll certainly be smarter after having read Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations.