An ad-hominen would be: "what he says is wrong because he is stupid/bribed/corrupt/a hypocrite" etc.
Saying: "What he says is hypocritical" is not an ad-hominem - it's not an argument on the content or the man, but the relation between the two (what he says and what he does).
And nobody said otherwise -- for the core argument.
But in real life we don't usually know whether the thing (let's call it A) itself that an argument tries to prove is true.
We only know that the argument in favor of A is formulated correctly (follows its premises correctly, etc).
Regarding A though, there might be other premises we haven't checked (and weren't mentioned in the argument), other facts that invalidate it, etc.
Thus it is enlightening to know if an argument for A is being made hypocritically, to evaluate the possibility of A being true in a wider context.
E.g. if I say "A is good for everybody, for X,Y,Z reasons" and I do the opposite of A, then the possibility of A really being good for everybody is somewhat lessened by the prior that "the person proposing A does not follow A".
This is because:
a) nothing guarantees that X,Y,Z (the things mentioned in the argument) are enough to prove that A is good for everybody.
b) the fact that someone proposes A but does the opposite, adds credence to the possibility that there are benefits from NOT following A.
Heck, even if the argument is that "A is good for you for X,Y,Z" and it's correct, someone that knows X,Y,Z (since he put forth the argument) but does not follow A, might know something like A+ or B that's even better, and tries to sell me short.
I would say it's a fallacy to harp on logical fallacies; it's not as if everyone has infinite time to convert all arguments to syllogisms. The common list of logical fallacies entered Western culture from the ancient Greeks but shouldn't be taken with religious fervor.
I'm just convinced coldtea is wrong. The fallacious use of logical fallacies has taken over far too much of public debate.
The common list of logical fallacies entered Western culture from the ancient Greeks but shouldn't be taken with religious fervor.
Sure. Let's apply them with logic.
That sounds like logic, but it makes much less sense than it sounds. So you're saying it's good to examine the hypocrisy of someone's argument, because of the possibility that there's contradictory facts or implications that the arguer is holding back on us? Not only is that also ad-hominem it's a fuzzy half-logical ad-hominem.
Yes.
>Not only is that also ad-hominem it's a fuzzy half-logical ad-hominem.
It's also correct, and a pragmatic way to find hidden motives in real life.
You're contradicting yourself right here, in a way that seems to indicate that you don't understand the important difference between these two circumstances.
Something that's pragmatic is merely mostly correct or most of the time correct. One could say the same thing about racial stereotypes in the US -- which is to say that heuristics shouldn't be treated as an argument. It's only at best a starting point. Quitting at that point is the worst kind of mental laziness.
"It's good for you to not smoke. Now excuse me while I take my smoke break."
That what I said doesn't always hold?
Of course it doesn't.
That's why I wrote about possibilities, and only said that the prior that the person preaching X doesn't follow X "somewhat lessens" the possibility that X is true.
I never said that someone "preaching X and doing the opposite" proves that X is not true.
If I had said that, your example would be a valid refutation. But I haven't, and it's only attacking a straw man.
Besides, the only reason that your example case seems obviously wrong to you is because you're taking as a given what you are supposed: you already know that smoking is bad.
If you didn't, and someone said to you "smoking is bad for you", while he himself was smoking, you would be justifiably suspicious to consider whether it's not actually bad, and the other person is lying or hiding something from you (e.g. to keep all the cigarettes for himself).
The correct answer is to independently validate the claims, or evaluate the merits of an argument on their own ground. That's tedious and often not worth the effort, and that's OK. We use heuristics all the time -- you don't ask your friend for his proof, because you use the heuristic of trust instead. But at least acknowledge that it's a heuristic and stop trying to claim it as a solution.
Simply playing the "ad hominem" card is not a free pass for the opinions of crackpots to be given equal weight.
Strictly, the fallacy involved is tu quoque -- if it is used to rebut the argument which is inconsistent with the persons behavior -- not ad hominem. They are related, but distinct.
Although I suppose if one took the route of:
1. A says X,
2. But A acts in accord with not-X,
3. Therefore, A is a hypocrite.
4. And, because A is a hypocrite, one should disregard A's arguments
In real life the content of an argument isn't the only think that matters. The motives of the arguer are also important -- what they're trying to achieve/sell by using it etc.
That's because people don't only offer their arguments to have other people discuss them and assess their merits, but also to use them to influence people towards other stuff, often unrelated to the argument.
E.g. "listen how right and eloquently I speak in favor of privacy -- and thus forgive my enormous contribution to privacy violations, or the fact that I killed an online outlet out of spite".
>The fact that I state 10 wrong facts about bananas does not mean that the next fact I state is wrong
No, but it means that pragmatic persons with limited time spans should do better than spend time listening you on bananas -- and thus are more right than wrong to dismiss anything else you have to offer beforehand.
Sure, they might commit to a false negative this way, but it's statistically more likely that they wont (and being quick and mostly right to access stuff is more important than being 100% right but slow, again for people with limited life spans).
Besides a hypocrisy charge is not the same as a "he is wrong" charge.
This is why ad hominem is a fallacy. It provides zero evidence for or against an argument. It's completely orthogonal.
I'm not suggesting you "answer back" anything -- I'm suggesting that you should check if the person praising something has hidden motives.
In fact, I'm saying something even more obvious: if a person praises something, and they don't seem particularly fond of having it or practicing it, then be suspicious.
As for selling something, it is already a great motive to make people lie and present the facts in a distorted way, withhold precious information, etc about a product. It happens EVERY single day in millions of stores, showrooms, ads, etc.
If you are only trying to evaluate the product based on what the seller tells you, you'll be duped. Even if it's 100% true in itself.
>It provides zero evidence for or against an argument. It's completely orthogonal.
Arguments in real life do not live in some platonic ideal sphere, isolated from everything else.
They intermingle with all kinds of "completely orthogonal" things.
Sometimes, judging the person making the argument, and their motives, is even more important (and insightful) than judging the argument.
I never advised that, but nice strawman. I advised to evaluate the arguments on their own ground. This AC is efficient and will save you money -- that is something you can independently verify, if it's important to you to do so. And if you're buying an AC and you care about efficiency, that seems like the type of thing you should care to do.
That doesn't mean that you should automatically distrust a salesman. It also doesn't mean you should trust them, though apparently that's a dichotomy that exists for you. It's a null input -- there's zero actionable information if what you care about is buying an efficient AC.
> Sometimes, judging the person making the argument, and their motives, is even more important (and insightful) than judging the argument.
That's fine... If your goal is to gain insight into a person and their motives. If your goal is to judge their argument, then it's absolute and complete fallacy.
Another AC might be just as efficient. Or maybe I just don't even need an AC and while the numbers are all true, they're overselling the benefits. Merely finding out whether a particular model they're trying to sell me is as efficient as they say doesn't help me evaluate their suggestion in the broader context.
>That doesn't mean that you should automatically distrust a salesman. It also doesn't mean you should trust them, though apparently that's a dichotomy that exists for you. It's a null input -- there's zero actionable information if what you care about is buying an efficient AC.
I'm not sure how we got to the salesmen example.
The example I initially gave was about distrusting people that say "X is good for you", but do not follow X themselves -- and about distrusting X for that.
Whereas distrusting doesn't mean "X is thus bad, period", means "you should better investigate X, something seems fishy".
No, it doesn't. OTOH, a logical fallacy isn't something that means that the conclusion that flows from it is wrong, or even that the fallacy doesn't provide a useful pragmatic filter given limited resources to devote to fully evaluating arguments.