How To Battle Trolling Ad Hominem Attacks Online

Welcome to Argument Clinic,

a guide to spotting bad arguments on the internet.

In this episode, we're gonna be talking about ad hominem,

a classic logical fallacy.

What's that?

You don't think ad hominem attacks are that bad?

Well you would think that, because you're a moron!

(laughs)

I'm kidding of course, you're not a moron.

I'm just demonstrating an ad hominem attack,

which means trying to refute an argument

by attacking the character of the person making it,

rather than the logic or premise of the argument itself.

Huh, boy okay, now where can we find examples

of an ad hominem attack?

It's Rubio!

Sure there must be one around here somewhere.

He said he's got pathological disease.

He actually said pathological temper,

and then he defined it as disease.

Come on, one of you must have seen somebody respond

to a critique by reflexively attacking

the character of the person raising it,

rather than the substance of the argument?

He has the news conference all the time when he's eating.

I have never seen a human being

eat in such a disgusting fashion.

Okay, to be fair, it is not just President Trump

who resorts to ad hominem attacks.

Any time someone dismisses a protester

by saying they are paid by George Soros

or argues that anyone who supports

Trump's immigration policy is racist,

they're using an ad hominem attack.

Take a look at any comments section,

and you'll find tons of ad hominem attacks.

Ad hominem attacks are not always wrong.

Sometimes the character of the person making an argument

is in fact directly related to that argument.

If for instance they're making an argument

based on their own authority and they don't have any.

If my buddy Daniel tells me that he learned in med school

that it's totally healthy to eat

seven pounds of beef stroganoff a day,

it would be perfectly valid for me to point out

that he never actually went to medical school.

And is in fact an electrician.

But for the most part, people make ad hominem attacks

to avoid the argument altogether.

Let's take a look at a few different flavors, shall we?

So you've got ad hominem tu quoque.

This is when you accuse someone

of not practicing what they preach.

For instance, when a carnivore tells you

that eating meat is bad for the planet,

the fact that this purely hypothetical meat eater

can't resist a savory bowl of beef stroganoff

does not invalidate the argument.

And then there's ad hominem circumstantial,

in which you try to invalidate the argument

by claiming it is within the arguer's self interest.

For instance, if I present data

that proves that tax cuts are good for the economy,

it would be a fallacy to dismiss it

just because I benefit from that tax cut.

And then there's poisoning the well, in which someone

is primed to distrust someone else's argument in advance.

For instance, the way Donald Trump called

a bunch of press outlets enemies of the American people

the day before news broke about some members

of his administration's communications with Russia.

You get the idea.

Ad hominem attacks are easy and they can be kind of fun,

but they are not sound, they are dodges.

A way to avoid grappling

with the substance of an argument itself.

If you don't agree, feel free to hop on the next train

to loser town because that's obviously where you belong.