Ad hominems, etc. should be legit

[Agathon]

Formal fallacies commit logical errors, informal fallacies do not commit logical errors, but are bad argumentative techniques.

Saying that we shouldn't believe someone because they are evil or an idiot can make sense in some contexts, but in the context of debate, where the attempt is to get at the truth they are obviously wanting since they give us poor evidence for premises.

So the answer to Albert's question is: Ad hominems are legit in circumstances where we have to make a decision quickly and the only evidence we have is our evidence of a person's credibility or intelligence. In other cases they are lousy argumentative techniques because they don't serve to uncover the evidentiary basis of the beliefs themselves.

Enough?

[Al B. Sure!]

Azazel:

You don't need a belief in a supernatural entity to have a logical belief in right and wrong.

bah... if you reject divine revealation, all you are left with are man-made moralities which are necessarily subjective.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Azazel:



bah... if you reject divine revealation, all you are left with are man-made moralities which are necessarily subjective.

It just hasn't occured to you, all moral views are man-made. And god is a figment of the imagination.

[Whaleboy]

Ad hominem arguments are rejected because they are fundamentally irrelevant to a debate. A debate is dialogue between two different logical positions. Each logical position is a “combination” if you will, of premises and the logic used to bind them together to form a conclusion. You can represent it mathematically as X+Y=Z, where X and Y are premises, a logical function to add them together, generating the conclusion Z. That is obviously very simple, since in real life you can have premises used for the synthesis of an actual position, a concept if you will, and some far more complex logic going on, as well as elements used to describe the functionality of that argument. However, the same basic structure of premise, logic, conclusion still holds. Think of it as a house of cards, where the topmost apex is a conclusion, and everything below, the cards and the structure is the argument… that’s probably the simplest analogy I can offer.

In order to attack that argument, you must attack either the premises or the logic. For example, faulty assumptions, necessary conditions as opposed to sufficient conditions, and the like. Change or eliminate the premise or logic of an argument, show it to be faulty, flawed etc, then the resultant conclusion will change or collapse. A debate of course can take on a more loaded form where it is used to determine what is best in a given situation, in which case the views are placed in competition, but still the premise, logic, conclusion structure remains. The weaker position is the one which has weaker premises and or logic (in both quality and quantity, dependent upon the conditions of course) compared to the other.

That brings me on to the nature of the debate in the first place. A debate, as a crucible for the logical validity of different views, is not per-se a marketing opportunity in the sense that bright lights, loud noises and semi-naked women are used to convince people of one view or another. Plainly that sucks, but if we are to examine conclusions and arguments, enhance them, analyse logic or come up with new ones, that is the way it must remain. I suppose we could call it constructive criticism, or critical constructivism/structuralism as I’ve heard it described before, as much as I dislike “isms”.

Now if you want to sell your opinion to others, by all means use simplistic techniques, the marketing language, the naked women, the meaningless attacks on other arguments etc, but if you’re argument or debate comes under critical analysis, don’t expect it to bear up.

Ad hominem is fundamentally irrelevant and useless in a debate where it does not affect the actual views being purported. For example, if I’m a dietician weighing 500 pounds that advocates people eating healthily, exercising, what have you, my argument is unaffected by people pointing out my weight and calling me a hypocrite, because one has no bearing upon the other. My credibility is sometimes attacked because I smoke marijuana, and yet, that has absolutely nothing to do with the premises or logic of my arguments! Such an appeal does not concern ones emotional faculties so to speak, it merely shows a limitation of the intellect, and appeal to those of similar limitations – naturally if you understand the argument and have the ability to counter/contribute you won’t resort to ad hominem.

That brings us on to the question of vested interest. If a fascist presents an article whose conclusion is opposed to the gay community, we cannot attack the fascist for doing so immediately since that does not affect the argument. However, if he then adds that we should somehow implement any suggestions in the article, THEN we can question him, for having a vested interest in saying as such, where he provides no reasons for doing so. We can also question its wider significance, as the arguer has a direct relation to the argument. Credibility should also be mentioned, though ideally is not massively important. It is relevant where known details of the arguers past can affect his present argument. Someone who previously argued that 2+2=5 for example would not be taken seriously in a debate about mathematics, simply because he would not be trusted to present assumptions in the argument, though his logic may be sound henceforth, any argument must be based on foundations, otherwise we’d have to reconstruct the entire universe every time we sat down to debate. If of course he can back up his assumptions to a level where they can be communicated to others, his views should be taken as seriously as any others presented. It is a difficult distinction to get around at first but it is a clear one.

This is not to say that a debate is a matter of total pure logic, no linguistic flourishes or humour, of course it is not. One can joke about other people, limited by the etiquette of the particular setting one should suppose, but such jokes are regarded as amusing, and do not affect arguments or credibility. Debates require discipline, they require thought and they require practise to get good at them – sometimes they are not easy. It is tempting sometimes to attack another person out of frustration at their superior view, ones own inability to question it, a personal quarrel with another arguer or isolation in a debate where most other people concur with the opposition in which case the emotional reaction is to attempt to bring other people onside tooth and nail. Use of those tactics will earn disrespect and derision at your ability to rationally analyse views, since such displays demonstrate that you cannot critically analyse, which is the very nature of the debate.

[Al B. Sure!]

Agathon:

Bob has some plan to change the education system in a predominately spanish area. Bob is a racist and his education plan is an arguement derived from his racism. would it be improper to bypass the education plan and simply attack Bob for his racism?

thats the crux of my arguement. reasoned arguements are just justifications for predispossed emotional instincts. It would seem silly to combat arguements and not attack the man from which the arguements developed.

[Al B. Sure!]

Giancarlo:

It just hasn't occured to you, all moral views are man-made. And god is a figment of the imagination.

exactly... and just as Christian morality can be dismissed as not being a universal truth, Azazel's morality can not be absolute. both are subjective philosophies.

[Agathon]

Albert: no.

In some cases (those where we have no other evidence or prospect of getting any) discounting someone's opinion on the basis of their character or perceived intelligence is justifiable.

Say for example that some well known idiot tries to convince you that George Bush is really an alien, but you don't have time to go through all his reasons. In this case we all would discount the opinion based on the credibility of the source.

On the other hand, if you were debating this person, calling him an idiot wouldn't be as good a refutation as if you showed his premises to be false or his reasoning faulty.

Whether or not inferring someone's beliefs are false from their perceived idiocy or immorality is a good idea depends on the context and your aim. In the context of reasonable debate, it is to examine the grounds of someone else's beliefs as a means to refuting him. Calling him an idiot isn't refuting him, even though it may provide you with good reasons not to believe him.

[Al B. Sure!]

Whaleboy:

A debate is dialogue between two different logical positions.

I disagree with you right there in your second sentence. A debate is not a dialogue between two different logical positions but between the two positions as well as everything that created them.

a logical position is not self-sufficient. The basic level of being is the level of instincts. Human beings, too, are firstly motivated on this basic level of instincts. It is only with the development of language that humans decided to attempt to rationalize their instincts. They developed reason to justify their instinctual motivations.

you have the situation that i compared to Hiedegger's origin of art where the created is the creator's interpretation of the motivating factor.

therefore, with one's logical position being but an extenstion of himself and his emotional motivations, it makes no sense to simply battle logical positions. The motivations that these logical positions justify must also do battle.

[Imran Siddiqui]

me criticizing picasso for being a bad painter is an ad hominem that is hard to have a problem with.

That isn't an ad hominem. What is, is saying Picasso was a womanizer so his paintings are crap. Him womanizing has nothing to do with his painting.

[Dry]

For those (like me) who do not know what an ad hominem is, some definition:

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Ad_hominem

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
would it be improper to bypass the education plan and simply attack Bob for his racism?

It would be pointless in the context of the debate, because the debate isn't about Bob's racist views, it's about his proposal.

What if, in spite of Bob's racism and racist motivations, the plan actually had a lot of logical merit to it? If you dismiss his argument simply because you know he's a racist, you're potentially losing what could be a valuable proposal. His being a racist may have a lot to do with why he advocates a plan, but it has nothing to do with the merit of the plan itself.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
A debate is not a dialogue between two different logical positions but between the two positions as well as everything that created them.

This is not normally true, particularly when discussing public policy and such. Delving into such matters is irrelevant to such debates. Consider that two competing positions in, say, government policy are argued about for the purpose of establishing which policy would best serve the country. The character or background of the people arguing the positions is utterly irrelevant to whether or not their proposals are valid policy choices.

Ad hominems are, simply put, tactics used to confuse and muddle a debate or score cheap points. Using them is a sign of a weak position in an argument.

[Agathon]

But they embody chains of reasoning that we use all the time, and in different contexts they are entirely appropriate.

[Dry]

Re: Ad hominems, etc. should be legit

Originally posted by Albert Speer
I never understood why ad hominems, emotional appeals, etc. are not considered legitimate debate techniques. For what reason are they not?

Surely a man as smart as you will understand it through the link below (*)

appeal to fear http://www.propagandacritic.com/arti...t.sa.fear.html

(*) appeal to flattery

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov

Consider that two competing positions in, say, government policy are argued about for the purpose of establishing which policy would best serve the country.

How charmingly naive. This is democracy: so we know that debates are really about which policy would serve the representative's supporters and financial backers.