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Yeah, it's a kind of ad hominem, because it says, "This person's arguments are not worth listening to because this person's behavior is not in line with what th

Yeah, it's a kind of ad hominem, because it says, "This person's arguments are not worth listening to because this person's behavior is not in line with what they are arguing for." But if arguments are rational things with inherent truth then it doesn't matter who says them. Her argument about overheard dongle jokes being sexist is weak enough as it is. The added hypocrisy just makes for sadly entertaining drama / gossip / whatever. In a way, by focusing on the hypocrisy, it lends credence to her claim of sexism, because there's the subtle implication that if she weren't a hypocrite then the sexism claim would be valid. Anyway, whatever, her reputation is kinda ruined now, I hope she makes it out of this okay.

adekok 14y ago
Well, no, it's not an ad hominem. An ad hominem would be to use insults, or baseless accusations. The accusations here are well-based. She has made offensive comments, and gotten upset when others made less offensive comments. That's textbook hypocrisy. It doesn't matter who said the offensive comments. It's true that they're all offensive. It does matter that he apologized, and she didn't. That shows a profound lack of moral judgement, or an inability to be self reflective, or a hostility for the truth.
- icebraining 14y ago
  No, an Ad Hominem is an argument against the man (well, person), as its name says. It's any argument that tries to invalidate an argument by attacking the person who said it. In fact, insults are not necessarily Ad Hominem fallacies, and the accusations don't have to be baseless to be fallacies.
  - jholman 14y ago
    I'll start by saying I think you're absolutely correct. To further refine the point (possibly what you meant in your penultimate clause), it's not ad hominem when the attack on the man in question is germane. If I say "I am a good candidate for US President", and you say "You don't even know how many US States there are", it's an attack on me ("the person", that is the arguer), but it's totally relevant, and thus not an ad hominem attack in the sense of the logical fallacy. To bring it back to the case at hand, if someone says "Adria's wrong that it's offensive, because if she says that then she's a hypocrite, because she says offensive things", that's tu quoque (and yes, ad hominem). Murderers are not incapable of identifying other murderers! But for one thing, ericb makes a good point that hypocrisy is suggestive that she might not have been genuinely offended, which plays some role in this story. Moreover, hypocrisy plays a complicated and not-entirely-fallacious role in circumstances where we disagree about acceptable behaviour. If Adria's claim is that double-entendres are inherently unprofessional behaviour, but I disagree, one basis for disagreement is to cite community standards, and Adria's own behaviour seems likely to be behaviour that she will accept as not-abhorrent. She could argue "yeah, it was repugnant of me to do that, just as it was repugnant of this man to make a dongle joke", which would mean she was a hypocrite, but the hypocrisy would not affect her argument (unless some other part of her argument required her to assert that she's a virtuous person). Or she could argue that only privileged groups can offend (as she apparently has about racism, much as this argument disgusts me), and insofar as she was persuasive about this, she might evade the accusation of hypocrisy and also the impact on her argument. I assert that it's a sign of mental laziness to hold hypocrisy as a great evil, in general. I think evildoers who think their transgression is evil are less evil than evildoers who think it's just fine and facilitate it in others. Even though the former are hypocrites and the latter are not. (And if, at some point, I accuse someone of hypocrisy, it will make the preceding statement by me no less true!)
- georgeorwell 14y ago
  Here's my source about tu quoque being a kind of ad hominem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque Ad hominem does not require the accusations to be baseless; it's usually more effective if they aren't. It's true that she appears to have character flaws and is apparently hypocritical. I personally don't respond well to blatant hypocrisy either. However, the fallacy is to connect the hypocrisy to the question of whether or not the guys were being sexist and whether her outburst was appropriate. That question can be answered on its own. I'm not standing up for what she did here, but it's more like, if I did the same thing as her but wasn't a hypocrite, would that be okay? I hope not.
nateabele 14y ago
> [B]ecause there's the subtle implication that if she weren't a hypocrite then the sexism claim would be valid. Waaaait a second... isn't that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent?
- georgeorwell 14y ago
  Thanks for catching that. It's hard to reason about these things because tu quoque is already false. I mean, if you assume false is true, then you can prove anything. I guess it depends on whether there's an if or an if-and-only-if relationship between being a hypocrite (H) and there not being sexism (S): (H -> !S) -> (!H -> S) // false (this is what you mean) (H <-> !S) -> (!H -> S) // true But besides being wrong, I guess I was also hinting at something else, which is that if you accept this one fallacy (tu quoque), you are probably implicitly accepting this other fallacy (I think it might have a different name than affirming the consequent, but they're related). That wasn't clear with my use of the phrase "subtle implication" and I didn't realize this either.
dspeyer 14y ago
And, as usual with ad hominems, we must be careful not to throw out too much. She argues that the joke was offensive. Her evidence was that she was offended. Evidence that her concept of offendedness is flawed does argue against the offensiveness of the joke. Had she asked three people sitting near her if they were offended, and they had said yes, then she would no longer be a part of the argument and her hypocracy would not be relevant. But she didn't so it is.
- georgeorwell 14y ago
  Let's assume an identical situation, except that this time one of the two guys said something to her like, "Hey baby, I'd like to fork your repo, so do you wanna see my dongle?" Would her hypocrisy have any bearing on her claims of sexism? Would her personal emotional reaction have any bearing on her claims of sexism?
  - dspeyer 14y ago
    With that phrase, you could find others to vouch for its offensiveness, so she would be far less relevant.
    - georgeorwell 14y ago
      So with other people claiming sexism O, hypocritical Adria H, and sexist remarks S, you're saying !O -> (H -> !S), but O -> S. I guess I don't believe that the truth of statements depends on the number of people making them (this is what you believe, right?). I also don't see much point in the use of subjective experience as the basis of argument. She felt the way she felt, legitimately, but for a claim of sexism she'd need to demonstrate how the dongle jokes were somehow demeaning to women, as opposed to just being immature. Nobody is disputing that she got offended. Plenty of people are claiming it wasn't sexism, but it seems like it's not a large enough number of people for you to dismiss her hypocrisy as irrelevant.
      - dspeyer 14y ago
reeses 14y ago
"Anyway, whatever, her reputation is kinda ruined now" I think her position, which was originally extremely weak, has been reinforced by the large misogynistic response. She's a public speaker, and once people forget about her offense, she'll roll this into five years of lunches, keynotes, corporate re-education, and books. This backlash has given her a level of credibility as an expert on gender-based harassment that she would not be able to attain on her own merits. She needs no academic background after this. She needs no list of petty "I thought of a four year old girl..." stories.
mtoddh 14y ago
Anyway, whatever, her reputation is kinda ruined now Right, like Joan of Arc's [1] was, after she got burned at the stake. [1] http://imgur.com/JnZLsju http://imgur.com/JnZLsju
dragonwriter 14y ago
> Yeah, it's a kind of ad hominem, because it says, "This person's arguments are not worth listening to because this person's behavior is not in line with what they are arguing for." But if arguments are rational things with inherent truth then it doesn't matter who says them. The inconsistency claimed here was an argument against the credibility of the claimed offense. "Offense" is not a objective conclusion of a rational argument, it is a subjective state. Inconsistency in the part of the person claiming the subjective response is a legitimate basis for challenging the claim of offense, and isn't a form of ad hominem fallacy because it isn't challenging the argument being made because of the hypocrisy of the arguer, it is challenging the fact claim in the premise of the argument, by presenting factual evidence.
- georgeorwell 14y ago
  If you evaluate whether or not those guys deserved the treatment they got on the basis of anyone's emotions, then it's all up for grabs. It's incorrect in the first place to support a claim of sexism on the basis of an individual's emotions. Remember when we meet the Lion in the Wizard of Oz? Hyper-aggression and hyper-sensitivity go hand in hand. It doesn't make the hyper-sensitivity untrue in some way, but it also doesn't positively or negatively affect any arguments the Lion might have about the existence of abuse - they'll hold water on their own if they can. I mean, the whole purpose of argument is objective reasoning, right? I thought this was primarily a discussion about whether or not there was sexism involved. All we can really say subjectively is that she got offended and apparently overreacted. Whatever she claims her emotions to be, they are valid claims.

adekok 14y ago

Well, no, it's not an ad hominem. An ad hominem would be to use insults, or baseless accusations. The accusations here are well-based. She has made offensive comments, and gotten upset when others made less offensive comments. That's textbook hypocrisy. It doesn't matter who said the offensive comments. It's true that they're all offensive. It does matter that he apologized, and she didn't. That shows a profound lack of moral judgement, or an inability to be self reflective, or a hostility for the truth.

icebraining 14y ago
No, an Ad Hominem is an argument against the man (well, person), as its name says. It's any argument that tries to invalidate an argument by attacking the person who said it. In fact, insults are not necessarily Ad Hominem fallacies, and the accusations don't have to be baseless to be fallacies.
- jholman 14y ago
  I'll start by saying I think you're absolutely correct. To further refine the point (possibly what you meant in your penultimate clause), it's not ad hominem when the attack on the man in question is germane. If I say "I am a good candidate for US President", and you say "You don't even know how many US States there are", it's an attack on me ("the person", that is the arguer), but it's totally relevant, and thus not an ad hominem attack in the sense of the logical fallacy. To bring it back to the case at hand, if someone says "Adria's wrong that it's offensive, because if she says that then she's a hypocrite, because she says offensive things", that's tu quoque (and yes, ad hominem). Murderers are not incapable of identifying other murderers! But for one thing, ericb makes a good point that hypocrisy is suggestive that she might not have been genuinely offended, which plays some role in this story. Moreover, hypocrisy plays a complicated and not-entirely-fallacious role in circumstances where we disagree about acceptable behaviour. If Adria's claim is that double-entendres are inherently unprofessional behaviour, but I disagree, one basis for disagreement is to cite community standards, and Adria's own behaviour seems likely to be behaviour that she will accept as not-abhorrent. She could argue "yeah, it was repugnant of me to do that, just as it was repugnant of this man to make a dongle joke", which would mean she was a hypocrite, but the hypocrisy would not affect her argument (unless some other part of her argument required her to assert that she's a virtuous person). Or she could argue that only privileged groups can offend (as she apparently has about racism, much as this argument disgusts me), and insofar as she was persuasive about this, she might evade the accusation of hypocrisy and also the impact on her argument. I assert that it's a sign of mental laziness to hold hypocrisy as a great evil, in general. I think evildoers who think their transgression is evil are less evil than evildoers who think it's just fine and facilitate it in others. Even though the former are hypocrites and the latter are not. (And if, at some point, I accuse someone of hypocrisy, it will make the preceding statement by me no less true!)
georgeorwell 14y ago
Here's my source about tu quoque being a kind of ad hominem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque Ad hominem does not require the accusations to be baseless; it's usually more effective if they aren't. It's true that she appears to have character flaws and is apparently hypocritical. I personally don't respond well to blatant hypocrisy either. However, the fallacy is to connect the hypocrisy to the question of whether or not the guys were being sexist and whether her outburst was appropriate. That question can be answered on its own. I'm not standing up for what she did here, but it's more like, if I did the same thing as her but wasn't a hypocrite, would that be okay? I hope not.

nateabele 14y ago

> [B]ecause there's the subtle implication that if she weren't a hypocrite then the sexism claim would be valid. Waaaait a second... isn't that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent?

georgeorwell 14y ago
Thanks for catching that. It's hard to reason about these things because tu quoque is already false. I mean, if you assume false is true, then you can prove anything. I guess it depends on whether there's an if or an if-and-only-if relationship between being a hypocrite (H) and there not being sexism (S): (H -> !S) -> (!H -> S) // false (this is what you mean) (H <-> !S) -> (!H -> S) // true But besides being wrong, I guess I was also hinting at something else, which is that if you accept this one fallacy (tu quoque), you are probably implicitly accepting this other fallacy (I think it might have a different name than affirming the consequent, but they're related). That wasn't clear with my use of the phrase "subtle implication" and I didn't realize this either.

dspeyer 14y ago

And, as usual with ad hominems, we must be careful not to throw out too much. She argues that the joke was offensive. Her evidence was that she was offended. Evidence that her concept of offendedness is flawed does argue against the offensiveness of the joke. Had she asked three people sitting near her if they were offended, and they had said yes, then she would no longer be a part of the argument and her hypocracy would not be relevant. But she didn't so it is.

georgeorwell 14y ago
Let's assume an identical situation, except that this time one of the two guys said something to her like, "Hey baby, I'd like to fork your repo, so do you wanna see my dongle?" Would her hypocrisy have any bearing on her claims of sexism? Would her personal emotional reaction have any bearing on her claims of sexism?
- dspeyer 14y ago
  With that phrase, you could find others to vouch for its offensiveness, so she would be far less relevant.
  - georgeorwell 14y ago
    So with other people claiming sexism O, hypocritical Adria H, and sexist remarks S, you're saying !O -> (H -> !S), but O -> S. I guess I don't believe that the truth of statements depends on the number of people making them (this is what you believe, right?). I also don't see much point in the use of subjective experience as the basis of argument. She felt the way she felt, legitimately, but for a claim of sexism she'd need to demonstrate how the dongle jokes were somehow demeaning to women, as opposed to just being immature. Nobody is disputing that she got offended. Plenty of people are claiming it wasn't sexism, but it seems like it's not a large enough number of people for you to dismiss her hypocrisy as irrelevant.
    - dspeyer 14y ago

reeses 14y ago

"Anyway, whatever, her reputation is kinda ruined now" I think her position, which was originally extremely weak, has been reinforced by the large misogynistic response. She's a public speaker, and once people forget about her offense, she'll roll this into five years of lunches, keynotes, corporate re-education, and books. This backlash has given her a level of credibility as an expert on gender-based harassment that she would not be able to attain on her own merits. She needs no academic background after this. She needs no list of petty "I thought of a four year old girl..." stories.

mtoddh 14y ago

Anyway, whatever, her reputation is kinda ruined now Right, like Joan of Arc's [1] was, after she got burned at the stake. [1] http://imgur.com/JnZLsju http://imgur.com/JnZLsju

dragonwriter 14y ago

> Yeah, it's a kind of ad hominem, because it says, "This person's arguments are not worth listening to because this person's behavior is not in line with what they are arguing for." But if arguments are rational things with inherent truth then it doesn't matter who says them. The inconsistency claimed here was an argument against the credibility of the claimed offense. "Offense" is not a objective conclusion of a rational argument, it is a subjective state. Inconsistency in the part of the person claiming the subjective response is a legitimate basis for challenging the claim of offense, and isn't a form of ad hominem fallacy because it isn't challenging the argument being made because of the hypocrisy of the arguer, it is challenging the fact claim in the premise of the argument, by presenting factual evidence.

georgeorwell 14y ago
If you evaluate whether or not those guys deserved the treatment they got on the basis of anyone's emotions, then it's all up for grabs. It's incorrect in the first place to support a claim of sexism on the basis of an individual's emotions. Remember when we meet the Lion in the Wizard of Oz? Hyper-aggression and hyper-sensitivity go hand in hand. It doesn't make the hyper-sensitivity untrue in some way, but it also doesn't positively or negatively affect any arguments the Lion might have about the existence of abuse - they'll hold water on their own if they can. I mean, the whole purpose of argument is objective reasoning, right? I thought this was primarily a discussion about whether or not there was sexism involved. All we can really say subjectively is that she got offended and apparently overreacted. Whatever she claims her emotions to be, they are valid claims.