Logical Fallacies I: The Ad Hominem Attack

It is difficult to be an ethical politician or administrator, or even a citizen, without a basic understanding of logic. It is also difficult to appreciate others' unethical conduct without a basic understanding of logic.

By logic I do not mean the opposite of irrationality, but rather critical thinking, and specifically an understanding of logical fallacies. Logical fallacies are probably the most frequent form of unethical conduct in municipal government. They involve the conscious or unconscious attempt to falsely persuade or manipulate people.

The use of logical fallacies violates the most basic rule of ethics: respecting the dignity of others, treating them as ends rather than as means. When we treat people as means, we use them to achieve the ends we want, we manipulate their thoughts, their feelings, their prejudices, their loyalties for our own ends.

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Ethics codes are supposed to prevent government officials from using their position to achieve ends that benefit themselves or those close to them. These benefits are usually limited to financial benefits. But when the benefits are not financial, or are accepted financial benefits (getting elected, raising one's salary), there are still unenforceable ethical issues. This will be the first of several blog entries over the next few weeks that look at logical fallacies, how they are used in government contexts, and how people can recognize and respond to them.

I will start with one of the most familiar logical fallacies: the ad hominem ('to the person') argument. The ad hominem argument directs attention away from a person's argument toward the person making the argument. It makes a strong appeal to feelings rather than reason. In government, for example, it is common to attack someone as unpatriotic or, in a municipal context, as not devoted to the city or simply from out of town. This has nothing to do with the validity of their arguments or, say, of their development proposal.

The most common ad hominem attack by government officials against residents is, 'You don't know what you're talking about.' There is no better way to destroy someone's argument than by attacking his legitimacy. What can someone say? 'I do too know what I'm talking about'? Rarely can someone honestly respond, I have a degree in public administration or accounting or whatever the discussion involves.

What the official is really saying is, I don't have a good response to what you're saying, so I'm going to say you are not worth listening to. And it works. People respect authority and expertise. Rarely will anyone who isn't a close ally of the speaker stand up and say, 'He knows what he's talking about. And he has a good argument. Why don't you respond to it?' Instead, people lie low, because they might be the next to be changed from respectable citizen to know-nothing right before their friends' eyes.

This is the ultimate abuse of one's position: to demean or slander someone in a way that no one would, or could, if he did not hold such a position. This abuse of position cannot be dealt with in ethics codes, because it involves speech. But two things should be recalled when such a thing happens. First, it does not actually involve First Amendment-protected speech. The First Amendment is intended to protect the citizenry's right to speak out, particularly against the government, without the government restricting that speech. It was not intended to protect government officials speaking out against citizens. And if that speech is defamatory, it is not protected: libel is not protected speech, except sometimes when directed against government officials. When an official says he has the right to say whatever he wants, remind him that the First Amendment is supposed to protect citizens from him, not him from citizens.

Second, although one cannot appeal to a municipal ethics code when faced with an ad hominem attack on someone, one can appeal to the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) Code of Ethics, which clearly requires that officials:

This is one reason why I have included the ASPA Code of Ethics in the City Ethics Model Ethics Code: it is not only an excellent aspirational code, providing guidance to officials and employees, but it can also be useful to citizens: they can remind the official what the ASPA code says about his obligations to the citizenry and to his profession.

Another common form of the ad hominem fallacy, or attack, is known as the tu quoque ('and you are another') fallacy. Here one refers to someone's actions (and their supposed hypocrisy) rather than their argument. It implies that the person is saying what she is saying not because she believes it, but because it suits her goals. In fact, it is effectively an accusation of doing what people are doing when they make ad hominem attacks: trying to manipulate people for their ends.

For example, recently Al Gore has been attacked for the unusually high energy usage of his home in Tennessee, his own unconvenient truth, so to speak. This makes his arguments about climate change and the need for lowering our use of energy look illegitimate, without ever responding directly to them. But ask yourself: does a smoker saying it is bad to smoke make the argument less true? Put your money where your mouth is, is not a logical argument. (For the record, according to the Philosophers' Playground blog, where I first learned of this ad hominem example, Gore's home is also a workplace that houses many workers and visitors, and the Gores purchase green energy and carbon offsets to make their energy usage carbon neutral. So, as with most ad hominem attacks, although there is a germ of truth, it is a half-truth that leaves out facts that would undermine the 'argument.')

What can we do when ad hominem attacks are made? The target of the attack has the most interest in responding, but is in the worst position to respond. Therefore, others should respond and, if possible, not close associates of the target. In the case of an official telling a citizen she doesn't know what she's talking about, that citizen, or preferably someone neutral, should point out both the disrespect shown by the official and his clear inability to make a good argument, thereby having to fall back on questioning the citizen's legitimacy.

The ad hominem fallacy is also often employed in the positive sense. Officials appeal to how devoted they are to their town, how hard they and their colleagues have worked on, say, a development project, how they have brought in the best experts available. They praise their personal legitimacy in order to give legitimacy to their arguments. This is harder to respond to, because no one has been attacked, and it would seem to be showing disrespect to their public service, even if it is irrelevant. Please share an effective and ethical way to respond to a positive use of an ad hominem fallacy, if you know one.

A good book about ethical (and unethical) argument is Hugh Mercer Cutler's Ethical Argument: Critical Thinking in Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), which I will be consulting for this series of blog entries on logical fallacies.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics