Personal attack

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the Wikipedia official policy, see: Wikipedia:No personal attacks.

Generally, a personal attack is committed when a person substitutes abusive remarks for evidence when examining another person's claims or comments. It is considered a personal attack when a person starts referencing a supposed flaw or weakness in an individual's personality, beliefs, lifestyle, convictions or principles, and use it as a debate tactic or as a means of avoiding discussion of the relevance or truthfulness the person's statement. It works on the reasoning that, by discrediting the source of a logical argument, namely the person making it, the argument itself can be weakened.

This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because the attack is directed at the person making the claim and not the claim itself. The truth value of a claim is independent of the person making the claim. No matter how morally repugnant a person might be, he or she can still make true claims. For example, a defense attorney may claim that a witness's testimony cannot be trusted because he is a convicted felon. On the other hand, illuminating real character flaws and inconsistencies in the position of an opponent are a vital part of the public political process and of the adversarial judicial process. Use of a personal attack in a logical argument constitutes an informal fallacy called ad hominem, a term that comes from a Latin phrase meaning "toward the man".

Examples:

• "Candidate Jane Jones' proposal is ridiculous. She was caught cheating on her taxes in 2003."
• "By establishing yourself as a contumacious crank, you pretty much guarantee that no one will take you seriously."

A personal attack should not be confused with legitimate feedback, and at times this can be difficult to discern. If for example, someone outlines why an argument is narrow in its approach, and then states "You sometimes take a narrowminded approach to arguments" this is much less likely to be intended as a personal attack because the person has already dealt with the logical nature of the argument, and is now providing feedback on how to improve in the future. For example, one could imagine such feedback coming from an instructor, coach, boss, or friend, but it could legitimately come from any source. This can sometimes make it difficult for a listener to discern if the feedback is a personal attack, since the interpretation might be based on state of mind of the listerner - and this perception could well be incorrect. One could make this argument with respect to some of the concerns raised in the article "Logical Rudeness" for example.

Additionally, a valid circumstantial argument may also sound like a personal attack, but may well be valid. For example, Mandy Rice-Davies's famous testimony, during the Profumo Affair, "Well, he would [say that], wouldn't he?", is an example of a valid circumstantial argument. Her point is that since a man in a prominent position, accused of an affair with a callgirl, would deny the claim whether it was true or false, his denial carries no evidential weight.

[edit] See also

• Defamation of character
• Ad hominem

[edit] External links

• Informal fallacies [1]
• Nizkor.org. Fallacy: Personal Attack
• The Fallacy Files. The Fallacy of Personal Attack
• Peter Suber. Logical Rudeness
• Conflict Research Consortium. The Meaning of Civility
• Opifex. Fallacies: Personal Attack

This article does not cite any references or sources. (July 2006) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.