Use Your Noggin' Series: Fallacies - Ad hominem tu Quoque

Logical Fallacies

What is a logical fallacy?
It is a false or deceptive notion within a logical argument. It is an error in reasons while making an argument. It is not simply just being wrong about a statement, it is a statement where your premise does not provide sound logic or support for that conclusion. In other words, your statement that you make before you come to a conclusion is not grounded in logic.

Why learn them?
Because you want to be able to present and defend your faith and views with intelligence. The main goal ultimately being able to point people toward Jesus while gently helping clear some confusion about Jesus

Today we will be looking a fairly common and easy to spot logical fallacy. After this you can go impress your friends and look really smart when your sister is making fun of you.The logical fallacy is:


Ad hominem tu Quoque


Commonly called the You Too fallacy! This type of logic fallacy occurs when a person uses a event, view, or previous statement to attack the speakers argument.


Example:

• Person A: Presents several claims about a topic
• Person B: Shows several past statements or events that person A said or did which are inconsistent with Person A's original statement
• Therefore Person B claims that Person A's original claim is false.

This is a fallacy because past events or statements cannot be used as a way to side step current issues brought up in a claim. Past events or statements are independent of current claims made by a speaker. Inconsistency in speakers claims do not automatically render all current claims false.


In other words, let’s say speaker A for years says "We should not sign a nuclear treaty with Russia" then lays out 5 good points as to why we should not. If speaker A then votes in the Senate to pass a bill allowing an arms treaty, it does not nullify his arguments against it. If you want to nullify speaker A's claims against not making a treaty you must attack the claims not the person’s actions or past contradicting statements.

Example:

• Doctor tells patient “Don’t smoke it will give you cancer
• Patient says I saw you smoking earlier it can’t be that bad
• Patient arrives at the conclusion that smoking is OK, because the Doctor does it

Again, this type of fallacy is committed because actions are inconsistent with words. This could also be called acting like a hypocrite, but just because someone does not do what they say does not discredit what they are saying. It should give way to further examination but my statement of A cannot be discredited by my actions with are on the contrary of statement A.

The truth of a statement must be judged on the statement not against the person delivering it. Attacking the person delivering the statement is another fallacy listed below. This is important because too many people make this error when entering into debates or discussions.


Example committed commonly by non Christians -

Non Christians will often attack Christians caught in a sin and point to that instance to say “see look the bible is not true and Christianity is a shame!” This is incorrect logic obviously as we learned above. The fact is, Christians sin and that does not disprove anything in the bible.


Example committed commonly by Christians -

In the book of Galatians, chapter 2, we see an error committed by many Christians in the life of Peter. Peter is telling these new Christians one thing, you do not have to obey Jewish customs, and when Jews come around he is going back on what he said and acting in complete contradiction to his teaching.


When many of us read this we miss the hypocrisy but I promise it was not missed by the Galatian church. The incorrect response to Peter would be to disregard all of his teaching. The correct response would be to call him out on it and lead him to repentance, read chapter 2 to see what happens




More to follow