Ad Hominem Attacks Are Sometimes Necessary.

[darksydesamy]

Naming a conflict of interest isn't really an ad homemin attack. It's just speaking facts.

[سلامسالمي-رذ]

If someone calls for war while working or have connections to arms companies, this is not ad hominem

[vypa-bkiy]

Your mistaking and conflating ad hominem attacks with just pointing our conflicts of interest.

[FreonChugger]

The Fallacy Fallacy is my favorite fallacy of all. As there is reality that much of what is debated by the opposition may hold ideas and facts that may be true and hold information that would help an open minded individual to learn more. The list of fallacies supplied by the “intellectual community” are merely tools to ensure that debates are enacted between two cave men with clubs in which one shall beat the other to victory. Such a matter ensures the ego prevails and nothing is learned.

[biggnesss]

Ad hominems are only necessary if you're opposition truly advocates for something truly horrific. I once saw a debate where vaush advocated for cp on the basis of "freedom". It was an absolutely disgusting take I will never take any of his thoughts seriously after I found out that he tried to defend cp.

[lastword]

I think this is a misunderstanding of ad hominem attacks. Pointing a conflict of interest and bias in a person isn't necessarily an ad hominem. But it is a problem when you use it to discredit the idea itself. Just as an example, suppose you were discussing with someone whether or not war is necessary. You may be able to say "You only think war is necessary because you're an asshole" which may or may not be true but it doesn't actually tackle the question of whether or not war is necessary but only allegedly why that person thinks so and thus anyone else who thinks its necessary is also an asshole. The conclusion doesn't follow logically. It could be necessary whether or not that person is an asshole. It is ultimately irrelevant to the question of whether or not war is necessary.

[OverkillGamingPC]

Believing Zeihan's word on energy as gospel would be moronic. Taking diet advice from a fat person would be moronic. Believing MFF isn't left wing biased (not that it's bad) would be moronic.

[sidecar]

Interesting to bear in mind, however, what you are more specifically describing is an appeal to motive; a pattern of argument which consists in challenging a thesis by calling into question the motives of its proposer. It can be considered as a special case of the ad hominem circumstantial argument. As such, this type of argument may be an informal fallacy.

[cyrusachaemenid]

I used to be into the so called "debate étiquette" when discussing and arguing with folks in the internet over in forums or Reddit... but as I got older, I've lost all patience in trying to win over someone if they engage in an obvious argument of bad faith and just straight up attack the person by calling them a retard or other names that questions one's intellect as "politely" arguing with these people is just a waste of time. And if the community and its moderators after so much bullshit still believe in "debate etiquette" and goes: "oh nyoooo, but dudeeee even though that guy has no idea about what he's talking about, doesn't mean you get to call him a dumb neanderthal, that's le ebil ad-hominem!" then yeah you're never going to win the argument in the first place it's like fighting a pig in mud whatever you do you can't win.

[Jokkkkke]

Not sure that qualifies as an ad hominem personally but I want to take this further. Sometimes we need to criticize someone for who they are in a moral sense insofar as their actions define them. I think this is a necessary ground for ad hominem's, though I can accept the view that actions should not necessarily immutably define the person who carried out the given action

[rickelectric]

He is obviously confused about what an ad hominem attack is!

[patrickblanchette]

Every rule has its exception (this can also be applied to the slippery slope fallacy).

[DeepsongProductions]

It all comes down to motive...

Each argument is unique and ad homs can make one look foolish or clever; and they can be fun but... ad homs are basically an admission of defeat and are oftentimes used to "save face" though they can backfire

[Werelight]

I mean, I think you’ve got a little false premise there — discussing someone’s background to identify why someone
might think a certain way isn’t an ad hominem attack — it’s just reasonable. The ad hominem attack follows the structure of “you’re wrong because you’re X.” Major figures trade on credibility. It’s improper to wield credibility at the level of formal logic and scientific experimentation, but people aren’t always citing sources and showing data. Sometimes you have to discuss who has the best cause to be worth listening to. I wouldn’t conflate here — it’s just fair to discuss someone’s biases and interests. It’s not as though such complaints are thoroughly armor-piercing, or that we think they are — it’s worth following up.

[BrotherBrio]

In order to be effective in debate or logic, you must use the right terms. The persons character does not mean that persons self-interest. Obviously how a person makes a living affects their perspective. To use the example given, a person who works at an oil company would have experience that would be relevant to a discussion about energy production and the time and cost of developing new oil reserves or refineries. At the same time they are bound to be afraid of their industry shrinking in market size.
To point this out is not an attack on the person, the Latin phrase "ad hominem" means "to the man" and is used to describe a logical fallacy, it is a fair question to ask if the persons self-interest affects their judgment.

[duckpotat]

In Science we always have to state our conflict of interest, ofc this doesn't apply to online personalities and neither does the rigorous and symmetrical peer review.

[hrsmrt]

More precisely with Being critical and 'sarcastic'... is different with being insultive and disdainful. more better if you do something rather constructive that's perceived by 'people A' from 'nation A' better, so you can mock and makes fun of 'nation B' with all of that bad habits and prove that us ('nation C') is a better option/savior.

[JackHawkinswrites]

If the persons points are correct, and all you are assailing is the fact he gets paid by folks you do not like . . . Means the facts don’t support your position

[gatuarhin]

Pointing out someone’s job and how it incentivises their actions isn’t an ad hominem attack, because it is relevant to the debate. However, it’s still an unnecessary argument because their job doesn’t necessarily make them think that way, instead the way that they think made them pick that job. For example, if someone is very pro-war and works in the military industrial complex, then they were probably pro-war before getting their job. Getting their job mostly just means that they probably know more about war than someone without the job. Their pay is an incentive but usually not as much as you may think.

[johnniemac]

If someone works for an oil and gas company and is making an argument in line with that company’s line..

..the argument still stands or falls upon its own merit.
If BP itself makes a statement and that statement is true, then that statement is true, truth doesn’t care about who spoke it into existence.

Neither should we.

If Adolf Hitler himself came back to life, ran into my living room and screamed “Call 911, your house is on fire!”, I’m not going to let my house burn down to spite Adolf Hitler.

Ad Hominem should never be grounds for the dismissal of an argument.
The faults of the argument and the argument alone should be the only grounds for dismissal of it.

“Is this truth?” is and should be the only metric.