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causticusAnyone familiar with the basics of formal logic, rhetoric and logical fallacies probably knows quite well that an attack on the character or personal history of a person making an argument does not at all refute their argument. We know this type of attack as the Ad Hominem logical fallacy. From wiki:
Even the most repulsive and despicable people can make true factual statements. As much as we might feel tempted to reject everything that such a person utters, a truly principled listener must evaluate statements in a mannner totally detached from the person making the statement in question.
However, this whole thing gets a bit murkier when we move away from single claims and statements. In two areas, the character of the claimant must factor into the overall equation, in my view. They are:
(1) When the a claimant is asserting a subjective value judgement instead of a purely factual claim. In this case, evaluations of character can be applied to the claimant.
(2) When the claimant is quoting or referencing the subjective value judgements of another person, typically a well known scholar, intellectual, or recognized authority in a particular field. In this case, evaluations of character should be applied to the source being referenced, as opposed to the claimant himself, as he is merely citing the opinion of another party.
You might ask: But why? I'd say it's quite simple; every single human person has opinions on various things and thus every person makes their own subjective value judgements. That's a ton of opinions to weight against one another. So who is right and who is wrong? We need to have some type of methodology to weigh and sort opinions. Since we're dealing with subjective phenomena, the means of evaluation is going to be qualitative, as we're essentially rating and ranking various qualitative assertions. Right and wrong is subjective and is thus assessed qualitatively. Of course we can try and introduce objectivity into the equation and attempt to define right and wrong by appealing to consensus opinions and polling data, but at the end of the day we're just making an appeal to the crowd when we go that route. We know quite well that the crowd can often be quite wrong about things; the crowd is only unequivocally right to one who believes that the might of sheer numbers makes right. We can also make consequentialist arguments based on various cause-and-effect trends that can be extracted from historical data. But that methodology too is yet another appeal to authority; albeit, a rather sophisticated version of that appeal.
Of course, the classical/traditional answer to questions on morals and ethics, is to defer to concepts, ideals, forms and entities that are of a superior nature to that of the worldly human ego. This is where religion, spirituality and philosophy come into play. We can call this methodology an "appeal to the heavens." Logically, if there are powers of consciousness higher than that of the human ego, then these power(s) would be a greater authority on proper conduct and living to that of any fallible human; by this, we could say that any human who cultivates the states of consciousness necessary to comprehend even a fragment of those higher power(s) becomes a more legitimate source on ethics and morality than that of the average person. Of course it takes a great deal of humility, which is a form of ego-restraint, to recognize and defer to an authority greater than oneself. But that's neither here nor there; all we need to recognize right now is that this appeal can be make as a legitimate argument in the realm of morals and ethics.
Quoting religious scripture is perhaps the easiest means of making this appeal. It's magnitudes less cumbersome than writing an original philosophical treatise every time an ethical disagreement arises. The "best" lines of religious scripture tend to pack a lot of metaphysical punch; in other words, they contain complex and nuanced philosophical concepts and allegorical references that would be impossible to convey using mundane language. A potent verse of scripture is essentially a picture that contains 1,000 words. And now, I'll drop one of my favorite groups of verses from the New Testament:
By this we can see that the weight of a moral claim being made does indeed correspond to the character of the person making the claim. A person who talks a high and mighty moral game, yet in their own personal affairs brings things like annoyance, harm, misery and ruin to those around him, is by definition a hypocrite and not someone worth listening to on the matters of morality an ethics.
Our next examination will involve applying this "higher" set of standards to the most influential Western thinkers of the last 500 years; those voices who have shaped our current day understandings and consensus agreements on what we consider to be right and wrong. Anyway, for today we've arrived at the idea that character attacks are indeed justifiable in some cases.
Ad hominem, short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.
Even the most repulsive and despicable people can make true factual statements. As much as we might feel tempted to reject everything that such a person utters, a truly principled listener must evaluate statements in a mannner totally detached from the person making the statement in question.
However, this whole thing gets a bit murkier when we move away from single claims and statements. In two areas, the character of the claimant must factor into the overall equation, in my view. They are:
(1) When the a claimant is asserting a subjective value judgement instead of a purely factual claim. In this case, evaluations of character can be applied to the claimant.
(2) When the claimant is quoting or referencing the subjective value judgements of another person, typically a well known scholar, intellectual, or recognized authority in a particular field. In this case, evaluations of character should be applied to the source being referenced, as opposed to the claimant himself, as he is merely citing the opinion of another party.
You might ask: But why? I'd say it's quite simple; every single human person has opinions on various things and thus every person makes their own subjective value judgements. That's a ton of opinions to weight against one another. So who is right and who is wrong? We need to have some type of methodology to weigh and sort opinions. Since we're dealing with subjective phenomena, the means of evaluation is going to be qualitative, as we're essentially rating and ranking various qualitative assertions. Right and wrong is subjective and is thus assessed qualitatively. Of course we can try and introduce objectivity into the equation and attempt to define right and wrong by appealing to consensus opinions and polling data, but at the end of the day we're just making an appeal to the crowd when we go that route. We know quite well that the crowd can often be quite wrong about things; the crowd is only unequivocally right to one who believes that the might of sheer numbers makes right. We can also make consequentialist arguments based on various cause-and-effect trends that can be extracted from historical data. But that methodology too is yet another appeal to authority; albeit, a rather sophisticated version of that appeal.
Of course, the classical/traditional answer to questions on morals and ethics, is to defer to concepts, ideals, forms and entities that are of a superior nature to that of the worldly human ego. This is where religion, spirituality and philosophy come into play. We can call this methodology an "appeal to the heavens." Logically, if there are powers of consciousness higher than that of the human ego, then these power(s) would be a greater authority on proper conduct and living to that of any fallible human; by this, we could say that any human who cultivates the states of consciousness necessary to comprehend even a fragment of those higher power(s) becomes a more legitimate source on ethics and morality than that of the average person. Of course it takes a great deal of humility, which is a form of ego-restraint, to recognize and defer to an authority greater than oneself. But that's neither here nor there; all we need to recognize right now is that this appeal can be make as a legitimate argument in the realm of morals and ethics.
Quoting religious scripture is perhaps the easiest means of making this appeal. It's magnitudes less cumbersome than writing an original philosophical treatise every time an ethical disagreement arises. The "best" lines of religious scripture tend to pack a lot of metaphysical punch; in other words, they contain complex and nuanced philosophical concepts and allegorical references that would be impossible to convey using mundane language. A potent verse of scripture is essentially a picture that contains 1,000 words. And now, I'll drop one of my favorite groups of verses from the New Testament:
"No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Indeed, people do not gather figs from thornbushes, or grapes from brambles. The good man brings good things out of the good treasure of his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart. For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks..." -- Luke 6:43-45
By this we can see that the weight of a moral claim being made does indeed correspond to the character of the person making the claim. A person who talks a high and mighty moral game, yet in their own personal affairs brings things like annoyance, harm, misery and ruin to those around him, is by definition a hypocrite and not someone worth listening to on the matters of morality an ethics.
Our next examination will involve applying this "higher" set of standards to the most influential Western thinkers of the last 500 years; those voices who have shaped our current day understandings and consensus agreements on what we consider to be right and wrong. Anyway, for today we've arrived at the idea that character attacks are indeed justifiable in some cases.
