Posted: Sat 21 Apr 2007 16:35 Post subject: Should the tu quoque fallacy be outlawed?
Should the tu quoque fallacy be outlawed?
This is a request for member comments: Should the tu quoque fallacy be outlawed on this site?
Member-A wrote:
[Accusation] Someone has committed a specific reprehensible act.
Member-B wrote:
[Defense] Someone of "the opposing group" also commits reprehensible acts.
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This site's goal is to provide a place where people interested in the oddities of the U.S. "race" notion can hang out and discuss it. To this end, we have a set of rules meant to keep order, civility, and factual accuracy. We change the rules now and then as needed. Over the past four years, we have explicitly outlawed the ad hominem fallacy and the strawman fallacy. More recently, by focusing on word usage we have implicitly outlawed the equivocation fallacy (a form of the quaternio terminorum fallacy).
The Imus "nappy-headed ho's" flap has highlighted another common fallacy that we currently allow. It is the tu quoque ("so do you") fallacy. It occurs when someone answers criticism of reprehensible conduct by saying "your group also commits reprehensible conduct." It is a fallacy because it changes the subject via distraction. The topic starts as a specific act by a specific individual but tu quoque shifts the topic to "which side is more hypocritical for seeing the mote in the other's but not the beam in their own." Here is a recent example:
Melani23 wrote:
[Talking about the morality of condoning homosexuality.] Now, what 'rights' exactly does a person have, to tell anyone, that their unconscionable acts are all good and proper and that all should just accept 'said actions'? NONE. If one cannot legislate 'morality', one cannot also legislate 'immorality' either.
triguy wrote:
How many Americans only a few years ago were similarly offended interracial marriage (and the resulting sex). It was only 40 years ago that interracial marriage was illegal in many parts of the U.S. because many white people in control felt that interracial marriage was unconscionable.
Notice that, rather than addressing whether or not condoning homosexuality is moral, Triguy switches to talking about pre-1967 U.S. laws and current U.S. attitudes towards intermarriage. By the way, I am not criticizing Triguy here. He was arguing by analogy that popular morality changes over time. Also, Triguy is usually among the first to point out that the too-frequent response to criticism of White conservatives is tu quoque dragging out and pummeling poor old Sharpton and Jackson once again. I am simply using this exchange to exemplify topic-switch via tu quoque
If we do not outlaw tu quoque, then debates over the morality of acts will continue to be derailed by members dragging out Sharton and Jackson (if the act was by a non-African-American) or by members dragging out some White racist (if the act was by an African American). The good news is that members would continue to be free to deviate from topic via analogies. The bad news is that, as now, the diversion (to Sharpton, Jackson, or some White racist) means that the morality of the original act is never addressed. More importantly, the tu quoque fallacy will continue to derail every moral issue into a my-group versus your-group debate, and such debate is anathema to the site goal.
If we do outlaw tu quoque, moderators will be instructed to split off tu quoque as separate thread whenever it arises. One possible way of doing this easily will be to have two permanent threads: one on the alleged hypocrisy of Sharpton and Jackson, the other on the alleged hypocrisy of the White racist du jour. The good news is that this would eliminate one source of my-group versus your-group debate (which is a major source of perceived anti-Black bias by this site). The bad news is that it would make it harder to argue by analogy (as Triguy does, above).
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Should the tu quoque fallacy be outlawed on this site?
Joined: 11 May 2005 {Posts: 84 } Location: New York
Posted: Sat 21 Apr 2007 21:54 Post subject: Re: Should the tu quoque fallacy be outlawed?
fwsweet wrote:
If we do outlaw tu quoque, moderators will be instructed to split off tu quoque as separate thread whenever it arises. One possible way of doing this easily will be to have two permanent threads: one on the alleged hypocrisy of Sharpton and Jackson, the other on the alleged hypocrisy of the White racist du jour. The good news is that this would eliminate one source of my-group versus your-group debate (which is a major source of perceived anti-Black bias by this site). The bad news is that it would make it harder to argue by analogy (as Triguy does, above).
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Should the tu quoque fallacy be outlawed on this site?
Please post your comments below.
It would be interesting to do the above. Closing an argument to analogy is pretty much closing it to precedent. I suppose precedent should be the last argument made, after exhausting all internal logic. However, arguing with respect to a “closed system” would be much harder, as Frank said. But I personally would like to see it tried.
Could it stifle discussion by being too stringent?
Joined: 11 May 2005 {Posts: 84 } Location: New York
Posted: Sat 21 Apr 2007 23:04 Post subject: Re: Should the tu quoque fallacy be outlawed?
fwsweet wrote:
If we do outlaw tu quoque, moderators will be instructed to split off tu quoque as separate thread whenever it arises. One possible way of doing this easily will be to have two permanent threads: one on the alleged hypocrisy of Sharpton and Jackson, the other on the alleged hypocrisy of the White racist du jour. The good news is that this would eliminate one source of my-group versus your-group debate (which is a major source of perceived anti-Black bias by this site). The bad news is that it would make it harder to argue by analogy (as Triguy does, above).
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Should the tu quoque fallacy be outlawed on this site?
Frankly, I think you're holding Young up to a higher standard than other politicians because Young is "black." If a George H.W. Bush had been in a business deal in some European country, would he be profiting off his "race"?--triguy
High School Teacher wrote:
Juxtaposing Andy Young to Bush and Clinton is an apples and oranges comparison.
On second thoughts, I have to say that “analogy” is a valid and powerful line of reasoning as in the above exchange between triguy and High School Teacher. A sound argument has to be able to overcome analogy. High School Teacher’s argument has to hold for any similarly situated person, George H.W. Bush, etc. The difference between a George H.W. Bush and an Andrew Young seems to me to be too superficial to matter. What good would be such an argument that could not be applied to a George H.W. Bush? What kind of “truth” would it reveal?
High School Teacher’s veneration of Andrew Young is a positive stereotype. I also admire Andrew Young, and would hope that he had the greatest of integrity always. But that is a personal bias, and quite unrealistic. IMO, triguy is right in demanding that the assumptions of that stereotype hold universally.
So it might turn out that analogy is just as (maybe more) stringent than arguing without it. Arguing without analogy may be arguing “blind”, without any reference, any way to judge if an argument’s logic has any relevance.
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