Hominem (abusive), argumentum ad 89
bearing on the issue under consideration. The use of personal
attacks to cast doubt on the arguer's judgement gives one pos-
sible avenue.
Lawyers when cross-examining hostile witnesses tread a fine
line between 'establishing the character of a witness' and a
simple ad hominem abusive to discredit the testimony. Similarly,
the use of witnesses on the character of the accused can often
venture over the line into the territory of the fallacy.
The political arena is fertile territory in which some fallacies
grow like weeds and others like carefully cultivated blossoms.
The ad hominem abusive is one of the staples of parliamentary
question-time.
/ would remind the House that when my questioner was in office
unemployment and inflation doubled, and wages went down almost as
fast as prices went up. And he has the temerity to ask me about the
future of the mining industry.
(No comment, which is what he is saying in a more circumlocutious
form.)Some of the poor quality of parliamentary debate can be laid
at the door of the press. So long as there are sycophantic jour-
nalists prepared to praise an ordinary ad hominem abusive as a
'splendid riposte' there will be politicians labouring through the
midnight hours to compose such gems as 'like being savaged by
a dead sheep'. They perform to their audience.
The rules to remember when committing this fallacy are that
the hostile material should, wherever possible, be introduced
with apparent reluctance, and it should be made to bear on the
question of whether your opponent deserves consideration by
such a worthy and serious audience as you are both addressing.