Ad Hominem: Bias

George Wrisley

My opponent says that we should return the municipal garbage-disposal to private hands. But why does he say this? What are his underlying motives? Could it be that he and his friends want to get in on a profitable little monopoly?

Patrick Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic

In our dealings with each other, how much weight do we and should we give to considerations of character? After all, we can quite reasonably think of a person’s character as the wellspring of her actions.

However, it is because of the importance of character and the power to influence others that comes with commenting on another’s character that we must be very cautious how and when we do it. The ad hominem argu­ment form is one way of engaging another’s character. The ad hominem argument is an argument “to,” “toward,” or “against” the person. That is, it is an argument that calls into question a person’s character, her credibility and trustworthiness, by appealing directly to some negative aspect of her person, or indirectly by making some negative claim about the person’s relationships, actions past or present, commitments, views, or still more. It is the direct or indirect impugning of a person’s character that unites the various forms of the ad hominem argument.

Many textbook accounts of the ad hominem argument are much too cavalier in their approach, often treating the ad hominem argument form as usually/always fallacious. However, as Walton, for example, has made clear, things are not so easy. One of the greatest challenges in thinking about the ad hominem argument type and the possibility of particular cases being fallacious is finding a way to distinguish between those cases that are fallacious and those that aren’t. And as we will see in the chapters for the different ad hominem subtypes, the very same case may be considered fallacious or legitimate depending on how it is read, what the conclusion of the respondent is.

This chapter deals with ad hominem: bias. Also see the other chapters on ad hominem: circumstantial (Chapter 9), ad hominem: direct (Chapter 10), and ad hominem: tu quoque (Chapter 11).

We are very often rightly disturbed by bias, as it represents a kind of ungrounded prejudice in favor of one thing, person, group, and so on. However, is bias always problematic? What about my bias for Japanese food over Mexican? How about a salesperson’s bias for his product? One would expect a salesperson to be biased toward his product. However, bias becomes a problem in contexts in which the goal is fairness and the discov­ery of impartial truth, as far as that’s possible. In such contexts, bias can be particularly pernicious as it can impede the dialogue’s goal of impartial inquiry, as it involves the “suppressing of critical doubt (when critical doubt is appropriate)” (Walton 1998, 132). Further, accusing someone of bias can be a powerful way of impugning her character and making suspect what she says since it is purportedly driven by bias. Such is an ad hominem bias argument.

As with all the ad hominem argument forms, the ad hominem: bias has both fallacious and legitimate uses. Thus a central question becomes: How do we differentiate the fallacious from the legitimate instances of ad hominem attack? This is particularly important because of how powerful an influence ad hominem arguments can have on the proponent’s ability to support her position in a meaningful way.

What makes an example of an ad hominem: bias argument fallacious is that there is not sufficient reason to believe that the proponent’s vested interests compromise her ability to engage fairly in argument. There may be cases where it does, but bias alone is not sufficient, and, thus, trying to turn others against the proponent in a case of unproblematic bias is a dirty and fallacious move, one that illicitly shifts the issue from the subject of the argument to the character of the proponent.

The basic form of the fallacy looks like this:

Respondent: Claims the proponent of argument/position x is biased.

Respondent: Claims that the proponent’s bias interferes with her ability to argue fairly.

Respondent: Therefore, the proponent’s character and credibility are not trustworthy.

Respondent: Therefore, argument/position x “should not be given as much credibility as it would have without the bias” (see Walton 1998, 255).

(1) What reason is there for thinking the proponent is biased?

(2) If the proponent is biased, is she biased merely in the sense of having a vested interest or has the bias also interfered with her ability to argue fairly?

(3) Are the details about the proponent’s purported bias relevant to the argument/position in question or the dialogical context?

(4) Is the respondent’s conclusion the weaker claim that the proponent’s argument/position is questionable and in need of further support or the stronger claim that her argument/position is refuted?

Let us look at some examples to illustrate the use of these questions:

Example 1

A school teacher argues for increased pay for school teachers and a critic attacks his argument by replying, “Sure! It’s easy to see why you’re in favor of a raise!”

(Walton 1998, 75)

Regarding our first critical question, clearly as a school teacher he stands to benefit if school teachers receive a raise, assuming his argument concerns school teachers in his area.

Even if there was some potentially problematic bias, how relevant is it to the quality of the argument/position in question? It is at the very least ques­tionable that the teacher’s vested interest is relevant to whether his premises support his position regarding teacher pay. The main reason is that he has put forward an argument in support of his position. If we interpret his argument deductively, then whether the premises of his argument actually support his conclusion to increase teacher pay depends on the form of the argument—for example, the deductively valid modus ponens is valid because of its form: If p, then q. / p. / Therefore, q. Alternatively, if we interpret his argument induc­tively, then whether the reasons of his argument support the conclusion will depend on their content, that is, what they say. The teacher’s bias is completely irrelevant to whether his argument is an instance of a deductively valid form. Similarly, the inductive strength of his argument is completely independent of any bias. This is further true because how well the premises of an argument support the conclusion does not depend upon whether they are actually true. Thus, the respondent’s allegations are irrelevant in regard to whether the premises of his argument support his conclusion.

And, thus, since we have not been given reason to believe that the teacher’s bias compromises his argument/position, and since the bias is not relevant to whether his premises support his conclusion, we have not been given reason to believe that the proponent’s argument/position has been called into question, much less refuted, by the ad hominem: bias argument. As such, the respondent has argued fallaciously against the proponent’s person.

Example 2

House speaker Nancy Pelosi has argued strongly against oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But what would you expect? She repre­sents the city of San Francisco, which is loaded with environmentalists. If she didn’t take this position, she would be run out of office. Thus, her arguments on this issue really have no merit. (Hurley 2008, 144)

As we’ll see, this example is less straightforward than the first one. What reason is there for thinking the proponent, Pelosi, is biased? Well, she would certainly have a vested interest in the views of her constituency. Is such a bias problematic? Well, there is certainly a place for politicians to go against their constituents’ wishes when they think their constituents are dangerously mistaken, for example. But there also seems to be a widespread presumption that politicians will do whatever they can to remain in office.

We can perhaps get a better idea of whether the bias here is problematic or whether the ad hominem is problematic (fallacious) if we consider the conclusion of the respondent. Is the respondent merely trying to cast doubt upon Pelosi’s argument/position x in a way that would call for further evi­dence, or is he claiming that the bias here shows that Pelosi has let her bias influence her such that her character is so bad that her argument/position x is refuted? Regardless of how biased she may be, it is irrelevant to either the strength or the validity of the argument, as both of those depend on the nature of the inferential relationship between the premises and conclusion of her arguments and not at all on her character.

Concerning the question of calling her argument/position x into doubt, on the one hand, given that she would be expected, generally, to argue in favor of her constituents’ desires, it does not seem justified to conclude that her bias in this situation reflects poorly on her character. Thus, it does not seem we have reason to doubt her arguments without further evidence. Nevertheless, on the other hand, given the state of political debate in the United States in the latter part of the twentieth century and now, in the first part of the twenty-first, it seems like good practice not to trust what any politician says or argues without further, third-party evidence. Perhaps we should wish her, and other politicians, to be the “bigger person” and stand above the pressures to pander to voters. However, be that as it may, it seems open to serious doubt that the present state of US politics is sufficient reason for thinking that Pelosi, in arguing for her constituents’ position, is demonstrating a bad character, much less one that is sufficiently relevant to seriously question the quality of her argument/position. If this is correct, then the respondent’s attempt to under­mine Pelosi’s argument/position x with the charge of bias is fallacious. We can see in the next example how complex the considerations can be.

Example 3

A Monsanto representative argues that the company’s genetically modi­fied seed is perfectly safe because of studies, A, B, and C. Steve responds by saying that what the Monsanto representative says can’t be trusted because it has so much invested in the genetically modified seed and would lose too much if the studies indicated the seed was unsafe.

This case is interesting as Monsanto’s bias is easy to see. However, is the vested interest Monsanto has enough to indicate a problematic bias, one that indicates less credibility or trustworthiness? It is difficult without further information to say for sure. One thing that would be relevant would be the nature of the studies cited by Monsanto. Who paid for them? What journals were they published in? If, for example, Monsanto paid for them and published them in something like Monsanto’s Agri-Journal, then that may well be reason to think that they have a problematic sort of bias and that, therefore, the representative’s credibility has been impugned. The next question, of course, concerns what exactly the respondent’s conclusion is. If it is that the representative’s argument/position is refuted, then that would be a fallacious inference. What about if the conclusion is that the representa­tive’s position/argument is questionable and in need of further evidence from an unbiased party?

References

Hurley, Patrick. 2008. A Concise Introduction to Logic, 10th edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Walton, Douglas. 1998. Ad Hominem Arguments. Montgomery, AL: The University of Alabama Press.