It is time for Argument Clinic to tackle one of the most important topics in argumentation today: how to deal with a hypocrite.
Is this the right room for an argument
Hypocrisy is when you say something that you yourself do, is bad, in a context of criticizing someone else for doing it.
Donald Trump is fond of leading chants of “lock her up!” and calling his peers names like some kind of schoolyard bully. For him to flip around and suddenly act as though civility matters, or discourse should be courteous, is a perfect illustration of hypocrisy. And Trump is a perfect vehicle through which we can analyze the hypocrite and our response to them.
Our first reaction might be to simply call them “hypocrite!” and assume that the label, once applied, is going to do some rhetorical damage. But we don’t recommend accusing others of hypocrisy, as a strategy for a simple reason: they almost certainly don’t care. They wouldn’t be hypocrites if they cared about philosophy, or fairness, or truth – so the fact that they are willing to be so obviously inconsistent in a public forum only shows you that they’ll do more of it if they want to.
In other words, it’s very important to recognize when you are dealing with a hypocrite because it’s important information. But yelling “hypocrite!” at them is wasting your breath. You need to register the important fact that you are dealing with a hypocrite, and adjust your style of argumentation accordingly. Hypocrisy reveals these facts about your opponent:
- They are not concerned with truth (or may not be acquainted with it)
- They are willing to say anything in order to score points
- They are either a nihilist or a sociopath; a nihilist would be someone who is a hypocrite and knows it and doesn’t care, a sociopath is someone who is so disconnected from cultural norms that they don’t know or care what they are saying
The worst-case scenario is that you point a finger at a self-aware nihilist and call them a “hypocrite” and they reply, “yeah, I’m just saying whatever I want to, in order to manipulate you. I don’t believe anything.” Trump is not self-aware; he is some kind of natural, reflexive, uncaring, pathological liar. He lies even when it doesn’t help him. Therefore, he doesn’t care about lying. If you call him a “hypocrite” your words are meaningless blah-blah because he probably isn’t listening to you at all anyway.
What to do? As always, go meta-. If you are in a dialogue with a hypocrite, recognize that they almost certainly don’t care what you say and probably aren’t listening. Is there an audience? That is who you need to talk to. Begin to talk past the hypocrite and explain to the audience what is going on: “My opponent here is saying whatever pops into his mind; he’s not concerned with saying anything consistent. He’s not a hypocrite, he’s completely disconnected from the conversation – so what does that tell you about his position? This is a guy who is willing to say anything to try to score rhetorical points – how can you believe anything he says? He’ll say anything that pops into his mind in order to win you over.” Begin to angle toward the door and plan an exit, because a protracted argument with a hypocrite is a battle of endurance and they have a huge advantage because they don’t need to actually formulate a coherent argument. They can just keep filling the air with noise; go back and watch the presidential debates with Hillary Clinton and you can see Clinton fell into Trump’s trap and started trying to grapple with the content of his words. She probably still would have lost, but she needed to say “I can’t even make sense of my opponent’s incoherent position, it’s like arguing with a 5-year-old. Look at him, he’s clearly saying whatever pops into his head. This guy is not a credible human being; he’s incapable of forming a consistent world-view beyond ‘me me me’ and he’s incapable of leading anything except a bankruptcy filing.”
There is currently a trend in the online skeptical/youtuber-sphere toward this sort of rhetorical nihilism. “Ha! Ha! I triggered you!” is basically the same maneuver: I was able to adopt a position that was so inconsistent that you were faced with a choice between rejecting our entire conversation, or having to piece-by-piece refute a mountain of nonsense. The only way out of that trap is to play to the audience: “clearly, you’re not concerned with actually defending or arguing a point, you’re just throwing out nonsense without worrying about what a hypocrite you are. It’s pointless for me to try to address your arguments in detail because they are self-contradictory. If you are ever capable of treating this matter seriously, you may find an audience but in the meanwhile I don’t see any point in trying to make sense of what you’re saying.”
Once you maneuver for the exit, that will almost certainly trigger a response from the hypocrite along the lines of, “See?! They’re running away! I hold the field! Victory!” If you want to take a parting shot as you head out the door, remember to stay meta- “You can’t declare victory just because someone was too impatient to talk to you anymore. Truth is not determined by who’s the last person standing.”
I’m not sure I would call Trump a hypocrite. Yes, his words and actions are inconsistent, but his words are inconsistent with themselves. Bullshitter comes to mind. During his campaign I heard it said that Trump’s supporters take him seriously but not literally, while his opponents take him literally but not seriously. Clinton did fall into the trap of taking Trump literally, didn’t she?
IMO, Trump cannot be understood without authoritarianism. Yes, Trump got to where he is by being rude. His supporters call that being authentic. Trump’s rudeness consists largely of putdown. He is good at it, a putdown artist. Trump is not a screamer. His putdown of “elevator screamers” plays to the authoritarianism of his base and other Republicans. Screaming advertises your lack of power. Trump’s putdown also plays to the paternalism of the Right. Screamers are, in their world view, women and children. Jeff Flake did not put his elevator protestors down, and their scolding seemed to get through to him. Orrin Hatch put down his elevator protestors with a dismissive wave.
Trump’s and Hatch’s authoritarian followers do not object to rudeness per se. (Kavanaugh was rude, too, BTW.) What irks them is rudeness by the powerless. Such rudeness threatens their hierarchical view of things. Quod licet Jovi non licet bovi.
I hope that Trump alienates enough women and men that they will wrest power away from him and the Republicans who fawn over him. Fingers crossed.
He is a hypocrite, but I think that’s more tied into his pathological lying and his self-aggrandizing narcissism. The better textbook case of a hypocrite is Mitch McConnell, and it doesn’t bother him because he’s getting everything he wants.
Tabby Lavalamp@#2:
Yes, with McConnell It’s pretty much: “his mouth is making noises, which means he he’s saying something that is convenient to him at this moment.”
Would “You can’t declare victory just because someone was too bored by your flipflopping to talk to you anymore. Truth is not determined by who’s the last person standing.” not be better? Impatient seems a bit weak, bored comes from a position of strength
Appealing to hypocrisy is tu quoque logical fallacy. The moral character or actions of some person are irrelevant to the logic of the argument they are making. Tu quoque is a special case of the ad hominem fallacy that rejects an argument on the basis of facts about the person presenting an argument. Thus, in a competitive debate, the fact that some debater is a hypocrite would be irrelevant. That being said, I do see why in real life (especially when it comes to politicians) people are dissatisfied whenever they encounter a person who behaves like a hypocrite. I perceive it as incredibly annoying when some politician accuses others of the same thing they have been doing all the time themselves.
Audience is who you need to talk to in most debates. Opponents willing to let you convince them that they are wrong are pretty rare. Most people, whenever they are so convinced about some position that they are willing to argue about it, don’t want to change their minds, and they will cling to their belief even if you show them facts proving that their position is incorrect.
leva,
It’s not if the debate is about, say, moral character, just as appeal to consequence is not fallacious if the debate is about, say, public policy.
Competitive debate is not about establishing truth, it’s about winning the debate according to certain formal rules. Trying to apply that to the real world is, at best, naive.
PS This is argument clinic, not debate clinic. Different things.
I’ve had many an argument without an audience, and many a “debate” without any rules.
Directly on-topic; I think a good approach to hypocrisy is to say something to the effect “your words tell me one thing, your actions tell me otherwise — which should I believe?”
John Morales@#8:
Directly on-topic; I think a good approach to hypocrisy is to say something to the effect “your words tell me one thing, your actions tell me otherwise — which should I believe?”
If you are arguing with a sociopath or hypocrite, asking them a question cedes the initiative to them, and opens the door to a flood of ${whatever} – I don’t recommend that as a strategy unless your sense is that they are making a fool of themself. If they’re making a fool of themself then Talleyrand’s recommendation applies: never interrupt your opponent while they are making a mistake.
Ieva Skrebele@#5:
Appealing to hypocrisy is tu quoque logical fallacy. The moral character or actions of some person are irrelevant to the logic of the argument they are making. Tu quoque is a special case of the ad hominem fallacy that rejects an argument on the basis of facts about the person presenting an argument.
That’s an interesting unpacking of the hypocrisy accusation.
A hypocrite probably won’t care if you use a subtle ad hominem on them. They will just be waiting for you to pause to take a breath, so they can jump in and grab the initiative.
jazzlet@#4:
Impatient seems a bit weak, bored comes from a position of strength
Dismissive and detached might wear well, too. “You’re incoherent – convince me you’re worth talking to” has a dominant vibe.
Trying to verbally dominate a sociopath is usually not going to work; they don’t care what anyone thinks.
Obviously I am thinking of Trump through this thread. I don’t think he hears anything anyone says unless it’s said from a position of grovelling admiration of his awesomeness.
Marcus,
Hm. What you see as ceding the initiative I see as putting the onus on them, and what you see as opening the floodgate I see as giving them sufficient rope.
(The more they provide, the more I have to work with)
—
But yes, neither would I recommend my own approach to those who neither love disputation nor have a lot of experience at it. A bit like the strategy of complicating a chess game, works best when you are the better player.
Marcus @11,
[markup leak needs fixing]
But not a general case, there. Trump only gets away with it because he’s in a position of privilege and power, not because he’s cluey or sociopathic or narcissistic. He always has the nuclear option at hand.
(Lock us up in a room together, I reckon I could push his buttons so that he would acquiesce and agree with me. Until we left that room, of course, whereupon he would revert)
@John Morales, re: “(Lock us up in a room together, I reckon I could push his buttons so that he would acquiesce and agree with me. Until we left that room, of course, whereupon he would revert)”
Well, I don’t know… maybe you could, but it seems doubtful to me. I have experience talking to a person with NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) and what I saw was just blatant lying: “I never said that!” said with such confidence, you would doubt your own sanity. What Marcus is saying is right: they don’t care what you think. They don’t care what anyone thinks. It’s hard to imagine their mindset because we’re normal, and our brains just keep trying to make sense of things by working it out that somehow they are normal too.
To them, the world is like a play, written by them and starring them. The rest of us are not even people; we’re just props in the play. If we serve our purpose, great, if we don’t they simply discard us. I mean, would you give a shit if your pencil argued with you? Would you even conceive of acquiescing to your pencil under any circumstances whatsoever? Or your microwave, or your chair? I kinda doubt it.
While that covers some hypocrites, I think you’re neglecting the more widespread (and therefore more problematic) hypocrisy of ordinary humans with inconsistent operating principles.
As I’ve mused on before, Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” — and yet benefited from a social system that did indeed deprive some men of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as well as other rights.
Or more generally, consider how many people would declare themselves unbiased, and yet when actually tested, repeatedly demonstrate bias in their actual choices.
Isn’t this sort of inconsistency hypocrisy?
John Morales @#6 & 7
That’s not how it works. There’s a debate where you hear this argument:
A judge ought to be a law abiding citizen who possesses moral integrity.
Person A has committed a crime in the past.
Therefore person A is not suited for working as a judge.
So far so good, I have no problem with this argument. I believe it is possible to argue that a rapist and a liar shouldn’t be a Supreme Court judge. In this case a debate about the moral character of person A is fine with me. But then the problem starts. Person B joins the discussing and starts expressing his opinion about whether person A should be a judge or no. At this point we get this argument:
Person B is a hypocrite and a liar.
Arguments advocated by hypocrites are not valid.
Therefore arguments brought forward by person B are irrelevant in deciding whether person A should be allowed to work as a judge.
Now this is where we get a logical fallacy.
Granted, whenever Trump opens his mouth, the sounds he makes usually do not form any arguments. It’s just yelling and pointless noise.
Moreover, this is not how appeal to consequences (argumentum ad consequentiam) works. This is how the fallacy works:
If P, then Q will occur.
Q is desirable.
Therefore, P is true.
A practical example:
If humans manage to stop the climate change, many human lives will be saved.
Saving human lives is desirable.
Therefore humans will manage to stop the climate change.
Your description sounds more like this:
If humans manage to stop the climate change, many human lives will be saved.
Saving human lives is desirable.
Therefore humans ought to try to do everything possible in order to stop the climate change.
This second version is not a fallacy.
No. The only way how you can win a competitive debate is by giving arguments that are factually correct. You cannot win a debate tournament by saying, for example, “Gays ought to be incarcerated, because they try to convent little children to homosexuality.” This statement is factually incorrect, thus judges won’t take it seriously. Yet I have heard this one and other similar arguments so many times in real world debates. In general, competitive debates do a better job at establishing truth than real world debates, because speakers aren’t allowed to just say crap.
And claiming that real world debates are about establishing truth is also incorrect. Often debaters are concerned about furthering their careers, passing laws beneficial for themselves, making other people do whatever they want, etc. Real world debates are mostly about furthering each debater’s selfish interests. (OK, this is the case with politician debates, debates between, for example, scientists are likely to be better than what I just described.) Then there’s also a difference in quality of argumentation. Politicians’ speeches are filled with logical fallacies, insults aimed at the opposition, and pointless noise.
I do agree that wishing for real world debates to be more like the kind of debates I have participated in at various debate tournaments is naïve. Why should a politician abstain from ad hominem attacks if they work so well at getting elected? Why should lawmakers prioritize truth over their own personal financial interests? It’s not going to happen. In fact, even on a personal lever this is problematic. Like me, also my sex slave is a former debate teacher. We hardly ever argue, because we try to discuss things each time when we disagree about something. I like this, because it makes it easy for me to get along with him. Unfortunately, the same is near impossible when dealing with most other people. Whenever I disagree with my mother, she starts screaming insults at me. I know that rational arguments don’t work on her, thus I’m forced to scream back at her. This is just pathetic, but there’s nothing else I can do about it.
Yes. However, debates are where arguments are usually used.
Nobody here has claimed that an argument or a debate without an audience is impossible. Personally, I have experienced such a thing on countless occasions.
This depends on how you define “rules.” You can have a strict set of rule, for example, “people take turns making speeches and each speech is exactly five minutes long.” You can also have looser rules, for example, “everybody who wants to say something is given a chance to speak, and nobody gets cut short.” Nor it is necessary to verbally agree upon some rules, they can also be implicit.
Owlmirror@#15:
As I’ve mused on before, Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” — and yet benefited from a social system that did indeed deprive some men of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as well as other rights.
Or more generally, consider how many people would declare themselves unbiased, and yet when actually tested, repeatedly demonstrate bias in their actual choices.
Isn’t this sort of inconsistency hypocrisy?
Fair enough. I’m tempted to file Jefferson under “not acquainted with the truth” – anyone who could own slaves while writing such ringing words about freedom is simply living in an alternate reality; I suspect Jefferson was so accustomed to not thinking of his slaves as people, that it never occurred to him that there was a problem with what he was writing – more asshole, him.
You’re right – there is a form of hypocrisy that’s deep inconsistency and may be unaware. Like Al Gore flying around in his private jet talking about climate change; it’s something that is so much a part of their cultural experience (ditto Jefferson) that they don’t see it unless they step back and cross-check their attitudes. I can’t call it “sociopathy” either because they’re living within their society and are actually supremely well-adapted to it.
How to Shut Down Bad-Faith ‘Debates’ on Social Media
leva:
:)
Been there, done that. Be sure whoever you imagine is ignorant actually is so before attempting to remedy that perceived flaw.
Indeed.
But it is an appeal to consequence, no?
(sigh)
Not misrepresented or fabricated facts being adduced is not the same as establishing the truth.
No, I made no such claim; instead of the truth-establishing, think of the formal rules aspect.
So, are we debating right now, or merely arguing?
(Apparently, the latter would be unusual!)
So why bring it up? I sure didn’t.
Just noting that, on the countless occassions one has no audience, one can’t talk to that non-existent audience except in a rhetorical manner — which I’m pretty sure is not what you intended to express originally.
Formal rules, as per the previous bits of discussion.
On the subject of debating Trump, the only way to beat him is to attack ferociously, and keep attacking. The ‘when they go low, we go high’ nonsense you got from Democrats in 2016 just doesn’t work.
@ John Morales
A single word or phrase can have several different meanings. In this case we have:
#1 “Appeal to consequences,” also known as argumentum ad consequentiam logical fallacy. There’s a clear definition how this fallacy works:
If P, then Q will occur.
Q is desirable.
Therefore, P is true.
For more info see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_consequences
#2 Simply talking about what consequences some action is going to have. For example, “If I kill somebody, I will go to jail.” This can appear in an argument in such form:
If P, then Q will occur.
Q is desirable.
Therefore, I should do P.
There is nothing fallacious about this argument. This is not the argumentum ad consequentiam logical fallacy. No author of logic textbooks (at least the ones I have read) has ever implied that there’s something wrong with this argument.
Moreover, at this point I’m confused about what you were trying to prove. I see several possible options:
#1 “Appeal to consequences, as in,
If P, then Q will occur.
Q is desirable.
Therefore, P is true.
is not fallacious if the debate is about, say, public policy.”
In this case providing some example would be useful, because, for me personally, no examples where this might be true spring to my mind. I cannot think of any situations where this logical fallacy stops being fallacious.
#2 “If P, then Q will occur.
Q is desirable.
Therefore, I should do P.
is a logical fallacy called ‘appeal to consequences.’”
If so, then this is wrong according to every textbook I have read about this topic.
#3 “If P, then Q will occur.
Q is desirable.
Therefore, I should do P.
is not fallacious if the debate is about, say, public policy.”
Of course, this one is true. Nobody has ever tried to imply that there might be a logical fallacy here.
If this is the case, I don’t see what could have been your point, because it renders your original words (“It’s not if the debate is about, say, moral character, just as appeal to consequence is not fallacious if the debate is about, say, public policy.”) into something weird that makes little sense.
Anyway, after your first comment it seemed to me like I at least understood what you meant. Now, after your last comment, I no longer have any clue about what you wanted to say. I can only imagine several possibilities without being able to tell which is the right one. And, as far as I can tell, maybe you even meant something else entirely different that hasn’t occurred to me so far.
leva, it’s fairly simple.
Those are informal fallacies, that is, fallacies of irrelevance rather than of inference (formal fallacies).
When consequences or character become relevant to the truth function, then they are no longer fallacious.
—
This all began because you claimed that “Appealing to hypocrisy is tu quoque logical fallacy.”, It’s not relevant if you’re seeking to establish your birth date, it is if you’re running for office on an issue upon which you are demonstrably hypocritical.
polishsalami@#20:
On the subject of debating Trump, the only way to beat him is to attack ferociously, and keep attacking.
“You’re a liar, a hypocrite and you don’t believe anything to say. You are a tax cheat, a lousy businessman, and you leave your pregnant wife to prostitute with pornstars. You’re a manipulative sociopath – a conman who sounds like he believes what he’s saying because he doesn’t even know what the truth is.” etc. A sort of ‘gish gallop’ of true accusations.
It’d work if he didn’t interrupt you or pitch a temper tantrum.
I think the only thing that would really work on Trump is something completely outside of his experience. An MMA-style punch in the mouth would do it.Something that utterly broke his cowardly spirit.
I think you nailed it Marcus Ranum.
Very little of this dynamic is really about logic or reason. Arguing debate points is simply to mistake the situation for a debate when, in fact, the contest is one of raw power. Trump simply, by simple assertion, states how he wants the situations to be viewed a the time. This is not an argument based in logic. This is about dominance and power. Specifically the power to name and the power to present a version of reality and force people to accept it as real independent of any logic, understanding, or facts.
When you patiently listen you honor the non-argument by addressing it as a logical, evidence-based, assertion. You give him far too much credit by addressing him as a fellow intellectually neutral debater deserving respect and consideration. When you offer up logical arguments and demonstrate bad-faith and hypocrisy you are simply demonstrating that you misunderstand the nature of the conflict.
While so many on the left furrow their brows crafting counter arguments and thinking they can make debating points Trump, Bannon, and their ilk, simply go on to assert their preferred framing based upon their consistent catechism. No matter the counterpoint offered they still assert this view and each time it comes around the appeals to logic, because they differ in approach, seem weaker while the assertions, entirely consistent but independent of logic, seems stronger. That this progression also causes frustration and consternation on the left just adds to the delight on the right.
It also doesn’t help that the choice of assertion from the right is entirely situational and self-serving. Dig enough and over time the right has variously asserted pretty much all possible sides of any argument. This is handy because they can claim to be “right”. If I get to call a coin toss as both heads and tails I will always be right. If I further deny having made after-the-fact wrong choice I can’t lose. The same goes for accusing the left of all the sins of the right in their ‘this is how it is’ assertive style.
The left needs to drop the high school debate club tactics. They are not working. The left needs to simply state our reality forcefully and persuasively, as in what sort of nation do you want to live in, and walk away. Once put forth the left needs to concentrate on consistently hammering the same points using the same language no matter how tempted we may be to argue logic.
Kestrel @14 [re me getting Trump to acquiesce]
Well, it’s a stupid conceit anyway, bit Walter Mitty. Fair enough.
That said…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/14/want-to-change-trumps-mind-on-policy-be-the-last-one-who-talks-to-him/
[OT]
The irony is that if it really is a personality disorder, it’s a disorder that over a lifetime of luxury has culminated in Trump achieving POTUSness and therefore (ahem) greatness.
He will go down in the history books, even.
(Statistical outlier, but merely an existence example, or just like much of history, a confluence of contingent circumstances?
One wonders)
lorn,
Nope, that should remain. Especially what leva¹ noted about not adducing falsehoods.
Not exclusive tactics, complementary rather.
(Also, “the left” seems a bit of a misnomer for the Democratic Party to me)
—
¹ I’m presuming you don’t mind my shorthand, Ieva Skrebele.
lorn@#24:
While so many on the left furrow their brows
“The left” is too simplistic a label to be allowed in Argument Clinic. (waves a yellow and chartreuse -colored flag)