Misusing Godwin's "Law" -- Post your pseudo-fallacy pet peeves here!

[quatona]

I think you are splitting hairs.

You mean considering my point exceeds your willingness do differentiate? That´s your prerogative.

The OP wanted to talk about misusing fallacies. I was pointing out that an insult was not an ad hom fallacy. I think my point was valid.

Indeed, and that point is undisputed.
As I said, it prompted me to make a different - but related - point, though.
I meant to point out the difference between calling something an "ad hominem" and an "ad hominem fallacy", and the error that possibly lies in understanding the first to mean the latter: pointing out an ad hominem is not necessarily a misuse of a fallacy.

Whether or not it is appropriate to use an ad hom (insult) at all is a different matter altogether. We are talking about fallacies, not manners.

Yes, and neither the appropriateness of using ad hominems nor manner were my point.

 

[quatona]

Is a strawman like the scarecrow in the wizard of OZ? Is that a "ad hom" for "I think your stupid"?

No, it isn´t. Google is your friend.
strawman fallacy - Bing

 

[poolerboy0077]

"Godwin´s law" doesn´t describe a fallacy, to begin with.
The fallacy most often committed when Hitler is being brought up is the association fallacy.

Just to be clear I acknowledge both of these points in my OP.

 

[durangodawood]

Not to put too fine a point to it - but "you are a blithering fool" is ad hominem (addressing the person rather than the argument), though not an ad hominem fallacy.

Nice. Thats exactly what I was going to say.

ad hom is rarely meant to substitute for logic.

 

[isleof]

No, it isn´t. Google is your friend.
strawman fallacy - Bing

Ah, pet peeves. Such as making words up from thin air.

 

[isleof]

ad hom is rarely meant to substitute for logic.

Exactly, the creator of the definition ad hom is against reason and logic.

 

[Cearbhall]

The fallacy is thinking that "This is the same thing as Hitler's genocide" is a fact, not an opinion. I see it all the time in debates about abortion and euthanasia. Besides being offensive and exploitative to compare concentration camps to consensual death and the abortion of a fetus, it's illogical. I call Godwin's law when someone tries to compare a viewpoint to Hitler's views to make a person feel guilty. If I thought abortion and euthanasia were wrong, I wouldn't want those acts to be legal. Throwing a specific person who committed genocide into the conversation isn't going to change my mind. It's just sensationalism and a lazy argument.

I agree that such comparisons are not always inappropriate, though. I once had someone call Godwin's law on me when I compared a hypothetical soldier-breeding orphanage program to the Lebensborn program.

 

[poolerboy0077]

The fallacy is thinking that "This is the same thing as Hitler's genocide" is a fact, not an opinion.

No, that's not a fallacy. In fact, your description is a fallacy in itself: you are distorting analogies and misunderstanding their function.

When analogies are proffered as rebuttals they are typically intended to challenge some implied premise. Analogies, however, are not meant to compare two or more things as though they're similar in every respect. (Otherwise they wouldn't be analogies; they'd be identities.) They're meant to compare two or more things that are similar in some relevant respect(s). No analogy should be rejected simply because one has found a mere dissimilarity—one must reflect on whether or not the dissimilarity was central to the point.

The point of referencing Hitler or Nazis in a properly constructed analogy isn't to say that the other thing that's being compared is "just like" Hitler or the Nazis. It's invoked because it's a variable we can all get behind (that Hitler and Nazis are bad) while exposing the flaw in the structure of an argument (what distinguishes an argument's validity as opposed to its soundness).

Consider the following exchanges:

Theistic Person: My religion teaches that same-sex marriage is wrong.
Gay Rights Advocate: Some people's religions teach that interracial marriage is wrong.
Theistic Person: So you're saying opposing same-sex marriage is just like racism?!


Gay Rights Advocate: Acting on my homosexual feelings is morally acceptable because I was born this way.
Theistic Person: Psychopaths and alcoholics were probably born that way too.
Gay Rights Advocate: So you're saying being gay is just like being a psycho or an alcoholic?!
​

Take the first exchange: Gay Rights Advocate didn't say opposing same-sex marriage is "just like" racism. Rather, he used the analogy to interracial marriage as a counterexample to the implied premise that "Whatever a religion teaches is right." Gay Rights Advocate appears to be saying that referencing religion doesn't exempt a view from moral scrutiny.

Likewise in the second exchange, Theistic Person isn't saying psychopaths and alcoholics are "just like" being gay (or even behaving gay, for that matter). Rather, he used the analogy as a counterexample to Gay Rights Advocate's implied premise that if people are born with a certain disposition, any behavior driven by it must be morally acceptable as well.