The Pro Homine Argument: As Fallacious as Ad Hominem

and as distracting and destructive to the pursuit of truth

The argumentum ad hominem is widely understood to be a means or tactic designed to divert attention away from the facts of a matter onto the person. It seeks to discredit a proposition or presentation of evidence by attacking its proponent, the character of traits of the person himself or herself.

Let’s use a hypothetical debate between two scientists about the safety of the covid jabs as an example. Scientist number 1 offers evidence of an increased incidence of myocarditis, stroke, renal problems and miscarriages and heart attacks as a result of the Pfizer inoculation in New Zealand, and correlates the development of these conditions with the rollout of the jab. If Scientist number 2 ignores the data and instead argues that his opponent is a delusional conspiracy theorist who also happens to have been convicted for drunk driving whose data therefore cannot be valid, he would be engaging in an ad hominem attack. Should the pursuit of truth be paramount he would never employ such a tactic, since drunk driving or delusions have nothing to do with the facts presented which themselves should be able to be confirmed or disconfirmed.

There is another side to this coin, however, which as far as I know has not been identified by logicians, debaters and philosophers with the same clarity or precision but which is in fact equally fallacious and destructive to the pursuit of truth: the argumentum pro homine.

Let’s say that Debater number 1 is generally esteemed as a solid, honest and decent person who is arguing that the sea level in Wellington is rising at an alarming rate so that the city will be engulfed within ten years. Debater number 2, who is a convicted arsonist, armed with numbers and charts and graphs, counters his argument. The adjudicating panel sides with the upstanding citizen purely on the basis of his personal reputation and refuses to assess the material provided by his opponent. The inference is that whatever Debater number 1 says must be true simply because he’s a good guy or she’s a good gal, so to speak. This position is just as ludicrous and harmful as an ad hominem attack.

These are of course rather extreme examples used for purposes of demonstration. Life, being the messy conundrum that it is, doesn’t often present clear-cut situations, situations in which evidence may be easily assessed, so that we find ourselves dealing with ambiguities. Nonetheless, a reliance upon the perceived character of the person is not a sufficient indicator of the truth of a proposition. So often I hear that so-and-so is ‘good’ or ‘genuine’, which is a prelude to an admonishment that whatever he or she says must be correct — and so often I hear the opposite, despite the fact that the Devil, as we all know, can quote Scripture quite flawlessly. And as for who is saintly or ‘genuine’ or whatever, remember King Duncan’s admonition in Macbeth: ‘there’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face’. In other words, only by our fruits shall we be known.

Just yesterday I promised to show a friend a few tips about violin technique and she, being a friend, responded with animation, saying “Oh, I know they will be excellent!”

I disagreed: she knew no such thing because I hadn’t yet demonstrated anything and I told her that she should reserve her judgment until I did! Sure, she trusted me and was well disposed out of friendliness, but she could only know whether my violin method would be helpful after she tried it out. Her premature pro homine conclusion had no basis and required a very real test before she could say anything with certainty.

This is not a matter of picking nits, but one of great importance: truth is truth, regardless of who propounds it, and falsity is falsity. In our topsy-turvy ever-changing wartime landscape a great deal rides on emotional response, on prejudice, on bias, on the wish to have one’s wishes come to fruition. I understand that well enough, but we must always be on our guard against allowing our reason to be thus overridden.

I recently chanced upon a nice neat edition of an old novel I had read many decades ago — Joseph Conrad’s Typhoon. I’d remembered nothing about it except that a ship was caught in a tremendous storm at sea and somehow managed to survive. In fact, that’s pretty much the plot of the short novel, but one doesn’t read Conrad for plot — or, at least, I don’t. It’s the perspicacity and thrill and wonder of his extraordinary prose, wherein virtually every sentence becomes an adventure of discovery, as in the following example:

The far-off blackness ahead of the ship was like another night seen through the starry night of the earth — the starless night of the immensities beyond the created universe, revealed in its appalling stillness through a low fissure in the glittering sphere of which the earth is the kernel.

I mean — well, how can one not but gape at the splendors of such writing!

Anyway, the novel did have a bit more a plot line than my faulty memory had dredged up. Yes, a ship passed through a devastating storm, but during its passage its rather dull and unimaginative Captain insisted on having his crew restore order among a cargo of Chinamen who, when their goods and monies had been scattered in their hold, had begun to riot.

If there is a ‘message’ in the wondrous work of Conrad’s imagination, it is about retaining one’s cool in the midst of the most dreadful of calamities, and of doing the right thing. In short, a message especially relevant for us in the here and now of our strange and cataclysmic world, where it is ever more essential for us to focus on the facts at hand, savory or unsavory as they may be.

Not every jab is a lethal bullet, nor is every natural supplement a panacea, no matter who says they are. While navigating this long and deadly war, it is well to keep in mind the many emotional forces, within and without, that threaten to sway us from the steady course of fact.

There is yet one more facet of my thesis, that extends in another dimension. What if a nation has achieved a phenomenal triumph which is hailed universally as unique, beneficent and inspiring? Would that nation’s depredations be forgiven? Would this magnificent accomplishment and the enduring halo of its glow serve to run cover for its less palatable activities?

Hint: have the Apollo moon missions given my United States of America an undeserved free pass as they wrought havoc in Vietnam and so many wars since then?

Emanuel E. Garcia, M.D.

December 2023