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Articles on fallacies are popular on the Home for Fiction blog. We’ve talked about the Appeal to Nature fallacy, the Bandwagon fallacy, and the Only Game in Town fallacy. Today I’ll talk to you about the Appeal to Hypocrisy fallacy, also known as “Tu Quoque”. The term is Latin and means “You, too”. I will use the terms interchangeably in this article, they mean exactly the same thing.

As with all fallacies, the Appeal to Hypocrisy is an attempt to ameliorate one’s argument with parameters that do not stand the test of argumentation and logic. Generally speaking, a person committing a fallacy might do it inadvertently; that is to say, without intent. Here’s an example:

Everyone at the office agrees, the boss is stupid.

This feels like a very natural thing to say. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it, right? And yet, though the statement might still be true, it’s not argumentatively solid. The mere fact that every employee agrees, doesn’t prove that the boss is indeed stupid. This is an example of the Bandwagon fallacy.

Conversely, it is uncommon that a person would commit the Appeal to Hypocrisy fallacy unknowingly. The nature of this fallacy is such that the person deploying it in an argument is usually fully aware that his/her argument is weak, and the fallacy is committed precisely to create distraction.

How the Appeal to Hypocrisy Fallacy Works

The general pattern of the Tu Quoque fallacy is simple. Speaker A proposes an argument P. Speaker B, instead of refuting the argument P, points out that the actions of person A are inconsistent with P.

Here are two examples, which will make the Appeal to Hypocrisy Fallacy easier to see.

Example A

John: The mayor should do more about the small businesses in this town, they’re struggling.
Mary: Funny to hear that from a guy shopping on Amazon!

In this example, Mary basically ignores presenting a counterargument and simply calls John a hypocrite. It’s an ad hominem attack, that is, focusing on attacking the character of the other person rather than the argument itself.

Example B

Citizen of country X: The human rights situation in your country, Y, is appalling, especially for women and LGBT people.
Citizen of country Y: You do realize your country has the death penalty, right?

This example is taken from… real life. If you’ve heard of the phrase “And you are lynching Negroes“, it’s a historical example of the Tu Quoque fallacy.

As you can see from this latter example, this fallacy is particularly likely to occur in a discussion about ethics. Remember the last time you saw an online discussion or commentary about, say, Christianity versus Islam, or the atrocities of Nazism. There is a very typical pattern unfolding in such discussions, very similar to Example B above. It could go in a way not unlike this:

Example C

Mary: Islam has caused many of the problems in today’s world.
John: Oh, and Christianity hasn’t? What about the Crusades?

Notice how in this example (which you might have seen delivered almost verbatim online) John does nothing to respond to Mary’s argument, focusing instead on creating a distraction. The whole exchange reveals nothing about who is right (if anyone). It is devoid of substance, because it offers no argumentation.

Let’s see another example that you might have also seen online, offered almost verbatim. Notice the use of “what about” in both examples.

Example D

Mary: Hitler was evil personified. The Nazis killed millions of innocent people.
John: What about communism? Do you realize communism has killed even more?

This is one of my… “favorite” cases, in terms of talking about fallacies. Frankly, it depresses me when I see people commenting in this way online, because it reveals to me how immersed in mediocrity our societies really are.

First of all, in this example that is regurgitated ad nauseam, John seems to equate Stalinism (among other leader cults) with communism. Even beyond Stalin, the Soviet Union cannot be possibly considered marxist in the sense Marx described. But focusing on the Tu Quoque fallacy itself, it should be easy to detect how John’s reply is nothing but a distraction from Mary’s proposition. At best, what John has done is to point out that other contexts (Stalinism, in this case) were also brutal. But this does nothing to counter Mary’s suggestion.

Unfortunately, despite the incredible weakness of such attempts, the internet is replete with them. Perhaps due to its capacity to cause an immediate distraction, it is deployed regularly by self-righteous individuals.

How to Deflect the Appeal to Hypocrisy Fallacy

Since the Appeal to Hypocrisy fallacy has flooded the internet, we might want to ask, how is it possible to deflect it?

I’m afraid the news is not all that good. As the saying goes, it’s very difficult to wake up someone who pretends to be asleep. In other words, if a person cares more about being right than about discovering the truth, no amount of solid argumentation will inspire them to change their mind.

Personally, I have discovered that the best way to deal with the Appeal to Hypocrisy fallacy is to simply remove yourself from the discussion. This might sound odd, but taking into consideration what I mentioned just above, you perhaps realize why I’m saying this.

As I mentioned earlier, the peculiarity of the Appeal to Hypocrisy fallacy is that, on average, it’s more intentional compared to other fallacies. The persons committing this fallacy do so deliberately, more often than not. There is no room for arguing with such people.

At best, if you would like to enlighten others following the discussion, you can perhaps mention the fact that a fallacy is committed, explaining the details, and only then remove yourself from the conversation. But the notion that you can persuade someone to understand s/he is committing the Appeal to Hypocrisy Fallacy and convince them to refrain from doing that, should be considered near impossible.