Aim at the reasons

About this video

At dinner Reza says, "We should eat less sugar - it's bad for our teeth." His older sister laughs: "You ate three biscuits this afternoon! Why should anyone listen to you?" Everyone laughs and the talk moves on. But her reply was about Reza, not about sugar or teeth. Even if Reza ate a hundred biscuits, sugar would be exactly as bad for teeth as before. Answering an argument by attacking the person who made it, instead of their reasons, is a fallacy called attacking the person.

It fools us because it is often funny or embarrassing, because it feels fair to point out that someone doesn't do what they say, and because it moves everyone's attention from the claim to the person. It comes as insults, as "you do it too", and as who someone is: "you're just a kid, what do you know?"

This short animation draws the sister's reply as an arrow that hits Reza and misses the argument beside him, which stands untouched. An argument's reasons are claims, and a claim is true or false whoever says it: the same argument from a child, a dentist or a grandmother. There is one fair question about people, though. When an argument rests on someone's word, "trust me, I saw it", it is reasonable to ask whether they are honest or really know. That is checking a reason, not attacking the person. This video goes with the Attack the Person lesson of Logic Level 1 on Knaph.

Transcript

1. 0:00We should eat less sugar. It's bad for our teeth.
2. 0:04You ate three biscuits! That's aimed at Reza, not at sugar.
3. 0:11Sugar is just as bad for teeth, whoever says it.
4. 0:18Asking about the person is fair only when the argument rests on their word.
5. 0:24Answer the reasons, not the person.