Ad hominem based on groups, demographics or characteristics: does it have a more specific name?
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Original Question
Quite commonly I see responses that are based on the person making the argument being part of a certain group or (often equivalently) having a certain trait (such as race, gender and many other).
This is clearly a kind of ad hominem, but I was wondering whether it has a more specific name, expecially since the website doesn't seem to have a page for ad hominem in general.
It is an error in reasoning, it is commonly applied and it does seem to fool many.
This often takes the form of suggesting a person should only be talking about a certain topic if they don't belong in a certain group (often in a response to an argument about problems suffered by the group), without actually responding to the arguments itself. This is done to suggest the argument is therefore invalid or not worthy of consideration.
The reasons this is an error is the same as in any other case of ad hominem.
If what is being discussed is objective, then clearly the correctness of what one is saying cannot depend upon them being part of a group. If the topic is (partially) subjective then, still, the validity of ones argument does not depend on who they are.
I suggest this should be added as a specific fallacy.
Answers
3It sounds like you are describing the genetic fallacy . If this doesn't seem like a match, perhaps you can provide an example argument where you this fallacy has been committed.
The example you gave seems like a 'stay in your lane' situation where someone's taking issue with unsolicited comments from someone outside the group that's personally experiencing the issue being discussed, where their lack of personal experience in the issue prevents them from discussing the issue from the perspective of people experiencing it, the group has recurring issues with being talked over and ignored in attempting to discuss their experiences and so on. It comes down to the other person's perspective either not being relevant to the specific topic of discussing experiences they never had or that the way they're attempting to discuss the topic takes away the agency of people trying to advocate for themselves.
Sometimes stuff like that does matter, such as only left handed people being able to talk about what it's like to be left handed and right handed people not really being able to add to that due to it requiring subjective experience they don't have. But if the discussion was about what it's like to have hands in general and they were excluded anyway then that would be an issue, since they also have hands and their experiences should be just as relevant.
What fallacies apply could vary depending on the reasoning and circumstances, such as arguing that subjective experience is required when the topic is about something objective, excluding a group whose subjective experiences also apply to the discussion when they belong to a larger group of people whose subjective experiences are applicable to the discussion (the second part of my hand example), stuff like appeal to trust and appeal to authority applied to entire groups, etc.
See Dr. Bo's
Ad Hominem (Guilt by Association)
argumentum ad hominem
(also known as: association fallacy, bad company fallacy, company that you keep fallacy, they’re not like us fallacy, transfer fallacy)
Description: When the source is viewed negatively because of its association with another person or group who is already viewed negatively.
Logical Form:
Person 1 states that Y is true.
Person 2 also states that Y is true, and person 2 is a moron.
Therefore, person 1 must be a moron too.
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