Is it "tu quoque" if the speaker answers your accusation by accusing you of a different crime, or by accusing someone else?

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ohthatdeb	Is it "tu quoque" if the speaker answers your accusation by accusing you of a different crime, or by accusing someone else? Is it "tu quoque" if the speaker answers your accusation by accusing you of a different crime, or by accusing someone else? "Tu quoque", or "answering criticism with criticism" generally goes like this: Person A: "You eat too much sugar!" Person B: "You literally have five lollipops in your mouth as we speak." The response does not invalidate Person A's allegation that Person B eats too much sugar. Simple. But political debate is more complex, and allegations are often answered not with "well, you did the same thing" but with "well, you did a different but equally terrible thing!" Or, the criticism might be turned against a third party, like this: Analyst: "You lied about your educational background." Politician: "Well, my opponent hasn't paid all her taxes!" Are those situatons -- accusing the speaker of a different offense, or accusing a third party of an offense -- also defined as "tu quoque"? Thank you.
	asked on Wednesday, Feb 15, 2017 08:01:59 AM by ohthatdeb
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Bo Bennett, PhD 0	Great question. It is a fallacy if in argument form or the unspoken assumption is that since Person A did it too, then it is permissible for Person B. The definition is "Claiming the argument is flawed by pointing out that the one making the argument is not acting consistently with the claims of the argument." The claim of being flawed is the key component here. It is not a fallacy if the response is to demonstrate hypocrisy. To use your examples, I would say that the first (lolipop example) is not a fallacy, it is a solid demonstration of pointing out hypocrisy. Person B is not denying that he or she eats too much sugar, or even hinting at that conclusion. In your second example, I would say this is more of a fallacy, but not the Tu Quoque, rather Avoiding the Issue . Again, the politician is not saying or even suggesting that lying about his or her educational background was acceptable because of the fact that his or her opponent has not paid all her taxes. It is this claim of invalidation that is the key component of the Tu Quoque fallacy.
	answered on Wednesday, Feb 15, 2017 09:45:28 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD
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mike 0	The second example sounds like whataboutism. The politician is trying to distract by making a counter charge unrelated to the matter at hand. If the analyst won't address the attempted digression, the opponent accused of not paying taxes can address the charge and then attempt to steer the discussion back to the lying about educational background. Sounds almost like 2 wrongs, if the opponent is in fact guilty of not paying taxes, that doesn't excuse lying about ones education and the politician needs to address it.
	answered on Thursday, Feb 16, 2017 12:40:49 PM by mike
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