No smoke without fire?

Tu quoque

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Tu quoque ( /tuːˈkwoʊkwiː/),[1] or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a kind of logical fallacy. It is a Latin term for "you too" or "you also". A tu quoque argument attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting his failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. This dismisses someone's point of view on an issue on the argument that the person is inconsistent in that very thing.[2] It is considered an ad hominem argument, since it focuses on the party itself, rather than its positions.[3]

Illegitimate use

In many cases tu quoque arguments are used in a logically fallacious way, to draw a conclusion which is not supported by the premises of the argument.

You too version

This form of the argument is as follows:

A makes criticism P.

A is also guilty of P.

Therefore, P is dismissed.

Examples:

"He cannot accuse me of libel because he was just successfully sued for libel."

Person 1: It should be illegal to make clothing out of animals.

Person 2: But, you are wearing a leather jacket.

Person 1: People shouldn't drink. It's a very damaging habit.

Person 2: But you're drunk.

Inconsistency version

This form of the argument is as follows:

A makes claim P.

A has also made past claims which are inconsistent with P.

Therefore, P is false.

This is a logical fallacy because the conclusion that P is false does not follow from the premises; even if A has made past claims which are inconsistent with P, it does not necessarily prove that P is either true or false.

Examples:

"You say aircraft are able to fly because of the laws of physics, but this is false because twenty years ago you also said aircraft fly because of magic."

Senator Smith: It is important that we all vote for this legislation.

Senator Jones: You just said last week that voting for it was a bad idea.

The legitimate form of the argument

A makes criticism P.

A is also guilty of P.

Therefore, A is dismissed (from his/her role as a model of the principle that motivates criticism P).

The difference from the illegitimate form is that the latter would try to dismiss P along with A. It is illegitimate to conflate the logically separate questions of whether P is a valid criticism and whether A is a good role model. [Emphasis mine, AE].

Examples of legitimate use:

In disqualifying a self-appointed judge. "He can indeed accuse me of libel even though he was just successfully sued for libel, but perhaps he shouldn't."

Legal aspects

In common law, a legal maxim exists stating a person cannot approach the courts of equity with unclean hands. If there is a nexus between the applicant's wrongful act and the rights he wishes to enforce, the court may not grant the applicant's request. To illustrate, if a landlord breaches a term in a tenancy agreement and then issues an eviction notice to the tenant for the tenant's breach of a term in the tenancy agreement, the law might permit the tenant to stay because of the landlord's own breach of the tenancy agreement.

This argument has been unsuccessfully used before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in several cases when the accused tried to justify their crimes by insisting that the opposing side had also committed such crimes. However, the argument tu quoque, from the basis of international humanitarian law is completely irrelevant, as the ICTY has stated in these cases.[4][5][6][7]

Historically, however, at the Nuremberg trial of Karl Dönitz tu quoque was accepted not as a defence to the crime itself, or to the prosecution proceedings, but only as a plea for mitigation of punishment.[8] At the Dachau trials Otto Skorzeny and officers of Panzer Brigade 150 successfully used tu quoque evidence to be acquitted of violating the laws of war by using American uniforms to infiltrate Allied lines in the false flag Operation Greif in the Battle of the Bulge. Evidence was introduced that the Allies themselves had on at least one occasion worn German uniforms, demonstrating that the prosecution was not clean with regards to this particular crime.

References

1.^ OED

2.^ Bluedorn, Nathaniel (2002, 2003). The Fallacy Detective. pp. 54. ISBN 0-9745315-0-2.

3.^ Logical Fallacy: Tu Quoque

4.^ Judgment of the Trial Chamber in Case Kupreškić et al.. (January 2000), para. 765

5.^ Judgment of the Trial Chamber in Case Kunarac et al.. (February 2001), para. 580

6.^ Judgment of the Appeals Chamber in Case Kunarac et al.. (January 2002), para. 87.

7.^ Judgment of the Trial Chamber in Case Limaj et al. (November 2005), para. 193

8.^ Yee, Sienho (2004), "The Tu Quoque Argument as a defence to International Crimes, Prosecution, or Punishment", Chinese Journal of International Law, 3, p. 87-133.