Tu Quoque (Fallacy of the Week)

[@Martymer81]

As I feared, I pronounced it incorrectly. It's "too kwo-kway". Thank you to all those who pointed this out.

[@ddd8828]

I found this video because I wanted to know how to pronounce it. Thanks!

[@HughSHay]

I commend and admire the way you took every effort to humbly correct your own mistake (even pinning it on top). The world in 2019 needs more of this type of intellectual humility. note: the mnemonic device i use to remember this phrase's pronunciation is "To K+walkway" if that helps

[@jonathanjollimore7156]

Tu quoque are very lazy argument most of the time and a weak attempt for change the subject

[@friedfrog5447]

Person a says "anyone who gives up on idealism just because they've seen some bd things happen is weak minded, I wouldn't give up" Person b "you have no right to judge someone for that" Person a "you are making a judgment too so you are doing the same thing" Who is arguing wrong here and whats the word for the fallacy?

[@n.h.alicia3278]

Kettle logic? Martians are beings of pure logic with no emotion. They hated the Space Jews and were angry.

[@ragnarokstravius2074]

That's one old example. (And by the of Mother Queen of Xenomorphs, that's a damn cute pic.)

[@WildwoodClaire1]

So-called "what aboutism," one of Vladimir Putin's favorite ways of avoiding a direct answer to a question, and one also adopted by Donald Trump, is a kind of tu quoque fallacy. Example: Consider the statement "Vladimir Putin's critics often end up dead." This sort of statement has been addressed by Putin with this sort of response: "Assassinations are common in many nations. What about President Kennedy's assassination?" Notice the implication of hypocrisy, employment of false equivalence, and attempt to change the subject.

[@HughSHay]

Rhetorical question here (no need 2 reply): Ever notice that KGB Commie Whataboutism has become the #1 debate strategy of literally every memeber in good standing (it's now 2019) of Cult45. The famous Cold War example is the "you lynch your blacks" defense to anyone USAmerican who would dare question russian unfreedom and stalin's murderous brutality. example: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gJnddox8q7RrhsU

[@richaragonzales1355]

@@HughSHay Putin is not a commie. Russia is not communist. Even saying that the KGB was an active promoter of communism in the years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union is disingenuous because they helped the dissolution happen. Putin's seizure of power, his ousting of other members of the KGB and their assinations, is more than enough to demonstrate Putin's Machiavellian politics. Also, I hope you're not saying that the US isn't wrong for its crimes "because Putin did some too". Because the US government is guilty of plenty of crimes against the international community and its own citizens. To say Putin is a hypocrite for pointing that out about America as a deflection, would be ironic since that would be hypocritical by Americans who themselves try to justify their brutality by pointing towards "dictators". The point of this fallacy isn't that people are hypocritical. The point of the fallacy is that you're trying to prove yourself right by saying someone else is a hypocrite, which is irrelevant to whether or not you are correct. Your whole spiel about "commie whataboutism" is actually an appeal to hypocrisy. You say Putin can not criticize the US for what they do because Putin does bad things too. That is actually irrelevant to the US being able to disprove the claims about systemic racism. Amazing to me that you watched this video and failed to understand it, then went on to immediately use the logical fallacy to your own detriment. Not surprising since you don't even know what communism is, yet still use the term. :|

[@munstrumridcully]

I have always had a problem with certain invocations of the tu qouque, specifically, when someone says "you do it to" not to conclude "therefore I dont" but rather "therefore you either should not condemn me or you should also condemn yourself". This usually only applies to cases where some moral ingraction is in question. Since there is no objectively correct moral axiom, and if both the accused and accuser reject, through actions, a moral axiom that would make the action in question immoral, then to condemn a man in some way for what you yourself do is to selectively apply "rules" of morality, imo.

[@richaragonzales1355]

I think the source of your confusion is the fact that you're abstracting from reality. Morality, like all ideology, is based in material reality. To talk about morality in general is to not know morality truly. Verily, morality is a reflection, in the mind of man, of the specific conditions of his being. There is no need to ponder "objective moral axioms" . Such a thing appears scholastic by its nature and hardly useful to practical life. Your approach to morality through idealism instead of through science is your primary mistake.

[@munstrumridcully]

@@richaragonzales1355 But isn't morality through science normative morality? Like "this is how most examples of the social species called homo sapiens sapiens behaves toward each other in moral terms(which usually applies only to in-group members)"? Science cannot tell us what is objectively moral because all moral judgements are value judgements, and value has to be assigned by a valuer, making all value judgements subjective.

[@ulyssesm.daniels6927]

Quality fallacy lesson as always Martymer. I love your work sir.

[@Kleo3392]

I get this done to me. "You're ugly." "Wait, but you're ugly too, so shouldn't you not be allowed to speak?" My life is garbage.

[@thexsoar]

I have always known of this, but never knew it had a name. Huh, I learned something today.

[@y_fam_goeglyd]

As ever, excellent. Many thanks. Btw, as you asked, it's pronounced quo-quay (no break, just pointing out the one different sound. You got Tu right). At least it was when I was as school. I also pronounce veni, vidi, vici as wehnee, weedeee, weekee, so undoubtedly anyone who was taught to read V as the English V is going to argue over quoque ;-) (Much as I love languages, science has the edge when it comes to exactitude 😉)

[@stevenbaumann8692]

I was smoking the entire time I watched this video. I have no delusions. I know it's bad. Yeah. Politicians act like 9 year olds arguing.

[@rongpirson5250]

I believe it is pronounced "no u"

[@feynstein1004]

Yay. I love this series. Day = made.

[@saxbend]

In latin e is pronounced as it is in the first syllable of the English word "every". (Imagine an h written on the end of the word quoque as if it were to rhyme with "meh").

[@Stephen5000]

This seems to be a very popular fallacy to make on the internet.

[@mcc1789]

A lot of these logical fallacies are like this. They only turn into fallacies when it's the only point made. You can insult someone while also addressing what they're actually saying. That isn't ad hominem, though it's rude. Ironically this itself leads to many false accusations of using logical fallacies, and this is itself a fallacy.

[@mcc1789]

If you simply called someone that, it's not a fallacy. Saying they're wrong *because* they're dumb or whatever is ad hominem. Otherwise it would just be a regular insult.

[@sr71blackbird71]

Ah yes, the fallacy fallacy

[@mcc1789]

@@sr71blackbird71 Indeed.

[@BiscuitHead22]

Tankies absolutely adore this one.

[@A3Kr0n]

Don't worry about Russia, you should really be worried about Hillary's emails!

[@DarranKern]

A3Kr0n hmm, a made up smokescreen story with no proof, compared against a federal crime that the culprit admitted to doing and was proven to have done. Nice demonstration of a false dichotomy

[@JVerschueren]

The post hoc attempt to pin a federal crime on senator Clinton, you mean.

[@skoockum]

Darrin Kern -- False dichotomy? *scritch scritch* Looks more like a tu quoque ...well, maybe a she quoque.

[@TheBrothergreen]

A false dichotomy is a false decision consisting of options A) and B) For instance you can either smoke tobacco, or you can smoke cocaine! Tobacco is way, less harmful than cocaine, so you should smoke tobacco. Perhaps you meant to say "false equivalence?" although it's more tu quoque than it is false equivilency... the reason being is the phrase "don't worry about Russia." A false equivalence would take the form that A and B are equal, and therefore you can't be upset about A) unless you are also upset about B). EG. Person A) I found these (used cocaine smoking parafanalia) in your room, what do you have to say for yourself. Person B) You Smoke! Person A) I smoke Tobacco!!!

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

+Darran Kern ZERO evidence of a "federal crime" that ANYONE "admitted" to. Having emails is not a "crime". Hillary's non-existent email "scandal" is equally non-existent to Trump's non-existent "Russia" scandal. BOTH equally non-existent. BOTH equally unimportant. Yet, they are BOTH evil hypocrites and BOTH deserve to be tortured and killed. However, since Trump IS provably worse AND since Trump is in power NOW, killing and/or torturing Trump is MUCH more urgent than causing harm to Hillary by imprisoning her.

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

I thought "tu quoque" meant "to coke up", to get high on cocaine. I've been doing this fallacy wrongly.

[@jonathanstern5537]

What if the person accuses another of something that the accuser exhibits, but the accused does not? A common example is the old apologist line, "It takes more faith to be an atheist than it does a theist."

[@Kleo3392]

. . . then it's just a false accusation . . .

[@chuckgaydos5387]

Is there a "Me Too Fallacy" that goes along with the "You Too Fallacy"? If someone is excessively polluting the air and I don't complain because I'm doing it too, am I committing the Me Too Fallacy, and I really should complain even though I don't intend to reduce my pollution?

[@MorallyUnacceptable]

We learned it as (Too-Kwoh-Kway)

[@kratoselricsuzumiya8345]

What is the line between hypocrisy and changing your mind?

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

So, what do you call the fallacy of pointing out a "thing" that one thinks is a fallacy but actually isn't? What fallacy do you give to this? Making afFalse positive? Or, simply, an error?

[@enhydralutra]

Basically, tu quoque is the entire republican playbook for deflecting criticism.

[@fanghur]

For the record, I believe that it's pronounced "to quo-quay". :)

[@meenispham]

It's more like Tu Quoqué

[@blitzwinters5687]

Would the theist tendency to call Atheism a religion, then, be a Tu Quoque?

[@nathand842]

M'lady spaghetti monster WUBALUBA DUB DUB

[@basilofgoodwishes4138]

So basically Kimblee's philosophy.

[@prschuster]

Someone once told me that evolution was a racist theory because evolutionists believe that some races are more evolved than others. I countered by saying racism is irrelevant to the issues of evolution and creation because there are just as many creationists who believe that God created some races to be superior to others. My response was called a tu quoque, but I was not using it as a diversion, but only to show that racism is not dependent on one's belief with respect to the evolution/creation debate. What do you think?

[@hadara69]

Trump chumps: "But Hillary!!" *That's* how you pronounce it.

[@MyTomServo]

I took Latin in high school... which is a depressingly long time ago now, but I think it's quo quay instead of quo quee. I only mentioned it because you said you hope you pronounced it correctly lol.

[@MyTomServo]

This is further complicated by the word quay being pronounced key in English, but I meant it as it's spelled no like another word for wharf.

[@TheBrothergreen]

The British pronounce quay as key? Weird.

[@Coalemos]

Yes, there is a place in Glasgow City next to the Clyde called The Quay like ODEON Glasgow Springfield Quay. I was 16 or 17 when I went for an interview at the Daily Record and the address is 1 Central Quay and that's when I learned it's pronounced "key", my father told me.

[@MannnisEi]

No puppet. You're the puppet. t. Mr. Trump

[@rloomis3]

I thought of that too.

[@archapmangcmg]

Nicely done. Thanks for the video!

[@Teth47]

I'm pretty sure it's pronounced "Tsu Coke". It's a French term, the que makes a k sound. No, I don't know why. English and French love to make up new combinations of letters for sounds already represented more concisely by other letters...

[@theskepticalapple4203]

Teth47 Latin and it's Too Kwo-kweh.

[@jacksainthill8974]

+TheSkepticalApple Thank you for that. (I, too, would have gone with the French and got this wrong.)

[@Kleo3392]

No, it's latin. There is no such word as "quoque" in the French language, and also, English speakers use Latin for logical fallacies, not French. By the way, the "qu", which was labialized in Latin like it is in English simply lost the labialization, and the final "e" in the ending "-que" simply became reduced, on account it's easier to speak that way (for the Gauls). The same thing happened in English (loss of final e).

[@ugolomb]

Kettle logic is fine if you're trying to find *hypothetical* explanations as to how something *might* have happened. It's not when you're arguing that this is what actually happened. Say you're neither the kettle's owner nor the person who allegedly damaged it, but rather an outside observer trying to understand how the kettle was damaged. If, from that vantage point, you say: "B didn't *necessarily* damage the kettle. Maybe B returned it in a fine state, and it was only damaged afterwards. Maybe it was already damaged before B borrowed it. Or maybe B never borrowed at all. Even if the evidence clearly suggests that the kettle was once fine and is now damaged, that still isn't enough to prove that B caused the damage". Since you're presenting all explanations as hypothetical, you're not being inconsistent. As long as you acknowledge that at most one of your explanations might be true, you're in the clear.

[@joostvanrens]

My Latin teacher told me to pronounce it as KWO-kwa. But Latin is a dead language, so nobody really knows.

[@Kleo3392]

. . . except for the fact that the Romans left freaking pronunciation guides and they can be deduced through comparative linguistics anyway. Way to misrepresent an entire scientific branch.

[@MrChadd990]

... except for the fact that even people alive today argue over how to pronounce words we use on a daily basis.

[@Kleo3392]

. . . ummm, examples?

[@longlostwraith5106]

+Kleo3392 "Data", for example, has two pronunciations I know of.

[@Roxor128]

So, for an easier-to-remember name, can we call this fallacy "Appeal to Hypocrisy"?

[@Martymer81]

Yup.

[@Roxor128]

Good. Thanks, Martymer! Keep up the good work on this series.

[@UnlimitedLives1960]

sounds spot on and a lot easier to pronounce too

[@Coalemos]

@Martymer 81 Hey man. Can you please do 'ad lapidem' fallacies? I am not 100% sure how to recognise _'Appeal to the Stone'_ and _'Appeal to Ridicule'._ In fact, I am not entirely sure if _'Appeal to Ridicule'_ is a lapidem fallacy or if it's an Appeal to Emotion. I know the former dismisses, out of hand a comment as absurd without evidence while the latter, appeal to ridicule, seems to dismiss something as laughably absurd by comparing it to something ridiculous but, of course, it's a baseless assertion. If there are a few types of _Argumentum ad Lapidem_ fallacies. I'd very much like to learn any nuance within ad Lapidem fallacies. I've always been curious as to how flat Earthers get to simply dismiss evidence that doesn't suit them with no explanation whatsoever, I find it dishonest and unfair, especially all images, video etc. of the Earth from space and all space images for that matter. Disgraceful.

[@Martymer81]

Yeah, I'll get to that at some point. In the meanwhile: Appeal to ridicule is an appeal to emotion. "If you accept this, you are ridiculous." Compare "if you accept this, you'll be sad/afraid/etc." Ad Lapidem: "The claim is so ridiculous it doesn't deserve a response; therefore it is false." Yeah, those are hard to tell apart.

[@Coalemos]

Thanks for the reply. The whole flat Earth thing has taught me so much regarding fallacies and has renewed my interest in space and physics. Always a source of irony, the flat Earth. At least this one has had a positive effect on me.

[@mkb6418]

The argument is actually valid when evaluating two candidates. If candidate A has a bad characteristic and B has also the same bad characteristic, then choice cannot be based on this bad characteristic. Tu quoque is a proper defence in this case. Let A and B argue. A accuses B for C. If A also practises ch then two are the possible outcomes: 1) A does not really believe what they just said. 2) There are other, deeper reasons why A practises C. If the same reasons apply on B, then accusation also goes against A, and they should include themself. 3) There are other, deeper reasons why A practises C, different than B. Then accusation shall refer only to these reasons and omit C. In any case, if tu quoque is applicable, then it responds to an invalid or incomplete argument, so it is a valid argument.

[@lucianodelbufalo3374]

nobody knows latin pronounciation for shure as it is dead, still in italy they tech it as "tu (too) quóque( first ou like a in ball and second ue with an open e like at the beginning of elephant) does that make any sense? whatever it's a dead language, it can't complain :P

[@HYEOL]

Me doing X doesnt change the fact doing x is wrong

[@n.h.alicia3278]

HYEOL It does make you someone who does bad things.

[@HYEOL]

Red herring xD

[@kyle857]

Did Jesus ever say he would tourture anyone? I think he said he was the only way to God. Seems like hell to Jesus is just a place without God.

[@TAP7a]

Too Kwo Kway

[@cerberaodollam]

Both are dirty indeed. Hence, go with Jorgensen ;)

[@DaxterL]

I'm looking through these videos, and am i dumb that whenever there is a Wu quote i have no fucking idea what he's talking about, like every quote so far made no sense to be. Am i dumb and not understanding those big words or is he just making noise without meaning anything. Even in fallacies i don't know what he's trying to convey even with Martymer's translation i still can't look back on that quote and see that in the text.

[@as7gaming289]

Hey

[@Richardj410]

Pronounced too-kwo-kwee, not sure if you said it this way but i had not idea how to pronounce it.

[@xyoungdipsetx]

So this is ad hominem

[@jackrubyshat]

Great video as always, and it can be better without the background music.

[@DarranKern]

Ah, Tu Quoque, the official fallacy of liberals and social justice warriors.

[@iloveteaalot6483]

Hell yeah I'm the first viewer!

[@ssalamander2134]

fuck you

[@axeburningfire2507]

fuck me!

[@zero132132]

Said 0 when I showed up too.

[@StefanTravis]

You're not, therefore I am.

[@antonioscendrategattico2302]

No, you're not pronouncing it correctly, sorry :P

[@horatiotrismegistus616]

Well, all I'm sayin' is that if you're going to make claims you should back them up with reasons instead of distracting people with stories about missing cookware. Spirit Science only makes claims that can be verified by empirical observation, not second-hand testimony from a person who may, or may not, have actually borrowed a kettle!

[@awpti]

Every single video in this series has the same basic problem: Music drowns out your voice. The music isn't necessary or should be made less bassy.

[@16montana24kobe]

awpti The music doesn't drown out his voice for me