, literally "you, too", is a rhetorical technique that intends to discredit the opponent's argument by attacking the opponent's own personal behaviour and actions as being inconsistent with their argument, so that the opponent appears hypocritical. This specious reasoning is a special type of attack. The cites John Cooke's 1614 stage play as the earliest known use of the term in the English language.

  1. Person A claims that a statement is true.
  2. Person B asserts that A's actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim .
  3. Therefore, is false.

For example:

:

Bob reasons that because Alice is being hypocritical, her statement about the effects of smoking must be false. But the truth of Alice's claim has no connection to whether or not she is a hypocrite.

Similar concepts

A similar concept in politics is that of whataboutism; raising a counteraccusation, often in the form of a larger but unrelated issue. In the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the phrase "and you are lynching Negroes" was often raised against the United States. The same technique is used in red herrings, as Benito Mussolini attempted to do after the murder of Giacomo Matteotti.

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

  • Tu quoque fallacy – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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