I have noticed that some of the critical comments we have received here at Lintbox (and other places, as well) share a common trait. A certain fallacy is being committed in the comments, not always deliberately; for lack of a better term, I will call this the ‘anti-ad hominem’ fallacy.

The anti-ad hominem fallacy is committed by essentially carrying out the opposite of an ad-hominem attack. This type of argument is still fallacious, though less obviously so. Whereas the ad hominem fallacy is to try and refute an argument by attacking the author’s character, the anti-ad hominem is meant to artificially prop up the character of the author, in an attempt to show a lack of bias on behalf of the commenter. These comments usually begin with a short statement, usually stating how the commenter is a big fan of the author’s work, or how much they respect the author’s opinion, or how intelligent they think the author typically is… but the commenter disagrees with you on this issue. The purpose of this approach is usually meant to illustrate how the commenter feels that the author’s stance on the topic is incorrect.

Granted, this is not always the case; sometimes this approach is meant to attribute genuine praise to the author, but at other times it is clearly used as an insidious tactic to gain credibility. Stating how much that you otherwise agree with the author, or how intelligent or astute the author is, does not make your response any more or less invalid¹.

I’m not trying to direct this comment towards those people who are genuinely trying to praise what they have read or heard, but rather those who use this as a tactic in a debate in order to try and show how reasonable and compromising they are. As skeptics, we must therefore be on the lookout for this tactic, and recognize that a person’s agreement with — or praise of — the author does not necessarily make their criticism any more valid.