Q7 - Party X has recently been accused

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Match the Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Party Y's accusations are ill founded. The group making them did the same thing a few years ago.

Answer Anticipation:
Attacking someone's claim because of their actions and not their arguments (here, hypocricy)? That's an Ad Hominem flaw. Whenever someone's past actions are questioned, think about this flaw.

Why is it a flaw? Just because they did the same thing doesn't mean they can't spot it elsewhere. In fact, maybe they're more knowledgeable and can spot it more easily because of their experience - just look at Frank Abgnale, Jr.!

Correct answer:
(C)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Wrong flaw (Term Shift). This answer distinguishes between illegality and immorality. That's a Term Shift. The argument doesn't accuse the plaintiff of any past bad doing.

(B) Tempting! I'd definitely leave this on the first pass. However, there's a conclusion mismatch here. The stimulus uses the hypocrisy to conclude the accusations themselves are suspect. Here, the conclusion is just that there is hypocrisy; there's no conclusion stating the accusations are ill founded.

(C) Bingo. The author discounts the plaintiff's accusations because the plaintiff himself did the same thing. This is the same Ad Hominem flaw of the stimulus.

(D) Close, but no cigar! This answer choice does call the motivations of the plaintiff into question. However, the plaintiff isn't accused of hypocricy, but rather of having ulterior motives. That's a different flavor of Ad Hominem attack.

(E) Interesting answer! This answer does deal with an Ad Hominem flaw, but:
1) It deals with the ulterior motives flavor of the flaw, not the hypocritical flavor
2) The author doesn't commit the Ad Hominem flaw. Instead, the author of this answer points out the Ad Hominem flaw committed by the plaintiff.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Some flaws come in different "flavors". It's important to be able to distinguish between them for questions such as this (though it is rare for the answers to bring up so many flavors of the same flaw). The Ad Hominem flaw will generally fall into one of the following categories: attacking the character; accusations of hypocrisy; bringing up an ulterior motive.

#officialexplanation

[TomC27]

I was a bit stumped on this question...

I came down to B) and C) and ended up choosing B).

It was mainly an issue of time reference. In the stimulus, Party X has been recently accused and Party Y was involved in a scandal 3 years ago. In answer choice C), the plaintiff engaged in the illegal actions recently, instead of it being 3 years ago (or in a similar temporal frame). I would've chosen C) because I was really iffy on the word "hypocritical" in answer choice B), but the structure in B) seemed to match the stimulus more.

Should this detail matter?

I just wanted to ask because I understand why C) is right but for the future, I'm curious whether I should be concerned of these tiny little details - or whether these tiny details even matter.