Appeal to Ridicule

Appeal to Ridicule

To ridicule a point of view is to disparage or make fun of it. The fallacy, also known as reductio ad ridiculum, appeal to mockery, or the horse laugh, occurs when a speaker uses ridicule as a premise in an argument. This can take the form of directly mocking a claim (e.g., “That’s crazy!”) or of misrepresenting the argument through exaggeration or misleading comparisons in order to make it appear absurd. According to Stan Baronett in Logic (2013), a fallacy of relevance is one that attempts to support a conclusion using an irrelevant premise. Ridicule by itself is irrelevant to a claim’s truth because making fun of a claim does not make it false; a point of view may still be true even if it sounds ridiculous or is made to look foolish.

An appeal to ridicule can overlap with an ad hominem argument when mockery of a claim becomes an attack on its proponent. An ad hominem argument attacks the person directly – for example, “You’re an idiot!” – while an appeal to ridicule attacks the person indirectly by mocking her point of view – for example, “That is the most asinine thing I’ve heard all week!” The two moves can have similar social effects, but they are not identical. A criticism or joke about a proposition need not assert anything about the person who holds it.

There is also a similarity between an appeal to ridicule and an appeal to emotion in that both attempt to bypass rational assessment of a point of view and elicit an emotional reaction from the audience. An appeal to ridicule may be an attempt to elicit humor at another’s expense, or it may be an attempt to elicit enmity, playing on the fears and prejudices of the group. Insofar as it promotes group prejudices, it may also be related to an appeal to the people.

Perhaps the most common instance of this fallacy occurs when someone says, “That’s crazy!” This is not problematic when it is simply intended to communicate surprise or amazement, as in “I can’t believe he just won the lottery! That’s crazy!” However, it is a fallacy when a speaker uses it to dismiss an argument without taking it seriously. This expression is so common that there are probably few circumstances in which one has not heard it used, and I have heard it many times in the classroom. For example, when I was a graduate student, one of my professors dismissed a moral theory regarding the sanctity of life with “That’s crazy!” I remember it well because the theory that was so quickly dismissed was one I held – although my professor did not know this at the time. In addition, I frequently hear my students use the expression in my world religions classes when we encounter very unusual religious practices. For example, we may be talking about snake‑handling churches in Appalachia and watching videos of these folks dancing with venomous snakes and drinking strychnine. Inevitably, someone will say, “That’s crazy!” and means for the craziness of the belief to constitute a sufficient reason for rejecting it.

Other common forms of the fallacy involve painting an opponent’s position in a deliberately ludicrous light. Comparing belief in God to belief in the Easter bunny, for instance, attempts to substitute a derisive image for a genuine argument. Similarly, dismissing the idea that life developed through natural processes by saying “It’s ridiculous to think we come from pond scum” misrepresents evolutionary biology with a grotesque caricature, sometimes while changing the subject to the origin of the elements (e.g., “We come from exploding stars”) that sidesteps the issue. In such cases, the arguer attacks a distorted claim. An account of where elements formed does not by itself explain how life began or evolved.

If we were to reconstruct the fallacy’s underlying logic, it would look something like this:

1. Any point of view that seems crazy (or that I can make look ridiculous) to me is false.
2. This point of view seems crazy (or I have made it look ridiculous) to me.
3. So, this point of view is false.

The trouble is that just because a belief sounds crazy to us does not mean that it is false. In fact, many crazy‑sounding beliefs turn out to be true. For example, the wave–particle duality theory of light sounds crazy, but it is well confirmed by modern physics. Also, certain Christian beliefs sound crazy to non‑Christians, but this does not mean these beliefs are false. The Christian example works well with my students in the Bible Belt who hold a Christian worldview. What is important is to recognize that crazy‑soundingness is not proof that a claim is false.

One way to avoid this fallacy is to recognize and employ its non‑specious counterpart: a reductio ad absurdum, or reduction to absurdity. This argument refutes a claim by showing that it leads to a logical contradiction or genuine absurdity. In Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic (2010), Walter Sinnott‑Armstrong and Robert Fogelin show how to use a reductio to refute the claim that there is a largest integer: “Suppose there is a largest integer. Call it N. Since N is an integer, N + 1 is also an integer. Moreover, N + 1 is larger than N. But it is absurd to think that any integer is larger than the largest integer. Therefore, our supposition – that there is a largest integer – must be false.” This argument assumes a claim is true for the sake of argument and continues to show that such an assumption leads to a contradiction (or absurdity) and hence is false. The difference between a reductio ad absurdum and an appeal to ridicule is that the former uses good evidence and a logically forced conclusion, while the latter merely mocks or distorts.

Humor can accompany a sound argument or draw attention to a contradiction. What matters is whether the relevant reasoning can be identified independently of the audience’s amusement. However, this is a risky proposition because what appears ridiculous to one person may simply reflect a lack of understanding or a different perspective. Misplaced ridicule can backfire, making the arguer look desperate rather than persuasive. The safer path is to rely on evidence and clear reasoning; if a position is indeed false, a sound argument will expose it without resorting to mockery.

Cultivating an attitude of respect for other points of view is the most reliable way to avoid the fallacy. This kind of respect does not mean agreeing with everyone, which is impossible. It does, however, mean recognizing that people often have good reasons for believing what they do and that very different (even contradictory) beliefs can be rationally justified. A good example of this is William Rowe’s “friendly atheism,” which allows that some theists can be rationally justified in their beliefs even though Rowe considers theism false. A friendly theist, on the other hand, would acknowledge that an atheist’s beliefs may be justified even though they are false.

This attitude of respect is connected to the virtue of intellectual humility. A person is intellectually humble when he has an accurate assessment of his epistemic position, thinking neither too highly nor too lowly of himself. Humility is a virtue because as epistemic agents we are limited and must rely on others in our epistemic communities for knowledge. Humility facilitates the acquisition of truth and requires taking other points of view seriously no matter how silly they sound, recognizing all the while that we (or others) could be mistaken. To ridicule a point of view fails to show respect to others as epistemic agents and is incompatible with the virtuous life of the mind. When you are the target of this fallacy, it helps to maintain your composure, remember that the other person has made an error in reasoning, and tactfully point out that ridicule alone does not constitute an argument.