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by abraininavat 4759 days ago
While I agree with you for the most part, the context and nature of the debate is important. In a casual conversation that happens to be an argument, there's (usually) some semblance of a logical argument that can be teased out from a large amount of non-logical communication. In that context, picking on any of that non-logical communication and calling it a fallacy is silly.

In the context of a real debate, however, when each party has the goal of arguing a side, and an audience is there to hear and evaluate each party's words in the context of the argument, I think a phrase like "you immoral moron" is indeed to be taken as an ad-hominum. In that situation every statement is assumed to be part of your argument.

1 comments

It can be taken as a sign of weakness of argument, of bad technique and of uncivility, certainly. Even grounds for disqualification from a formal debate.

It's not an ad-hominem fallacy though.