Tu Quoque and Red Herring

Core Idea

Tu quoque ('you too') deflects criticism by pointing to the accuser's own behavior: 'You say smoking is unhealthy, but you smoke yourself.' While this may reveal hypocrisy, it does nothing to address the original argument's merits. The red herring introduces an unrelated topic to divert attention from the issue at hand, steering the discussion away from the point that needs to be addressed. Both are fallacies of relevance — they substitute an easier or more emotionally satisfying target for the actual argument. In political discourse, tu quoque often appears as 'whataboutism,' systematically redirecting every criticism back at the critic.

How It's Best Learned

Monitor real debates and flag each time a speaker responds to a criticism by changing the subject or pointing to the critic's behavior. Practice asking: 'Does this response actually address the original claim, or does it just redirect attention?'

Common Misconceptions

• Believing that exposing hypocrisy refutes an argument — a hypocrite's argument can still be perfectly sound.
• Thinking red herrings are always intentional; sometimes speakers drift off-topic without strategic intent, which is poor reasoning but not deliberate manipulation.

Explainer

You already know from studying ad hominem and the genetic fallacy that a whole family of fallacies share a common structure: instead of addressing an argument on its merits, the response attacks something irrelevant — the person, their motives, or their origins. Tu quoque and the red herring belong to the same family of relevance fallacies, but they redirect attention in slightly different ways.

Tu quoque — Latin for "you too" — is a specific form of ad hominem where the deflection is the accuser's own behavior. "You say I should exercise more, but you haven't been to the gym in months." "You criticize government corruption, but your party did the same thing in 2010." The move feels rhetorically satisfying because it exposes inconsistency or hypocrisy. But notice what it doesn't do: it doesn't address whether the original claim is true. Whether regular exercise improves health has nothing to do with the fitness level of the person making the recommendation. A hypocrite's argument can be perfectly valid; a saint's argument can be fallacious. The quality of an argument is logically independent of the character or behavior of the arguer.

The red herring is a broader category: any tactic that introduces an irrelevant topic to divert attention from the claim that needs to be addressed. The name comes from the alleged practice of dragging a smoked fish across a trail to confuse hunting dogs. In debate, a red herring can be a new topic, a tangential statistic, an emotional appeal, or simply a change of subject — anything that moves discussion away from the original point without resolving it. The key diagnostic question is: does this response actually engage with the original argument, or does it just steer the conversation somewhere more comfortable?

In contemporary political discourse, tu quoque has institutionalized into whataboutism — a systematic rhetorical strategy where every criticism of actor A is met with "but what about what actor B did?" The move is designed not to refute the criticism but to render accountability impossible by making every accusation symmetrical. Recognizing this pattern as a relevance fallacy rather than a legitimate response is one of the most important critical-thinking skills for navigating public debate. When you encounter it, the correct move is to name the redirect and return to the original point: "That may also be worth discussing, but it doesn't address the question of whether this specific action was justified."