Where’s the ad hominem? He’s not using the badness of the man to attack the statement. He is noting that even though he thinks the man is bad, the statement is respectable (with his exegesis).
Humans are bad at correctly dealing with affect-laden sentiments. It’s bad practice even to mention a status-valuation of a person in a context nearby to a discussion of the merits of something that person said.
That is, it doesn’t actually matter all that much that
He’s not using the badness of the man to attack the statement.
It’s enough that he mentioned the badness of the man before discussing the statement.
There would of course be no problem if the participants in the discussion were intelligent, rather than human.
-1 for ad hominem. Especially bad if the accusations against his character are true.
Misleading usage of the ad hominem concept. If your objection is “the parent said something that lowers the status of another” then you may consider instead claiming ‘offensive’ or ‘rude’. (I would disagree with either of those charges too but it would be a matter of subjective preference and not one of abstract understanding.)
-1 for shifgrethor contagion. Especially bad if the accusations against his character are true.
Where’s the ad hominem? He’s not using the badness of the man to attack the statement. He is noting that even though he thinks the man is bad, the statement is respectable (with his exegesis).
Humans are bad at correctly dealing with affect-laden sentiments. It’s bad practice even to mention a status-valuation of a person in a context nearby to a discussion of the merits of something that person said.
That is, it doesn’t actually matter all that much that
It’s enough that he mentioned the badness of the man before discussing the statement.
There would of course be no problem if the participants in the discussion were intelligent, rather than human.
Misleading usage of the ad hominem concept. If your objection is “the parent said something that lowers the status of another” then you may consider instead claiming ‘offensive’ or ‘rude’. (I would disagree with either of those charges too but it would be a matter of subjective preference and not one of abstract understanding.)
Yes, that’s correct. Edited.