“Tu quoque” is Latin for “you too”. The tu quoque fallacy involves using other people’s faults as an excuse for one’s own, reasoning that because someone or everyone else does something, it’s okay for us to do it. This, of course, doesn’t follow. Sometimes other people have short-comings, and we ought to do better than them. We can be blamed for emulating other people’s faults.

Example

“It doesn’t matter that I occasionally break the speed limit; everyone else does it.”

Links

• Fallacy Files - Tu Quoque
• Logical Fallacies .Info - Tu Quoque
• Michael LaBossiere’s Fallacies Introduction - Two Wrongs Make a Right

Case Study

• Unions, Strikes, and Executive Pay