Informal Fallacies

Bulverism

Bulverism is a logical fallacy in which, rather than proving that an argument is wrong, a person instead assumes it is wrong, and then goes on to explain why the other person held that argument. It is essentially a circumstantial ad hominem argument. The term "Bulverism" was coined by C. S. Lewis.

Lewis explained bulverism as follows:

You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly. In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it "Bulverism". Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father — who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third — "Oh you say that because you are a man." "At that moment", E. Bulver assures us, "there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall." That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.

Bulverism usually turns on a deliberate casting of suspicions upon the motives of your opponent, alleging that he stands to benefit in some way personally from the position or case he is making.  "Therefore", the argument he is making must be faulty, because the one making it is self-interested.

Here is a classic example of the fallacy in full-throated roar, courtesy of Dr Nick Smith, Minister of ACC.  Smith has been challenged by surgeons who claim that the ACC, for which he is responsible, has been deliberately turning down surgery for accident victims on the grounds that their affliction is a result of old age, not an accident.

Here is Dr Smith's bulveristic response:

Dr Smith warned levies would rise if ACC treated more cases, and said people should not be naive about the financial interests of orthopaedic surgeons pushing for more work to be paid for by ACC. He said 10 orthopaedic surgeons were paid more than $2.4 million each by ACC last year, including one who got $3.6 million. Figures included hospital costs, but he estimated the surgeons would have received half of that money. (NZ Herald)

Ad hominem "arguments", of which bulverism is one, are often employed by those who are defensive, or too intellectually lazy to refute an argument and so play the man rather than the ball, or those feeling the heat and wanting to deflect attention elsewhere.  In all cases, ad hominem is a fallacy because it amounts to a gratuitous slur, not an argument.