That's a subtle fallacy. It confused me at first, then I realised that 'pointing out hypocrisy' isn't the fallacy, it's 'claiming the argument is wrong because it's hypocritical' that's the fallacy.
edit: on further examination, the examples given in the wikipedia article are really bad - because they're merely pointing out hypocrisy ("but you're -foo-") rather than claiming the argument is wrong. Person 2 in each example could quite happily be in full agreement with the argument and make the same comment.
Yes, exactly. Maybe I should edit the article to include this, it's an important aspect. Sure, the person might be hypocritical, but this doesn't invalidate the argument.
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Ah, the ole "tu quoque" fallacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
That's a subtle fallacy. It confused me at first, then I realised that 'pointing out hypocrisy' isn't the fallacy, it's 'claiming the argument is wrong because it's hypocritical' that's the fallacy.
edit: on further examination, the examples given in the wikipedia article are really bad - because they're merely pointing out hypocrisy ("but you're -foo-") rather than claiming the argument is wrong. Person 2 in each example could quite happily be in full agreement with the argument and make the same comment.
Not following one's own performance advice isn't hypocrisy. Performance might just not matter as much to Zoompf.
Yes, exactly. Maybe I should edit the article to include this, it's an important aspect. Sure, the person might be hypocritical, but this doesn't invalidate the argument.
It's like a chain smoker telling you that smoking is bad.
Yep, and it is bad.