Reductio ad Hitlerum

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The reductio ad Hitlerum ( Latin "return to Hitler") is an avoidable, but often rhetorically used fallacy : A view is to be refuted by the fact that it is shared by a morally untenable person, especially Adolf Hitler . The name and description go back to Leo Strauss . In rhetorical practice this is falsely treated as a reductio ad absurdum . A related, more general form is the fallacy association .

classification

The underlying fallacy is a special case of the non sequitur ( Latin for "it does not follow"). In English it is also known as guilt by association (guilt by belonging) or more generally as association fallacy ( association fallacy ). The derivation happens as follows:


Adolf Hitler is bad.
Adolf Hitler, the view represents X .
therefore: View X is bad.

The first two statements can be true facts on their own. However, the conclusion is invalid because it is not logically inferred from the premises. The validity of a statement is not influenced by negative but ultimately irrelevant characteristics of the person who makes it. For this reason, the falsification of a statement using the reductio ad Hitlerum is not permitted.

If the reductio ad Hitlerum tries to transfer the negative associations with the person of Adolf Hitler to the person of the opponent and thus discredit him, it is also an argumentum ad hominem .

example

Someone is committed to animal welfare . Another rejects this on the sole grounds that Adolf Hitler also campaigned for animal welfare.

This example clearly shows that a person who is perceived as negative by most people can certainly represent views that are predominantly perceived as positive. The underlying fallacy becomes clearer the greater the discrepancy between these two factors. The reductio ad Hitlerum is therefore most effective when the view to be rejected is as negative as possible, for example due to a lack of social acceptance.

context

The phrase was introduced by Strauss in his discussion of Max Weber's demand for the freedom of value judgments in the social sciences . According to Weber, science should dispense with value statements and recommendations, in particular guidelines for politics, since there is no verifiable hierarchy of values, but a variety of equal and conflicting values ​​that determine action. Science can only point out this conflict and at best answer how a given value could be realized - a statement about ultimate purposes e.g. B. an institution or trade, however, can not truthfully hit them. According to Weber, before the judgment of the intellect, any preference for a certain value - however bad, mean or insane it may be - is just as legitimate as any, or just as illegitimate ( nihilism ). Strauss tries to derive Weber's attitude from his connection between the value ethics of Neo-Kantianism and the ideas of historicism , according to which historical phenomena can only be judged in the value system of their own time, but from an absolute perspective must be regarded as equal.

At the beginning of this investigation, Strauss warns:

“Unfortunately, it does not go without saying that in our examination we must avoid the fallacy that in the last decades has frequently been used as a substitute for the reductio ad absurdum : the reductio ad Hitlerum . A view is not refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by Hitler. "

“Unfortunately, it is necessary to point out that in our investigation one must avoid the fallacy that has often been drawn in recent decades as a substitute for the reductio ad absurdum : The reductio ad Hitlerum . A view is not refuted by the fact that it happened to be shared by Hitler. "

- Leo Strauss : Natural Right and History , 1953

Strauss is thus referring to the result of his analysis, which, according to Weber, modern man before a decision to surrender to merely extrinsic constraints (empirical needs, technical problems, market requirements) or to that intrinsic value that he finds in himself. The former leads to the fact that the highest fulfillment of life would become the mere specialty or the perfected satisfaction of desires, the latter level would be worth a surrender to one or the other, between which science as an authority of truth itself cannot make a decision. Strauss also seems to see this dichotomy and the resulting seeming arbitrariness realized under National Socialism.

However, it can be questioned to what extent Weber's idea is correctly reproduced here. In fact, in science as a profession , Weber assumed that scientists could participate in socially relevant debates outside of science - as members of this society. In addition, despite abstaining from evaluations, science is still free to check the plausibility and factuality of the statements of others without judging the result morally. Weber rather had the danger of instrumentalizing science and the danger that research and publication could become vulnerable in direct connection with a political agenda.

In his investigation of Werber's work, Strauss himself finally comes to the conclusion that Weber, too, from his thesis is not concerned with a moral relativism of arbitrariness, but with a formal imperative to personally decide on a certain value. This does not result in arbitrary rule or totalitarianism, but rather a pluralism of people who are connected to one another but are oriented towards different values.

Used by Haffner

The German publicist Sebastian Haffner used a similar line of argument in 1978 in his comments on Hitler in the chapter on errors . He warned against the assumption that every aspect of Hitler's worldview should be condemned without hesitation on the basis of the fact that it was Hitler who harbored these thoughts, since otherwise “the right thing is in danger of being taboo just because Hitler thought it too . But two times two remains four, although Hitler would undoubtedly have agreed. "

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Leo Strauss: Natural Right and History . In: Charles R. Walgreen Foundation Lectures . University of Chicago Press, 1965, ISBN 0-226-77694-8 , pp. 42–43 ( full text / preview in Google Book Search).
  2. ^ Joachim Radkau, Frank Uekötter: Nature protection and National Socialism . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-593-37354-8 , pp. 87 ( full text / preview in Google book search).
  3. ↑ cf. Peter Haungs: Science, Theory and Philosophy of Politics: Concepts and Problems , Nomos 1990, p. 25 ff.
  4. ↑ Sebastian Haffner: Notes on Hitler . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-596-50513-5 , pp. 90 .

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