Appeal to motive
From RationalWiki
| Part of the series on |
| Key articles |
| General logic |
| Bad logic |
An appeal to motive is a form of ad-hominem attack in which it is asserted that the opponent's argument is false because they have some (base) motive for advancing it; it is a way of poisoning the well.
In may cases there is no actual evidence of the supposed motive. A common example is the Big Pharma Conspiracy: defenders of woo will dismiss those advancing rational argument as being "big pharma shills" or part of "$cience":
- The determination to 'discredit' Burzynski must be money-driven, like the wealthy ACS - Burzynski shill on Twitter.
As an argument it is fallacious because it is a non sequitur. Having a conflict of interest does not make one wrong.