Guilt by association

What it is

Discredits a claim or a person because of a supposed link to someone or something disliked. A shared platform, supporter or interest does not transfer the faults of one to the other.

Related

• Ad hominem fallacy
  Guilt by association is an ad hominem aimed at the company someone keeps rather than at the person.
• In-group bias bias
  Linking someone to a disliked group works because we treat group membership as telling us everything, which is the engine of in-group bias.
• Association bias bias
  Guilt by association exploits association bias: we like or dislike things because of what they are linked with.

References

• Wikipedia: Guilt by association en.wikipedia.org
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Fallacies iep.utm.edu
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Fallacies plato.stanford.edu
• Wikipedia: List of fallacies en.wikipedia.org
• Purdue OWL: Logical fallacies owl.purdue.edu

More in “Attacking the person or the source”