“How can you give an argument in favour of vegetarianism when you eat meat?”…

CONCEPT

An ad hominem fallacy shifts attention from the merits of a claim to the person making it. Tu quoque (appeal to hypocrisy) is an ad hominem subtype: it treats a speaker’s inconsistent conduct as if that refuted the speaker’s argument.

APPLICATION

The reply does not examine the reasons offered for vegetarianism. It points instead to the advocate’s meat-eating and uses that personal inconsistency to dismiss the advocate’s case. That is the tu quoque form of ad hominem.

CONTRAST

• Red herring broadly diverts attention to an irrelevant issue; tu quoque more specifically attacks a speaker through alleged inconsistency.

• Appeal to emotion relies on feelings such as fear, pity, or pride; no emotional appeal supplies the reasoning here.

• Hasty generalisation draws a broad conclusion from too few or unrepresentative cases; no such sample-based inference is made.

RESULT

The fallacy is ad hominem, specifically tu quoque.