I still don't understand why that's a bad argument. In context, it's generally used to oppose hard leftist ideas (Marxism, etc). It's rarely a criticism leveled at reasonable reform or change; more when it nears outright revolution. In that case, it's not an unreasonable criticism.
It's a bad argument, it's a tu quoque logical fallacy.
You can be a serial killer and admit that murdering innocents is immoral.
The identity and the actions of the person making the argument have no bearing on the validity of the argument itself, it should be judged purely on its own merits.
Is that statement that "murdering innocents is immoral" actually correct or not, regardless of who makes the statement?
I addressed this in lighter terms below, but I don't think this is a logical fallacy (in context). To carry on your example, a serial killer that believes murdering innocents is immoral should also consider themselves immoral. They have the option to not kill, and continue to do it.
This is very different from the 'holier than thou' perspective taken by those who condescendingly dismiss arguments that they are contributing to things, by their own free actions, that they claim are evil.
I mean, it is a logical fallacy, in that it is an attempt to dismiss the validity of the argument through a variation of ad hominem. Again, whether or not the person making the argument is a hypocrite, a monster, or a talking dolphin has no bearing on the validity of their argument.
The argument's validity rests purely on its own merits, regardless of who espouses or expresses it.
I can be a smoker and admit that smoking is absolutely horrible for you. Just because I am a smoker doesn't mean that the statement that smoking is horrible for you is incorrect.
I think we're just talking about two fundamentally different things.
1) Whether or not people are hypocrites (and yes, they definitely are).
2) Whether or not that hypocrisy invalidates their arguments (and no, it has no bearing on the validity of their argument).
It's a bad argument, because validity of a critique is not predicated on critic's life choice. It's like arguing that you cannot critique a movie because you have never made one.
It's not a critique of the idea alone, it's forcing it into context.
If we take a common example of how I've seen this play out:
A: iPhones and Apple are evil because they require child slavery.
B: But.. you own an iPhone?
A: Oh so I'm just supposed to go live in the woods?
I don't think B supports child slavery. B is pointing out that even people espousing this idea participate in the system because the alternative (not owning the iPhone) results in a worse outcome.
> It's not a critique of the idea alone, it's forcing it into context.
Exactly. But switching to individual context around societal question is the problematic argument here. Properly contextualizing means to use individual cases to explain impact, but that is not done here.
Society is formed by many individuals, and it doesn't necessarily matters what most of them do to address a particular problem. We have division of responsibility.
