What About Whataboutism?

Abstract

In some recent literature whataboutism is analyzed as a sometimes reasonable argument or claim about inconsistency on an issue of dispute, akin to the ad hominem tu quoque. We argue that this doesn’t capture the peculiarly meta-argumentative failure (or success) of “what-about” appeals. Whataboutist moves are appeals to evidence about whether one has assessed the total evidence, and so need not be failures of consistency on the first order.