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In my experience, people in the USA don’t extend their moral virtues to foreign countries, and when they do it’s common for this to be done in an unequal fashion. Often, people will respond telling you that you’re guilty of “what-about-ism” despite you merely universalizing a value that they themselves claim to have. I’ve ceased trying to converse about moral virtues with my fellow Americans as a result. It’s every bit as unwelcome as talking money in the USA.



That's a new trend, to dismiss hypocrisy by calling it whataboutism.

IMHO the latter only legitimately applies where the comparison is tangential/apples to oranges, or if "two wrongs don't make a right" is being argued.


"Appeal to hypocrisy" was recognized as a logical fallacy long before it was called "whataboutism".


The trouble is that while it's a logical fallacy, it's not so clearly a moral fallacy.




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