Appeal to Accomplishment
An assertion is deemed true or false based on the accomplishments of the proposer. This may often also have elements of appeal to emotion.
EverydayConcepts.io
Origin
The rhetorical pattern traces to John Locke's argumentum ad verecundiam (argument from misplaced deference) in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), which identified the broader fallacy of invoking authority rather than evidence. The specific label "appeal to accomplishment" — where past achievements are invoked to deflect unrelated criticism — was catalogued by Bo Bennett in Logically Fallacious (2012) and distributed through his companion website, consolidating a modern taxonomy of named logical fallacies.
Updated February 22, 2026