Appeal to Emotion: Force or Fear

13 Appeal to Emotion : Force or Fear

George Wrisley

If workers of this company do not agree to a 25% cut in salary, then the company may have to shut its doors. Therefore, the workers of this company must agree to a 25% cut in salary.

Stan Baronett, Logic

Emotions have long been seen as suspect because of their power to overwhelm us. Plato, for example, held that reason must dominate the spirited (emotional) part of the soul. And today we view crimes of passion as deserving of less punishment than premeditated acts of violence. In the context of dialogue and argument, emotion also plays an important and powerful role. Fear can be debilitating, but it can also spur someone to do things he ordinarily wouldn’t, or couldn’t, do. In moments of pity and compassion, we often let our guard down and open to the needs of others. It is because of the wide variety of their effects and because of their centrality to our lives that emotions are so important to consider carefully.

Fear of negative consequences is a great motivator. Because it is such a strong tactic, appeals to force or fear can be quite powerful in persuading others to act. An argument that appeals to force or fear attempts to make the audience feel fear at the threat or possibility of harm in order to get them to accept a conclusion. The threat or evoking of fear can be direct or indirect, physical or psychological.

This chapter deals with fallacies that appeal to force or fear; also see the chapter that considers fallacies that appeal to pity (Chapter 14).

Sometimes evoking fear in, or threatening, another can be a legitimate part of arguing, particularly if emotion is part of what is at issue. However, often appeals to fear or force are irrelevant to the point at issue and are fallacious attempts to convince an audience to accept one’s argument/position. Thus, a central problem in regard to appeals to force or fear arguments is figuring out when such appeals are legitimate and when they’re fallacious. In order to address this, we’ll employ several critical questions (see Walton 1992 and 2006).

The basic form of the fallacy looks like this:

Proponent: Gives reasons x, y, and z, one or more of which are intended to instill fear if some action, C, does or does not happen.

Proponent: Concludes C should or should not happen.

The two basic issues relevant to considering whether an appeal to force or fear is fallacious are:

1. What exactly is the conclusion?
2. What is the understood point of the dialogue? In regard to that point, is the proponent equivocating in the conclusion she has drawn? That is, is one party of the argument operating with a sense of the conclusion appropriate to one purpose, but the proponent illicitly shifts from one sense to a sense appropriate to a different purpose? (See Walton 1992 and 2006.)

Let's look at several examples to illustrate the meaning and use of these questions.