As handmaids, they are liable to be seduced by sophistry in the garb of reason, and sometimes are made ignorantly to lend their aid in the introduction of falsehood. are not supplanters of reason, or even rivals in her sway they are her handmaids, by whose ministry she is enabled to usher truth into the heart, and procure it to favorable reception. However, Campbell warned of the malleability of emotion and the consequent risk in terms of suggestibility: French scientist and philosopher, Blaise Pascal wrote that "People arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof, but on the basis of what they find attractive." Baruch Spinoza characterized emotions as having the power to "make the mind inclined to think one thing rather than another." Disagreeing with Seneca the Younger that emotion destroys reason, the 18th century Scottish philosopher George Campbell argued, instead, that emotions were allies of reason, and that they aid in the assimilation of knowledge. Seneca similarly warned that "Reason herself, to whom the reins of power have been entrusted, remains mistress only so long as she is kept apart from the passions." Ĭenturies later. Aristotle, in his treatise Rhetoric, described emotional arousal as critical to persuasion, "The orator persuades by means of his hearers, when they are roused to emotion by his speech for the judgments we deliver are not the same when we are influenced by joy or sorrow, love or hate." Aristotle warned that emotions may create beliefs where none existed, or change existing beliefs, and may enhance or decrease the strength with which a belief is held. The power of emotions to influence judgment, including political attitudes, has been recognized since classical antiquity. We must do more for refugees." is fallacious, because the suffering of the children and our emotional perception of the badness of suffering is not relevant to the conclusion (to be sure, the proper role, if any, for emotion in moral reasoning is a contested issue in ethics).Īppeals to emotion are intended to cause the recipient of the information to experience feelings such as fear, pity, or joy, with the end goal of convincing the person that the statements being presented by the fallacious argument are true or false, respectively. Also, the statement "Look at the suffering children. It's not plagiarized." the emotions elicited by the first statement are not relevant to establishing whether the paper was plagiarized. For instance, if a student says "If I get a failing grade for this paper I will lose my scholarship. It is only fallacious when the emotions that are elicited are irrelevant to evaluating the truth of the conclusion and serve to distract from rational consideration of relevant premises or information. This kind of appeal to emotion is irrelevant to or distracting from the facts of the argument (a so-called " red herring") and encompasses several logical fallacies, including appeal to consequences, appeal to fear, appeal to flattery, appeal to pity, appeal to ridicule, appeal to spite, and wishful thinking.Īppeal to emotion is an application of social psychology. Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones (meaning the same in Latin) is an informal fallacy characterized by the manipulation of the recipient's emotions in order to win an argument, especially in the absence of factual evidence.
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