9.4: Illegitimate Appeals- The Exploitation of Emotion

If we can’t see a way to support our own view (or to refute someone else’s view) using good arguments, it may be tempting to try to arouse emotions in the person we are trying to convince. This diverts attention from the real issues so that people won’t notice the weakness of our case.

Such diversion is particularly effective if the attack triggers intense emotions, like anger or fear, because when we are angry or anxious it is harder to remain focused on the real issues, and to think about them clearly. People may try to capitalize on any number of our emotions, such as guilt, jealousy, envy, or greed, but here we will focus on three of the most dangerous appeals, to pity, fear, and anger.

Pity

Sometimes people appeal to our sense of pity. “It’s true that I didn’t do the homework for this course, but I’ve had a really bad semester, so can’t you raise my F to a D?” “My client, the defendant, had a terrible childhood; you won’t be able to hear about it without crying.”

Appeals to pity and mercy are often legitimate, but they become problematic if we let our gut reaction dictate our response. We should instead evaluate the case on its own merits. Perhaps the defendant did have a terrible childhood. But we must stop and think about what this should mean, rather than being moved solely by feelings of compassion or pity. One’s childhood is not relevant to the question whether the defendant is guilty of the crime. But it may be relevant in trying to decide what punishment is fair. Evaluating these appeals can be tricky, and may require that we rely on some skills we have already begun working on in the course by doing some research or consulting with experts.

Fear

Fear affects our thinking, so if someone can arouse our fear, they have a good chance of influencing what we think and, through that, how we behave. An appeal to fear is also the basis of the use of scare tactics in advertising and other forms of persuasion. If someone can frighten us, that is a good way to make us draw a hasty conclusion without carefully evaluating the facts.

Appeals to emotions often involve exaggerations of various sorts, and an especially popular version of this is the scare tactic. The scare tactic aims to bypass reason and manipulate us directly through our emotions. It plays on our fears, trying to convince us that we are in danger that can only be averted if we do what the other person suggests. It is common in advertising, including political advertisements. Here are some examples:

1. We risk being social outcasts if we don’t use a certain deodorant or mouth wash.
2. Life insurance commercials and tire commercials are especially adept at exploiting our anxieties and fears.
3. In politics, negative campaigning is often combined with the scare tactic by alleging that some terrible thing will happen if a candidate’s opponent is elected.
4. Demagogues try to exploit common fears and popular prejudices to entice us to support them; very often this involves placing the blame for our problems on others (e.g., members of another race or nationality).
5. One especially popular method in the age of the sound bite is to use words that trigger emotions like anger and hatred and fear. Of course, different words set off different people, but ‘communist’, ‘atheist’, ‘bleeding-heart liberal’, and ‘redneck bigot’ will be triggers for many.

As with pity, we may not be in a great position to judge how much fear is rational, and we will again have to fall back on research and evaluating the claims of experts.

Anger

One of the surest ways to derail an argument you are losing is to make the other person angry. They will then be more likely to lose sight of the real issues, and the fact that your case is weak will be forgotten once everyone has descended to accusations and name-calling.

For example, although debate over abortion is often conducted in a way that stays focused on the real issues, attacks on one’s opponent are common here. Those who believe that abortion is permissible under some circumstances may be vilified as anti-life, cruel and heartless people, even murderers. Opponents of abortion may be said to be authoritarians who want to dictate how other people should live, and as people who are only too happy to trample all over a woman’s right to decide what she does with her own body.

None of this means that emotions should be set aside when discussing abortion. The fact that we have the feelings we do about human life (actual and potential) is relevant. But if open-minded discussion and mutual understanding are the goals, we need to discuss these things in a way that doesn’t deteriorate into a shouting match.

When the prosecutor shows the jury photographs of the mutilated victim of grisly murder, he is appealing to emotions like anger, revulsion, and shock. The jury already knew the victim was murdered, but seeing the pictures arouses deeper feelings that mere descriptions of the murder scene ever could, and this can easily become prejudicial.