Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Appeal to Emotion
The text by Richard L. Epstein defines appeal to emotion in arguments to be “just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel certain way.” Often the entire argument the premise is made in is considered an appeal to emotion. There are multiple types of appeal to emotions such as appeal to spite, appeal to fear, feel good argument and appeal to pity. The one that sticks out the most to me is the appeal to pity. I think it sticks out the most to me because it is the one that I notice the most and can think of the most examples for. One example is from the social organization that my group wrote on for the social organization paper, the ASPCA. They show pictures of sad, and abused animals in need of help and ask you to donate money for these poor helpless animals. These images are intended to make you feel sorry for the animals and send money. Not going to lie, it has worked on me before so appeal to pity strikes me the most.
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I think it is true, what you said about companies making you feel bad by showing you picture so that you can donate. I see it all the time on television or in magazine ads. It strange how all these things have an affect on us. I mean they would not do it if it did not work. Appeals to pity I think is the most commonly used appeals to emotion and it is pretty persuasive. I hate how bad they make you feel if you do not donate. It’s like you’ll have guilt on your conscience if you don’t.
ReplyDeleteI like how your post began with the book’s definition of the appeal to emotion is because it helps readers understand what you are talking about. Your post gives the different appeals to emotion then you single out the one that strikes you the most. I agree that there are many examples of the appeal to pity in the world and I could think of several of them myself. I talked about abused animals in one of my posts too. The people behind these appeals to pity really get people to feel sorry and help out these hurt animals. These kinds of appeals get to me too.
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