Statement #33 Discussion
2 comments (1 thead) All Discussions | Below is the statement as it appears with the fallacy marked as correct. You can see the totals of most frequent responses to this statement. And after reading the any discussion going on below, you can select your choice(s) for the correct answer. For now, whoever posts each statement can update corrections. |


Appeal to Emotion
Category: Fallacies of Relevance (Red Herrings) → Distracting Appeals An Appeal to Emotion is a fallacy with the following structure:
This sort of "reasoning" is very common in politics and it serves as the basis for a large portion of modern advertising. Most political speeches are aimed at generating feelings in people so that these feelings will get them to vote or act a certain way. In the case of advertising, the commercials are aimed at evoking emotions that will influence people to buy certain products. In most cases, such speeches and commercials are notoriously free of real evidence. This sort of "reasoning" is quite evidently fallacious. It is fallacious because using various tactics to incite emotions in people does not serve as evidence for a claim. For example, if a person were able to inspire in a person an incredible hatred of the claim that 1+1 = 2 and then inspired the person to love the claim that 1+1 =3, it would hardly follow that the claim that 1+1 = 3 would be adequately supported. It should be noted that in many cases it is not particularly obvious that the person committing the fallacy is attempting to support a claim. In many cases, the user of the fallacy will appear to be attempting to move people to take an action, such as buying a product or fighting in a war. However, it is possible to determine what sort of claim the person is actually attempting to support. In such cases one needs to ask "what sort of claim is this person attempting to get people to accept and act on?" Determining this claim (or claims) might take some work. However, in many cases it will be quite evident. For example, if a political leader is attempting to convince her followers to participate in certain acts of violence by the use of a hate speech, then her claim would be "you should participate in these acts of violence." In this case, the "evidence" would be the hatred evoked in the followers. This hatred would serve to make them favorable inclined towards the claim that they should engage in the acts of violence. As another example, a beer commercial might show happy, scantily clad men and women prancing about a beach, guzzling beer. In this case the claim would be "you should buy this beer." The "evidence" would be the excitement evoked by seeing the beautiful people guzzling the beer. This fallacy is actually an extremely effective persuasive device. As many people have argued, peoples' emotions often carry much more force than their reason. Logical argumentation is often difficult and time consuming and it rarely has the power to spurn people to action. It is the power of this fallacy that explains its great popularity and wide usage. However, it is still a fallacy. In all fairness it must be noted that the use of tactics to inspire emotions is an important skill. Without an appeal to peoples' emotions, it is often difficult to get them to take action or to perform at their best. For example, no good coach presents her team with syllogisms before the big game. Instead she inspires them with emotional terms and attempts to "fire" them up. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. However, it is not any acceptable form of argumentation. As long as one is able to clearly distinguish between what inspires emotions and what justifies a claim, one is unlikely to fall prey to this fallacy. As a final point, in many cases it will be difficult to distinguish an Appeal to Emotion from some other fallacies and in many cases multiple fallacies may be committed. For example, many Ad Hominems will be very similar to Appeals to Emotion and, in some cases, both fallacies will be committed. As an example, a leader might attempt to invoke hatred of a person to inspire his followers to accept that they should reject her claims. The same attack could function as an Appeal to Emotion and a Personal Attack. In the first case, the attack would be aimed at making the followers feel very favorable about rejecting her claims. In the second case, the attack would be aimed at making the followers reject the person's claims because of some perceived (or imagined) defect in her character. This fallacy is related to the Appeal to Popularity fallacy. Despite the differences between these two fallacies, they are both united by the fact that they involve appeals to emotions. In both cases the fallacies aim at getting people to accept claims based on how they or others feel about the claims and not based on evidence for the claims.
Another way to look at these two fallacies is as follows
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Appeal to Novelty
AKA Appeal to the New, Newer is Better, Novelty Category: Fallacies of Relevance (Red Herrings) → Distracting Appeals Appeal to Novelty is a fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that something is better or correct simply because it is new. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:
This sort of "reasoning" is appealing for many reasons. First, "western culture" includes a very powerful commitment to the notion that new things must be better than old things. Second, the notion of progress (which seems to have come, in part, from the notion of evolution) implies that newer things will be superior to older things. Third, media advertising often sends the message that newer must be better. Because of these three factors (and others) people often accept that a new thing (idea, product, concept, etc.) must be better because it is new. Hence, Novelty is a somewhat common fallacy, especially in advertising. It should not be assumed that old things must be better than new things (see the fallacy Appeal to Tradition) any more than it should be assumed that new things are better than old things. The age of a thing does not, in general, have any bearing on its quality or correctness (in this context). Obviously, age does have a bearing in some contexts. For example, if a person concluded that his day old milk was better than his twoâ€month old milk, he would not be committing an Appeal to Novelty. This is because in such cases the newness of the thing is relevant to its quality. Thus, the fallacy is committed only when the newness is not, in and of itself, relevant to the claim. ![]() |
797 Total Answer Attempts 59%
471 Correctly Popped Fallacies
326 Incorrectly Un/Popped


Most Common Responses141 - Appeal to Novelty 31 - Appeal to Flattery 23 - Appeal to Tradition 21 - Appeal to Belief 20 - Appeal to Popularity 19 - Hasty Generalization 18 - Appeal to the Consequences of a Belief 18 - Confusing Cause and Effect 17 - Begging the Question 16 - Burden of Proof 14 - Biased Generalization 13 - Appeal to Authority 12 - Post Hoc 11 - Appeal to Common Practice 9 - Fallacy of Division 9 - Fallacy of Composition 8 - Misleading Vividness 7 - Special Pleading 7 - Red Herring 7 - Ignoring a Common Cause 6 - Genetic Fallacy 5 - Relativist Fallacy 5 - False Dilemma 5 - Guilt by Association 4 - Poisoning the Well 3 - Circumstantial Ad Hominem 3 - Peer Pressure 3 - Slippery Slope 3 - Appeal to Ridicule 2 - Gambler's Fallacy 2 - Ad Hominem 1 - Appeal to Pity 1 - Personal Attack 1 - Appeal to Spite 1 - Appeal to Fear 1 - Middle Ground |
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not appeal to novelty
The speaker is accounting for present achievement by appealing to supposed qualities of greatness and determination. Clearly he is not appealing to novelty but rather accounting for a present condition.
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