Chapter 1

Legitimate vs. unfair emotional appeals

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There is nothing wrong with appealing to readers’ emotions. After all, many issues worth arguing about have an emotional as well as a logical dimension. Even the Greek logician Aristotle lists pathos (an appeal to emotion) as a legitimate argumentative tactic.

For example, in an essay criticizing big-box stores, writer Betsy Taylor has a good reason for tugging at readers’ emotions: Her subject is the decline of city and town life. In her conclusion, Taylor appeals to readers’ emotions by invoking their national pride.

LEGITIMATE EMOTIONAL APPEAL

Is it anti-American to be against having a retail giant set up shop in one’s community? Some people would say so. On the other hand, if you board up Main Street, what’s left of America?

Unfair emotional appeals

Emotional appeals are frequently misused. Many of the arguments we see in the media, for instance, strive to win our sympathy rather than our intelligent agreement. A TV commercial suggesting that you will be thin and attractive if you drink a certain diet beverage is making a pitch to emotions. So is a political speech that recommends electing a candidate because he is a devoted husband and father who serves as a volunteer firefighter.

The following passage illustrates several types of unfair emotional appeals.

UNFAIR EMOTIONAL APPEALS

This progressive proposal to build a ski resort in the state park has been carefully researched by Western Trust, the largest bank in the state; furthermore, it is favored by a majority of the local merchants. The only opposition comes from narrow-minded, do-gooder environmentalists who care more about trees than they do about people; one of their leaders was actually arrested for disturbing the peace several years ago.

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This passage exemplifies several unfair emotional appeals:

Choosing words with strong positive or negative connotations, such as progressive and do-gooder, exemplifies biased language.
Attacking the people who hold a belief (environmentalists) rather than refuting their argument is called ad hominem, a Latin term meaning “to the man.”
Associating a prestigious name (Western Trust) with the writer’s side is called transfer.
Claiming that an idea should be accepted because a large number of people (the majority of merchants) are in favor of it is called a bandwagon appeal.
Bringing in irrelevant issues (the arrest) is a red herring, named after a trick used in fox hunts to mislead the dogs by dragging a smelly fish across the trail.

Using appeals (ethos, logos, pathos) as a writer