Friday, November 5, 2010

Appeal to Emotion

According to Epstein, "An appeal to emotion in a argument is just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way" (191).
There are four types of appeal of emotion in chapter 10 : appeal to pity, appeal to fear, appeal to spite, and appeal to vanity. The appeal to pity is trying to make you believe in something because you feel a certain way ( angry, happy,sad,...). The appeal of fear simply uses fear to control the way people should think or act. An appeal to spite is also seeking for revenge (193). The appeal of vanity is the use of compliments or flatters so that a person feels good about themselves. But the one that intrigued me was the appeal of spite. In the example used, Dick decides to help Tom even if Tom didn't helped Dick fix the fence last week and Zoe seem to be bothered by it (193). Maybe Tom had an appointment or he was sick or he is physically disabled. Personally, it wouldn't bother me to help someone else even if it takes them a while for them to help me in return. As long as they do me a favor back. :)

1 comment:

  1. Hey, first off great post! Chapter 10 was pretty interesting, as all the appeal to emotion concepts are all general arguments that we usually encounter on a day-to-day basis. You did a great job of defining and explaining each concept, such as the example you used for an "appeal to spite". All four concepts, especially appeal to pity and appeal to fear, were pretty relevant due to the political war going on leading up to the election. At least we don't have to see those ads on tv every 20 seconds anymore. Keep up the good work, I enjoyed your post.

    ReplyDelete