Appeal to Force/Fear or Argumentum ad Baculum. Description. See my latest infographics, learn new tips and tricks, and become a communication ninja! By appealing to our fear of pain and our desire to avoid suffering, the above argument is committing a Fallacy of Relevance. Do you want to be responsible for the deaths of millions, Senator. It can also occur whenever it's claimed that accepting a conclusion or idea will lead to disaster, ruin, or harm. For example, if you sell fire extinguishers and your advertising strategy is to show how you may save your family members’ lives if you have an extinguisher during a fire, you are appealing to a fear in consumers that if they don’t buy a fire extinguisher, they are risking their family members’ lives. This fallacy occurs whenever a person makes an implicit or explicit threat of physical or psychological violence against others if they refuse to accept the conclusions offered. Disciplines > Argument > Fallacies > Appeal to Fear. If not, it is a safer bet to believe in God than to not believe. Similarly, belief in a god is not made any more rational simply because we are afraid of going to some hell. The idea is that if consumers don’t use the product you are advertising, you make them feel like there may be undesirable consequences as a result. Here are some ways in which we sometimes see the appeal to force used in arguments: This is a simplified form of Pascal's Wager, an argument often heard from some Christians. You can see this fallacy in action in Dr. Fallacy’s campaign ad in the comic below. Lost your password? By using ThoughtCo, you accept our, Examples and Discussion of the Appeal to Force, Fallacies of Relevance: Appeal to Authority, Argument Against the Person - Argumentum Ad Hominem, Argumentum ad Populum (Appeal to Numbers), Hypostatization Fallacy: Ascribing Reality to Abstractions, Tu Quoque - Ad Hominem Fallacy That You Did It Too, Oversimplification and Exaggeration Fallacies, How Logical Fallacy Invalidates Any Argument, Understanding the "No True Scotsman" Fallacy. This one, however, might give prudential reasons for action. Austin Cline, a former regional director for the Council for Secular Humanism, writes and lectures extensively about atheism and agnosticism. This type of fallacy is one that, as noted in its name, plays upon people’s fear. It is more common to hear such a fallacy in children, for example when one says "If you don't agree that this show is the best, I'll hit you!" While this kind of claim seems outlandish, similar claims have been made by candidates in elections for years. This fallacy occurs whenever a person makes an implicit or explicit threat of physical or psychological violence against others if they refuse to accept the conclusions offered. ThoughtCo uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. If you elect Elizabeth Smith as … You don't want to be tortured in Hell, do you? We can also see the emotional appeal being used - no one wants to be responsible for the deaths of millions of fellow citizens. You might think to the famous no-smoking ads where people had developed serious deforming illnesses from smoking. A fallacy is an illogical reasoning pattern that is used to argue a point. A god is not made any more likely to exist simply because someone says that if we don't believe in it, then we will be harmed in the end. Please enter your email address. This type of fallacy is one that, as noted in its name, plays upon people’s fear. If you don't support this new spending bill to develop better airplanes, our enemies will think we are weak and, at some point, will attack us - killing millions. The same has been done with seatbelt campaigns and similar concepts. Some threat of violence is made or implied. The fear appeal is one of roughly twenty advertising strategies that marketing professionals use to persuade people to buy a product, pay for a service, donate to a cause, or otherwise be persuaded. What matters is that the boss is being threatened - not with physical violence like being hit, but rather with his marriage and other personal relationships being destabilized if not destroyed. The Latin term argumentum ad baculum means "argument to the stick." Description | Discussion | Example | See also. Appeal to Fear Fallacy. Sometimes, the threats can be more subtle, as in this example: Here, the person doing the arguing isn't making a direct physical threat. Appeal to Fear . Example: Elizabeth Smith doesn’t understand foreign policy. Unfortunately, this fallacy isn't limited to children. Elizabeth Smith doesn’t understand foreign policy. Unfortunately, no evidence is offered that such a possibility is a credible threat. No fallacy, the Appeal to Force included, can give rational reasons to believe a conclusion. When creating advertisements and visual communications focused on persuading audiences through the Fear Appeal, use images and phrasing designed specifically to evoke fear or concern. The Latin term argumentum ad baculum means "argument to the stick." Note that there are ethical considerations when appealing to people’s fears; it’s not always in the best interest of a company to make their consumers be fearful of something that really has little or no risk at all. The fear appeal is one of roughly twenty advertising strategies that marketing professionals use to persuade people to buy a product, pay for a service, donate to a cause, or otherwise be persuaded. The Appeal to Force fallacy can also occur in cases where no actual physical violence is offered, but instead, just threats to one's well being. Therefore, the conclusion should be accepted. You should believe God exists because, if you don't, when you die you will be judged and God will send you to Hell for all of eternity. You can think of the argumentum ad baculum as having this form: It would be very unusual for such a threat to be logically relevant to the conclusion or for the truth-value of a conclusion to be made any more likely by such threats. Because of this, there is no clear connection between the premise about "our enemies" and the conclusion that the proposed bill is in the country's best interests. It can also occur whenever it's claimed that accepting a conclusion or idea will lead to disaster, ruin, or harm. Creative Commons Attribution-4.0 International License. The Fear Appeal persuades people to feel that they are assuming a risk if they do or do not purchase a certain product. The fear appeal is increasing in popularity and can be used for a variety of purposes, particularly if there are consequences for not purchasing a product. APPEALS (RHETORICAL TRIANGLE: ETHOS, PATHOS, LOGOS), Giving Effective Presentations: 50 Things to Consider (with evaluation rubric), How to Be a Presentation Ninja: 10 Steps to Becoming a Public Speaking Hero, Five Quick Tricks to Design Your PowerPoint Presentation, The Six Types of Résumés You Should Know About, The Anatomy of a Really Good Résumé: A Good Résumé Example, How to Write an Amazing Cover Letter: Five Easy Steps to Get You an Interview, Make Your Boring Documents Look Professional in 5 Easy Steps, MLA FORMAT: GUIDELINES FOR CITING SOURCES. Patrick J. Hurley uses this example in his book A Concise Introduction to Logic: It doesn't matter here whether anything inappropriate has been going on between the boss and the client. You will receive mail with link to set new password. No one can predict the future, but making a bold claim like this with no evidence at all is a clear logical fallacy. We need a strong military in order to deter our enemies. Please give us your feedback! It causes fear.Therefore Y (which has some relationship to X) is true. Mostly, this is done by some form of threat, which may be to the person or may be to something about which they care. Thankfully, the voters saw through Dr. Fallacy’s faulty logic. In particular, this fallacy presents a scary future if a certain decision is made today. In particular, this fallacy presents a scary future if a certain decision is made today. One fallacy is an appeal to fear, which increases fear for an alternate point of view.If someone fears the alternative, then they are more likely to choose your side in an argument. If you elect Elizabeth Smith as president, we will be attacked by terrorists. A distinction should be made, of course, between rational reasons and prudential reasons. If the threat is credible and bad enough, it might provide a reason to act as if you believed it. Obviously, this kind of claim isn’t logical, however. The images of people with holes in their throats, missing teach, ruined vocal cords, and lung cancer were designed to make people fear smoking. X is presented. Instead, they are bringing psychological pressure to bear by suggesting that if the Senator does not vote for the proposed spending bill, s/he will be responsible for other deaths later on. The Fear Appeal persuades people to feel that they are assuming a …

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