Friday, September 17, 2010
Content Fallacies
One of the content fallacies that interested me was the "Appeal to emotion". In an appeal to emotion fallacy, someone or something forces you to believe that something is good or bad for you. It also involves the persons emotions on to believing something. This fallacies is usually seen to convince others to do or get something. This can be seen in television ads. One of the common examples I've seen are when people are forced or peer pressured to drink. I went to a get together with a couple of friends and there where people drinking. My friend was forcing her cousin to drink. She was telling her it will make you feel good and happy. As time progressed, my friends cousin got drunk and it look like she was having a good time. Unexpectedly, she started getting a head ache and eventually threw up and passed out. Luckily she felt better the next day. In this example, my friends cousin was convinced to drink because she thought it would make her feel good but she didn't know the consequences of throwing up and getting a head ache. This is an example of appeal to emotion because someone was convinced to do something
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I was also interested in the “Appeal to Emotion” fallacy when I read it from Epstein. It was interesting to me because most of my friends use it when they try to convince me to do something that they like. Most of the time people that use this fallacy are trying to make others do the things they like by putting their emotions in it. Which often times can trick people into thinking that it’s good or bad. Anyways, I like how you came up with your example for this concept. It’s reminds me of the time when I was also convinced to think that drinking was good thing. Great description by the way.
ReplyDeleteGood post. I saw a lot of this last year when I lived on-campus. A lot of people who hadn't ever drank before or really done much of anything were subject to a lot of people trying to "make them break out of their shell". A friend that was in one of the rooms in my suite down the hall was a complete straight-edge when it came to anything. A bunch of roommates weren't and were always trying to force him to try drinking or taking a hit, claiming really the same thing your friend was saying to her cousin. It's really not that great of a way to convince someone to do something, as it's essentially just peer-pressure. What you used was a perfect example.
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