As stated in our book, an appeal to emotion is "a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain a way." There are many different kinds of appeal to emotions; including appeal to pity, appeal to fear, appeal to spite, etc.
One appeal to emotions which really striked me was appeal to spite. An appeal to spite is often associated, as our book states, with the idea of revenge. As the book also explains, this kind of appeal is morally wrong in some culture because it includes this idea of revenge and overall negativity. An example of an appeal to spite would be:
Jessica: Elsie, can you teach me how to do a double axel?
Elsie: Sure.
Michael: Why would you help her learn how to do one?! She did not help you last week when you asked her for help. You should not help her because when you needed help, she did not help you.
In this situation, Michael does not want me to help Jessica only because she did not help me when I needed her help. Michael is therefore using an appeal to spite in order to seek revenge from Jessica.
I chose to talk about this specific appeal to emotion because I have noticed that many people use it, without really realizing that their argument is intended towards getting revenge.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI honestly just noticed that, like what you mentioned, many of us use the appeal of spite. Even if my friends and I are really close, there are times when I would hear this kind of statement in my group and usually wouldn’t take it seriously. However, after reading your example and coming from an outsider’s point of view, using the appeal of spite really does sound very mean. The example you used was great as well because it does happen occasionally when people feel like others are taking advantage of you, but do not notice that their claims is going towards revenge. Again, I had fun reading your post. Keep up the great work! :)
Personally I liked your example because I can relate to it. If I am correct, you double axel is referring to ice skating right? As an ex-ice skater, I know how hard it is to do a double axel. In fact I quit ice skating because in order to pass to my next class, I had to be able to do jumps (such as an axel) that I couldn't do. Anyways, if I were to put myself in this situation, I would be kind of bothered if someone like Michael said something like that. Not would I probably need help in learning how to do one, but I would dislike the fact of thinking "If she didn't do something for you, she doesn't deserve something back."
ReplyDeleteBy reading your post and your example, I can definitely tell you understand the concept of appealing to emotion, especially Appealing to Spite. At times, people use their emotions to do things. For example, if we feel sorry for someone, we might do something to cheer that person. As for your example, appealing to spite, it is a pretty common appeal that maybe most of us in this world do. It is natural for some of us to hit back if someone hits us. The idea of getting even. So I definitely understand your example.
ReplyDeleteOverall, good use of the text book, nice example to demonstrate what the book is saying, and nice explanation to your example.