Logic
This fallacy has the following argument form:
- Either P or Q is true.
- Q is frightening.
- Therefore, P is true.
The argument is invalid. The appeal to emotion is used in exploiting existing fears to create support for the speaker's proposal, namely P. Also, often the false dilemma fallacy is involved, suggesting Q is the proposed idea's sole alternative.
Read more about this topic: Appeal To Fear
Famous quotes containing the word logic:
““... We need the interruption of the night
To ease attention off when overtight,
To break our logic in too long a flight,
And ask us if our premises are right.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else’s imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!”
—Thomas Merton (1915–1968)
“Logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. Logic is transcendental.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)