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:
“The usefulness of madmen is famous: they demonstrate society’s logic flagrantly carried out down to its last scrimshaw scrap.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)
“It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse—
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse.”
—Cecil Day Lewis (1904–1972)
“What avail all your scholarly accomplishments and learning, compared with wisdom and manhood? To omit his other behavior, see what a work this comparatively unread and unlettered man wrote within six weeks. Where is our professor of belles-lettres, or of logic and rhetoric, who can write so well?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)