Emotions play a large role when reasoning. Whether we are arguing for or against something our emotions drive our arguments. By appealing to emotion it allows an argument to be good. It is possible to appeal to a person’s fear, consequences, flattery, pity, vanity, ridicule, spite, or ignorance. There are many emotions one can appeal to.
An example of appealing to consequences would be like the following:
If Laura practices the piano everyday, Laura will become a great pianist. Laura wants to be a great pianist, so she practices everyday.
This argument appeals to Laura’s consequence of practicing the piano every day. It could also be used in the opposite way like the following example:
If Laura drives to work everyday, her car wastes a lot of gas. Laura wants to save gas. Therefore, she uses the bus to work almost everyday.
These type of arguments are all pathos arguments because they appeal to the emotions. This is
I read through your post, and the first thing that caught my eye was when you said, “By appealing to emotion it allows an argument to be good.” I agree that often this is the case, but the text tells us that appeals to emotion can also be bad. I would also say that your example could you’re the word not. I think of consequence as a negative reaction to a lack of action. So in this case it would be more like:
ReplyDeleteIf Laura doesn’t practice piano every day, there is no way she will be great pianist.
Just my interpretation.