Hey, what’s up! Welcome back to the podcast that makes you smarter with each episode! Lol
Let’s start off with a quick review of a fallacy we covered a few weeks ago: Circular reasoning. Circular reasoning says that A is true b/c B is true, and B is true b/c A is true.
For example: “Using logic is important b/c it’s important to use logic!” Ha! See what I did there? That’s circular reasoning.
Here’s a question to ask yourself if you’re faced with Circular Reasoning: “Is that really a good reason to believe this argument or is it just restating the original argument?”
If you want to review circular reasoning, or if you want to hear more about this fallacy, go back & check out Episode 13.
Ok, so hopefully you listened to yesterday’s episode on propaganda, b/c today’s episode is on the Appeal to Emotion, and it’s really a continuation of the conversation we had yesterday.
Now, before we dive into this, I want to be clear: our emotions aren’t bad. We were created with emotions, and they’re one of the ways we are made in God’s image. They’re a gift to us to help us connect more deeply with others and with the world around us. And they give us information & feedback about things we need to be paying attention to. So I’m not at all saying we should ignore our emotions, pretend they don’t exist, nor am I saying they’re bad. They’re not. They’re an important part of us and what makes us human.
The problem comes when we start to be led by our emotions. When we make decisions based on our emotions only, without filtering them through our brain cells first. This is exactly why I started this podcast. The vast majority of people haven’t been taught how to think WELL, so they make their decisions off their emotions.
Let me use this example to hopefully make it make sense. It’s like the difference b/c a thermostat & a thermometer. The thermostat is what determines the temperature of a room, whereas the thermometer reacts to the changes in the room and tells you what the temperature is. You adjust the thermostat first, and the thermometer responds to it. That’s what the relationship should be between our thinking and our emotions. We can use our emotions as a thermometer to give us information about what’s going on around us. Our emotions make a great thermometer! But they don’t make a good thermostat. Our thinking should be the thermostat. Once our emotions make us aware of something that needs our attention, we need to use our mind and good reasoning to help us decide what actions need to be taken. Do you see the relationship between the two?
Now, most people haven’t been taught to do this. And since they don’t know how to think well, they are easily manipulated by their emotions. When someone tries to manipulate you through your emotions, this is called an Appeal to Emotion. An Appeal to Emotion is when someone tries to get you to think, believe or behave in a certain way by manipulating your emotions rather than by presenting a logical argument.
Appeal to emotion happens in a lot of differing ways. For example, shampoo & makeup commercials play on a woman’s emotions or wanting to feel beautiful or be accepted when they just talk about how beautiful they’ll look after using their products. Car commercials do the same thing when they talk about how sophisticated and successful you’ll look driving their car. They’re playing on or appealing to your emotions to decide to purchase their products.
Or how about when your parents - or you as a parent! - says something like: “Don’t do that, it makes me sad.” or “you don’t want to hurt their feelings, do you?” Are they giving any real argument for why you should or shouldn’t do something? No. They’re just appealing to emotions.
Here’s the problem with appeals to emotion, and why they’re a fallacy: There’s no real substance behind the appeal. It’s very shallow to try to get someone to do something just based on a feeling. We should be giving solid, good, honest reasons for why something really IS what we say it is.
Here’s another example: Appeals to emotion can get really dangerous when they’re used as an argument to pass bills into law. People are very easy to manipulate emotionally. The right combination of words, images and music can evoke very strong feelings in people and strong emotions can be very motivational. We see this when politicians have some favorite bill they want to get passed but they know it may not have much support. They will create their entire campaign around an appeal to emotion. “Don’t you want to feel safer?” or “aren’t you tired of feeling ignored?” And people will jump on that bandwagon without even stopping for a minute to ask any good questions about the facts behind the bill or about the validity of the argument being made.
I’ll bet you can come up with some other examples of where you see appeals to emotion, and if you do, send them to me…I’d love to hear them and will most likely even share them!
Now, does this mean that any time someone evokes emotion they’re being manipulative? No, it doesn’t. If you give a solid argument for something and include an example and that example evokes emotion, you probably have a really solid argument. But just to play on the emotion alone without giving the solid argument is a flimsy appeal to emotion.
So, here’s the Question to ask yourself if you’re facing an Appeal to Emotion: “Is what they’re saying being backed up by a real argument or are they just trying to play on my emotions?”… *repeat*
Ok, join me tomorrow when we’ll discuss another type of emotional appeal: the Appeal to Pity.
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
