Ad passiones

Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones is an informal fallacy characterized by the manipulation of the recipient's emotions in order to win an argument, especially in the absence of factual evidence.

This kind of appeal to emotion is irrelevant to or distracting from the facts of the argument (a so-called "red herring") and encompasses several logical fallacies, including appeal to consequences, appeal to fear, appeal to flattery, appeal to pity, appeal to ridicule, appeal to spite, and wishful thinking.

Examples:

• Our new cutlery set will make you feel so good when you see it laid out on your dining table. 'Style and Grace' is the right thing for you.
• The Maki people of the South are known to be invading our towns! They are corrupting our children and taking our jobs!! Vote for me and I will eradicate this menace!

Appeals to emotion are intended to cause the recipient of the information to experience feelings such as fear, pity, or joy, with the end goal of convincing the person that the statements being presented by the fallacious argument are true or false, respectively.

The arousal of emotion is known to smother rationality, hence if it is introduced into an argument, then it is more likely that logical reasoning will be ignored. Many arguments thus deliberately seek to evoke emotions of the listeners.

The word 'good' is built into the language to support this. We talk about 'good feelings' and 'bad feelings' when good and bad are really about values. This association makes it easier still to bring emotion and value-based decisions together.

Appeal to emotion is an application of social psychology. It is only fallacious when the emotions that are elicited are irrelevant to evaluating the truth of the conclusion and serve to distract from rational consideration of relevant premises or information.

For instance the statement "Look at the suffering children. We must do more for refugees." is fallacious, because the suffering of the children and our emotional perception of the badness of suffering is not relevant to the conclusion.