Friday, November 5, 2010

Pg 195 #6

   An appeal to spite is a type of appeal to emotion which deals with the hope of revenge. When demonstrating this fallacy, someone attempts to win an approval for an argument by taking advantage of the opposing party's feelings of bitterness, or animosity. In other words, an appeal to spite can sway the audience emotionally by associating a hate-figure with opposition to the speaker's argument. Here is an example of an appeal to spite:
Joe: I think that Bob did a great job this year. He was our best player, so I am going to nominate him for the MVP award.
Bill: Joe, did you forget about last year? You put up the best numbers last year but you did not win the award because Bob did not nominate you.
Joe: Oh yeah, you're right. I'm not going to nominate him anymore.
Even though this is not a good argument, the argument is still valid. The premise needed for this to be a good or strong argument is "Do not nominate anyone who has refused to nominate you."

No comments:

Post a Comment