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Appeal to the Angry Emotions Informal Logic X.2, Spring 1988 Appeal to the Angry Emotions ALAN BRINTON Boise State University To the multiplying of "informal have characteristically been regarded by fallacies" there is no end. This essay is real­ logicians either as inherently fallacious ly not about a fallacy at all, and the fallacy forms of argument or as not really forms it is really not about is the ad populum. of argument at all, as alternatives to Douglas Walton began an article ("Why is argument-as diversionary tactics for ex­ the Ad Populum a Fallacy?") some years ample. The prejudice against them among ago with an accurate description of the logicians goes back at least to Antoine Ar­ "standard" characterization of the ad naud's influential The Art of Thinking, populum: "the fallacy committed by direc­ published in 1662, and is traceable through ting an emotional appeal to the feelings or philosophers and through the most influen­ enthusiasms of 'the gallery' or 'the people' tial logic texts published from Arnaud's to win assent to an argument not adequate­ time down through the present day. 2 Widely ly supported by proper evidence." 1 The used texts, especially those which speak ex­ arousing of "mass feelings, " Walton went plicitly of "ad populum," "ad misericor­ on to suggest, is what gives the ad populum diam, " and other sorts of appeals to emo­ its importance; but, since a fallacy is a tion, continue to deal with the question of mistake in argument, the real character of the role of emotion in argument almost ex­ the argumentum ad populum lies in other clusively in negative terms. For example, aspects or elements of the situation. There despite qualifying his definition of argumen­ is, though, I want to suggest, a kind of argu­ tum ad misericordiam by adding "where the ment whose essential character is a matter conclusion is concerned with a question of of the arousing of group feelings or pas­ fact rather than a matter of sentiment" to sions. Whether this kind of argument is "the fallacy committed when pity is appeal­ what we generally mean or ought to mean ed to for the sake of getting a conclusion by "the ad populum" is a question which accepted, " Copi continues to list the ad may be left open to debate; but it can at least misericordiam or "appeal to pity" under be said, I think, that the kinds of rhetorical the heading "Fallacies of Relevance.'" The situations and performances in connection qualification suggests to us that there must with which the label' 'ad populum" seems be legitimate appeals to emotion, but he appropriate are ones in which the kind of makes no attempt to give an account of the argument I have in mind occurs. character of such appeals or to suggest Emotive appeals are, of course, made criteria for their evaluation. And his lead to individuals as well as groups, and they in this matter is still widely followed. 3 mayor may not deserve to be called Among the emotions or passions which "arguments. " I suggest the label "Pathotic may be aroused in ad populum situations Argument" for any appeal to the emotions are some of the harsher ones such as anger, or passions which qualifies as an argument. resentment, indignation, and envy. I plan I also suggest that some do qualify as to focus our discussion on these sorts of arguments and some of these as logically emotions. They may appropriately be call­ acceptable arguments. Appeals to emotion ed "the angry emotions," though among 78 Alan Brinton them indignation-in the context of treating of them in certain degrees. some appeals to these kinds of emotions as These ordinary ways of thinking about a form of argument-has a kind of logical the emotions have to some extent been sup­ primacy; hence my title. In what follows, ported by, and further articulated in, the I will first briefly discuss the character of work of some moral philosophers. Aristo­ path otic argument; then I will consider the tle, for example, claims that virtue is con­ angry emotions; finally I will focus on the cerned with passions as well as with actions, ad indignationem as a kind of argument, with how we are affected as well as with with attention to a couple of examples. how we act. "For instance," he writes in the Nicomachean Ethics, "both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity Pathotic Argument4 and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both That the emotions often interfere with, cases not well; but to feel them at the right or take the place of, a careful weighing of times, with reference to the right objects, reasons for belief or action seems beyond towards the right people, with the right dispute. And it is a stock complaint against motive, and in the right way, is what is both appeals to emotion that they are at best intermediate and best, and this is diversionary tactics and at worst attempts characteristic of virtue. "6 Virtue for Aristo­ to get people to act from unreason rather tle consists in "a state of character concern­ than from reason. On the other hand, in or­ ed with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the dinary life we do sometimes refer to fear mean relative to us, this being determined or anger or other emotions as jutified or un­ by a rational principle ... " [Nicomachean justified, as reasonable or unreasonable, and Ethics 1106b-1107a]. "Rational principle" even as blameworthy. This despite some here is "logos." That is to say, in some tendency to think of the emotions as states sense getting it right with respect to how of mind or mental occurrences which "hap­ one feels is a matter of logos, of reason, pen" to us, as if they were not at all of our even of logic. Now, among the three own choosing. One sense in which emotions "modes of proof" distinguished in Aristo­ may be reasonable or unreasonable-and I tle's Rhetoric are both logos (the giving of now appeal to the authority of the over­ reasons) and pathos (the appeal to emotions whelming majority of philosophical or passions). But if passions may be felt too treatments of the emotions, from Aristotle much or too little, appropriately or inap­ down to the prodigious philosophical propriately, and if this appropriateness or literature on the emotions published during inappropriateness, etc., is a matter oflogos, the past thirty years-is that they may be then these two modes of proof are not en­ (and usually are) in some sense grounded tirely separable. And I do not believe that in beliefs or cognitions which are Aristotle ever meant to say that they were. themselves reasonable or unreasonable. 5 And so there ought to be room within Another sense in which emotions may be Aristotle's ethical-rhetorical scheme for a reasonable or unreasonable is that they may sort of logos of the passions. If we want to be, in various ways, appropriate or inap­ get some idea of the nature of this logos, propriate to, and in or out of proportion to, we can look to Aristotle's analyses of the the beliefs or cognitions in which they are passions in Bk. II of the Rhetoric. For ex­ grounded. There is an added dimension to ample, he characterizes pity as "a kind of this as well: kinds of action, or particular pain excited by the sight of evil, deadly or actions, may strike us as appropriate or in­ painful, which befalls one who does not appropriate responses to the experiencing deserve it; an evil which one might expect of certain emotions, or to the experiencing to come upon himself or one of his friends, Angry Emotions 79 and when it seems near."7 Whether we for that reason give special attention to the agree with the particulars or not, this justification of anger. 9 Aristotle's view on characterization gives us some idea of what the matter is clearly expressed in the the logos of pity will consist in. It will con­ Nicomachean Ethics: Anger, as well as sist in certain propositions or beliefs, such some of its emotive cognates (though not as the belief that certain events have befallen all, for example not envy), is justifiable and some person, that these events are evil, that may be even obligatory, even though it is the person does not deserve this evil, and directed against another person. "The man so on. Belief in some such combination of who is angry at the right things and with propositions will be one among possible the right people, and further, as he ought, causes of pity; but, more to our present when he ought, and as long as he ought, point, it will constitute grounds for is praised" [Nicomachean Ethics 1125b], reasonable pity. Now, pathotic argument and' 'those who are not angry at the things consists, first and foremost, in the giving they should be angry at are thought to be of such reasons, the drawing of attention fools" [1126a]. (It is quite clear in the text to reasonable grounds for the passion or that Aristotle agrees with this sort of prais­ emotion or sentiment in question. 8 Ad ing and thinking.) The Stoics, as is well misericordiam will be a form of path otic known, tended to argue against the argument, and what distinguishes it from legitimacy of the passions in general, but other forms will be the special character of they were particularly vituperative in the pity, or the nature of the combination of case of anger.
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