Also known as Argumentum ad Misericordiam, the Appeal to Pity is a form of Red Herring argument in which logic is abandoned in favor of an emotional response, specifically pity. Because the Appeal to Pity is manipulative in nature, it also falls under the umbrella of propaganda.
Mr. Vandalay: Thanks for coming in to day Mr. Costanza. Let me ask you, why should Vandalay Industries hire you to be our latex salesman?
Mr. Costanza: My unemployment benefits are about to run out, and if I don't get this job I will lose my apartment.
The nature of Mr. Costanza's unemployment benefits are inconsequential to Vandalay Industries, and have no bearing on whether or not he'd be an effective salesman for them. Mr. Costanza is appealing to their sense of pity in an effort to get the job.
Like any propaganda technique, the Appeal to Pity is often used in both advertising and politics.
In advertising:
Each year, millions of children starve in third-world countries, won't you give just 75 cents a day to provide food to these children, kids like little Miguel here, who eats grass and crickets just to survive.
In politics:
It is my life's goal to get Universal Health Care passed in the United States. To help people like Sherry Bobbins of Little Rock, Arkansas. She is 73 years old, a widow with 12 children and 58 grandchildren. Her husband died two years ago of a brain tumor. He couldn't get treatment because he had no health insurance, he couldn't afford the high premiums while living on only Social Security and the meager winnings he could get by playing pull-tabs. Now Sherry is maimed with a broken hip, she can't lift her little grandchildren, who just want hugs from their grandmother. Like her husband, she has no health insurance. Despite the fact that her children are working hard, some of them taking three jobs, to pitch in and help her, the insurance companies won't give her a policy because of her pre-existing conditions. In addition to the broken hip, she has leukemia, kidney stones, cataracts, osteoporosis, congenital heart failure, and halitosis. We need this bill to improve the lives of people like Sherry Bobbins!
Sometimes, a perfectly logical argument will result in a sense of pity. If pity is not the aim, no fallacy is committed. For example:
Jack: Steve, I'm afraid I'm going to have to fire you for not showing up to work yesterday, and getting here a half hour late this morning.
Steve: I'm sorry that I didn't make it in. I was on my way to work when I got into an accident with an ice cream truck. I broke my left leg and was knocked unconscious. I woke up at 8:00PM, three hours after the office closed, in a hospital bed. The doctors patched me up and made sure there was no more damage, before discharging me around midnight. Having no car, I took the first bus I could get this morning to come into work, it had a flat tire and took an hour for the bus company to get another bus to us.
Jack: Steve, that's terrible. I'm sorry you had to go through that. I'll talk to the owner, but I am pretty sure I can talk him into letting you keep your job.
Steve's story probably invokes a sense of pity upon Jack, but that is secondary to the reasons given why he missed work yesterday and was late today.
Next Lesson: Equivocation
No Comments “Lessons in Logic #8: Appeal to Pity”
This is pathetic. You name the blog Îχω ζωη, but you can’t spell it right in either Biblical or Modern Greek!
In Modern Greek, it would be, “á¼Ï‡Ï‰ ζωή”. But you probably meant it to be Biblical Greek, in which case you need the final Nu on the feminine accusative, so it is “á¼Ï‡Ï‰ ζωήν”. But in that case, you really should be using the traditional diacritical marks, including the smooth breathing on the Epsilon, and acute and grave accents (depending on whether or not you mean the sentence to end with ζωήν.
Hey Matt, you must win a lot of friends with language like that. This was addressed more than 5 years ago.