The appeal to emotion fallacy can be introduced via the Key & Peele (Comedy Central) video “Who Thinks They Can Dance?” In the video, the judges of a dance show have a hard time giving feedback to b-boy Joseph during his audition. Joseph’s strange dance moves fail to impress the judges at first, and he receives a no. He uses highly moving personal stories to persuade judges to shift their minds from no to yes. It’s amusing to see how he kept telling the darker stories until the judges agreed to select him.
I teach Critical Thinking to legal students at the undergraduate level. Discussion on several types of fallacies is an integral part of the course. Video clips are a great way to start a conversation on fallacies. To provide intriguing real-life instances of fallacies for class discussions, I frequently use SNL footage, Key & Peele videos, and CollegeHumor’s “Adam Ruins Everything” series on YouTube. These videos are quite popular among students. Especially during pandemics, the videos made students enthusiastic and receptive to dialogue. Pandemic forced us to teach in online mode. Both the online synchronous and offline asynchronous portions of the course benefited from the use of videos. As a learning management system, we used Blackboard. I largely used YouTube videos as course content for the asynchronous session. Prior to the synchronous sessions, students are expected to watch the asynchronous video. The synchronous session usually begins with a request for the student’s perspective on the session’s topic of discussion. Students describe their elementary comprehension of the issue based on the video or their own personal experiences. We watch the same topic-related asynchronous video together after nearly 5 to 10 minutes of brainstorming on a topic. We are all more open to in-depth conversation on the matter after watching the videos together and laughing together.
The Appeal to Emotion Fallacy, for example, was explained using the video above. The video begins with Joseph, a dance contender, demonstrating his dancing abilities. Within seconds, Joseph’s odd movements reveal that he was not cut out for dance. Joseph is respectfully thanked and asked to leave the stage by the judges. A determined Joseph, on the other hand, has something more to reveal to the judges. He tells the judges about his lack of professional dancing instruction, implying his low socioeconomic status. The judges are unimpressed, thanking Joseph for coming but ordering him to go.
Joseph, on the other hand, is in no hurry to leave and continues to sob about his mother’s drug addiction and his father’s imprisonment.
The story is deemed “not really relevant” by the judges. Joseph’s turbulent birth story is added to his long list of calamities. Judges try to say no again, but Joseph continues his story, interrupting one of them to relate how his sister shot his brother and his cousin beat his uncle. These stories begin to appear to judges like lies. Joseph continues his story by describing how he used to hire out his body as a heroin suitcase. A obviously enraged judge urges Joseph to leave, implying that another candidate should take his place. Joseph kicks the air, causing the candidate to flee the stage. He expresses his desire to win the tournament so that he can have a roof over his head because he believes he was given a house without one. The judge tries, but unsuccessfully, to silence Joeshph. Joseph goes on. Joseph is now sternly asked to leave the stage by a judge. As a final resort, Joseph uses his 12-year-old daughter, whom he raised entirely on his own, to demonstrate his terrible life. He claims his daughter to be his inspiration. But the unconvinced Judge emphatically tells Joseph, “Joseph, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you can do or say that’s going to change our minds today.” After hearing this, Joseph calls his daughter’s blind daughter to illustrate his struggles. Judges are also swayed by Joseph’s blind granddaughter. Joseph is excitedly passed to the next dancing round by the judges.
Following the conclusion of the video, I am surrounded by laughter. Even before I ask for a discussion, students begin to draw connections between the video and several reality shows they have watched with similar settings, such as Indian Idol, Dance India Dance, India’s Got Talent, and Master Chef India. They tell me how, after hearing sad stories of contestants, judges of these shows themselves sometimes get very emotional; few even cry sometimes.
I ask students, can they find any underlying similarities in all such scenarios?
They draw attention to the use of emotion to convince judges. From here on I try to connect this point to their domain of law. Because I teach law cohorts, I ask students to visualize themselves as court judges at the pinnacle of their careers. I give them a scenario in which they come across an accused who has had a string of bad luck in her or his life. None of tragic experiences have anything to do with the current situation. The accused, on the other hand, makes numerous emotive appeals, blaming the murder on a tragic history. Even the accused’s lawyer gives numerous evidences to establish his tragic background.
I encourage students to make a connection between this scenario and the one depicted in the video. The similarities between the hypothetical event and the video are clearly apparent to students. We explore, for example, Joseph telling unrelated sad experiences, bringing his daughter and granddaughter to prove his point, and eventually winning over the judges. I once again question students what they would do if they were in the position of someone accused who had a difficult life and a string of tragic events in his life that led him to the realm of crime. They promptly respond that they would study the data and reasoning rather than be convinced by an emotional appeal because they are law students. I add a further twist what if the person is known to them or a relative of them like a brother, sister, or uncle. There is always a little pause before I receive comments indicating that they would still choose argument to emotions. Finally, I enquire if they understand the appeal to emotion fallacy. Then I give them a more formal explanation that Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones (“argument from passion”) 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. They normally have no trouble understanding even the official description after watching the video and discussing it. I conclude the topic by giving students an assignment to write about a few real-life events in which they were persuaded by emotional appeals or attempted to persuade others using emotional appeals.
Sources and other resources:
Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
31 logical fallacies in 8 minutes: https://youtu.be/Qf03U04rqGQ
The Teaching and Learning Video Series is designed to share pedagogical approaches to using video clips, and humorous ones in particular, for teaching philosophy. Humor, when used appropriately, has empirically been shown to correlate with higher retention rates. If you are interested in contributing to this series, please email the Series Editor, William A. B. Parkhurst, at parkhurw@gvsu.edu
Pankaj Singh
Pankaj Singh is an assistant professor at Dehradun's University of Petroleum and Energy Studies. He writes on the intersection of pop culture and philosophy. He has written many chapters for Blackwell's edited books on pop culture and philosophy, as well as The Palgrave Handbook of Popular Culture as Philosophy.
