Emotional appeals 55Let me settle this. We British have a longer experience of settling disputes
than anyone else in the world.
(Most of it acquired long before any of us were born.)It can also be used to heap odium upon adversaries by pointing
similarly to their involvement in groups which command no
respect.
My opponent comes from Glasgow, not a city noted for high intelligence.
(If it were true, it would probably be because the bright ones had, like
your opponent, come from it.)Emotional appeals
It would be a strange world if none of us were influenced by
emotions. This influence steps over the boundary into the terri-
tory of logical fallacy, however, when it becomes the means of
deciding the soundness of an argument. The emotions which
influence our behaviour should not influence our judgement on
questions of fact. While it might be appropriate to show pity to a
convicted criminal, it is certainly not sound procedure to let pity
affect our judgement of whether or not he committed the crime.
Recognition that reason and emotion have separate spheres of
influence is as old as Plato's division of the soul. David Hume put
it succinctly, telling us that passion moves us to act, whereas
reason directs the course of those actions. Emotion, in other
words, motivates us to do things, but reason enables us to calc-
ulate what to do.
Separate spheres they may inhabit, but sophists and tricksters
have long known ways of making emotions invade the territory
of reason. Once whipped up, the emotions can be set at such a
gallop that they easily clear the gulf between their domain and