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Detecting Fallacies Appeals to Motive in Place of Support |
The author points to the disagreeable consequences of holding a particular belief in order to show that this belief is false. For example:
"You can't believe Taekwondo is any good for self-defense; those high kicks will get you killed if you use them on the street
"You must believe in God, for otherwise life would have no meaning. "
This fallacy is known as You commit this fallacy if you attempt to win acceptance of an assertion by appealing to a large group of people. A proposition is held to be true because it is widely held to be true or is held to be true by some upper class sector of the population. This form of fallacy is often characterized by emotive language. It is sometimes also called the "Appeal to Emotion" because emotional appeals often sway the population as a whole. For example:
"Millions of people believe in acupuncture. Are you telling those people that they are all mistaken fools?"
"Taekwondo is the most practiced martial art in the United States so you might as well study it rather than lesser known martial arts"
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