Appeal to Pity

Douglas Walton is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Winnipeg, Canada. He is the author of numerous books, including Plausible Argument in Everyday Conversation and Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning, both published by SUNY Press, as well as Arguments from Ignorance; Argumentation Schemes for Presumptive Reasoning; A Pragmatic Theory of Fallacy; The Pace of Emotion in Argument; Slippery Slope Arguments; Begging the Question: Circular Reasoning as a Tactic of Argumentation; Practical Reasoning: Goal-Driven, Knowledge-Based, Action-Guiding Argumentation; and Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argumentation.

"Careful analyses are given of empathy, compassion, sympathy, and pity, and the differences between these. These analyses are useful for understanding the emotions, quite apart from an investigation of features of arguments. The analyses make it possible to distinguish arguments which contain an appeal to compassion from those containing an appeal to sympathy, and to further distinguish both of these appeals from the appeal to pity. Walton's discussion provides a sensitive and profound evaluation of arguments which occur frequently in daily life, but which are given only a superficial treatment in most texts." — John Kearns, State University of New York at Buffalo

• Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Textbook Treatment 1. Irrelevance2. Appeal to Pity as Inherently Fallacious3. Not All Cases Fallacious?4. Legal Cases5. The Student's Plea Case6. Excuses as Arguments7. Charitable Appeals8. Argument from Consequences9. Judging the Fallacious Cases10. Summary2. Historical Background 1. Origins in the Modern Textbooks2. Earliest Known Origins of Ad Misericordiam3. Ancient Use as a Courtroom Tactic4. Socrates' Rejection of Appeal to Pity5. Aristotle on Appeal to Pity (Eleos)6. The Stoic Condemnation of Pity7. The Christian View of Pity8. Sympathy as an Ethical Concept9. Early Modern Views of PityI0. Terminological Questions3. Identifying the Ad Misericordiam As a Type of Argument 1. The Jerry Lewis Telethon for Muscular Dystrophy2. Negative Attitudes Towards Pity3. A Definition of Pity4. Mercy and Pity5. A Pragmatic Concept of Empathy6. A Definition of Sympathy7. Compassion and Pity8. The Speech on Health Security9. Classification of the Types of Appeals10. What's in a Name?4. The Structure of the Argument 1. Arguments from Negative Consequences2. Arguments from Need for Help3. Argument from Distress4. Charitable Appeals to Pity5. Practical Reasoning6. Evaluating Practical Reasoning7. What Deliberation is About8. The Case of Walter the Hardnosed Logician9. Evolutionary Logic of Appeal to Feeling10. Conclusions Summarized5. The Nayirah Case 1. Facts of the Case2. Analysis of the Case3. Bias and Evidence4. Evaluation of the Case5. General Issues6. The Kairos Factor7. Staged Appeals to Pity8. Twisting of the Argument9. Fallaciousness of the Ad Misericordiam10. Enstasis and Fallacy6. When Is It a Fallacy? 1. Informal Logic and Forms of Argument2. Use with Different Types of Argument3. Suppressed Critical Questions4. Impact Out of Context and Perspective5. The Whole Evidence Requirement6. Subtypes of Ad Misericordiam Fallacy7. The Pragmatic View of Fallacy8. Sensitivity to Context9. Defining Relevance10. The Logical Leap from Ethical Premises7. Evaluation of Case Studies 1. Legal Uses of Appeal to Pity2. The Menendez Case3. The Baby Seals4. Effectiveness of Ad Misericordiam Arguments5. Comparing Cases6. Further Comments on Cases7. The Student's Plea Case Analyzed8. The Thackeray Case9. Summary of the Method10. Revising the TextbooksNotes Bibliography Index