Talk:Appeal to pity/Archives/2012

Change

I changed the wording from "true" and "false" to "right" and "wrong" because neither example attempted to prove/disprove a fact, but rather accomplish an interpersonal goal.

Appeal to pity is not a cognitive bias. I'm going to take it out of the category within the next week unless anyone has objections. --Ubiq 09:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Examples

The examples are okay and do not offend anyone. They may fall short of illuminating everyone for that reason. The one I ran across (reworded for here) was "More people die every day from hiccups than in the attack on Fallujah." Anyway, something a little more evocative may be useful. Student7 (talk) 14:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"Please, have mercy on me"

I don't see how "please, have mercy on me" falls under this in the context of fallacy. While it might be an appeal, it doesn't directly contain any logic (that is, there's no reasoning for the pity), it's just a request. Or am I missing something? Schwinghammer (talk)

As I understand it, it requires the hearer to do something that s/he wouldn't have done without the appeal. In your very barebones case, the speaker is looking for some advantage but does not give any other supporting argument (and there may be extenuating arguments which are "valid"). For perspective, let us say that your "request" was aimed at an auditing US IRS agent!  :) By itself, there would be no cause for "mercy." But there may be some (better) arguments. Student7 (talk) 14:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I removed it, and also "think of the children". Without further explanation, these two are not fallacies but just, well, honest appeals to pity. I wonder though, if the lead stating that an appeal to pity is a fallacy, is correct. Lova Falk talk 11:19, 12 June 2010 (UTC)