Nizkor's Argument Essay: An Appeal To Pity

According to the Nizkor Project a person can substitute a claim intended to create a sense of pity for evidence found in an argument (Nizkor). This fallacy is known as an Appeal to Pity. The arguer appeals to an audiences feelings in a sympathetic way. This appeal is also known as “argumentum ad misericordiam, the sob story, or the Galileo argument.” (Logically Fallacious) An Appeal to Pity attempts to sway someone using emotions versus using actual evidence. This argument is based on a mistaken belief; because when we are in our emotional state our responses to certain situations are not necessarily the best guide to the truth. Our emotions can cloud our judgement rather than clarify and clear up issues. In order for our beliefs to be true, we must not base our belief off of emotion. Rather base them upon reason. Appeal to Pity

Trulyfallacious.com used a cartoon/meme to describe the fallacy. In this meme you can see there is a man on the bench in a courtroom and showing people sitting on the jury stand. The attorney is arguing the case of the man on the bench by saying “How can you convict this man of murdering his mother? He’s an orphan!” In the picture you can see the jury with a sad look on their face. Now an orphan is someone who lost one, usually both of their parents. The attorney is clearly using the guy being an orphan as leverage in the trial they are convinced to win. Appeal to Pity uses emotions to basically control the way an audience reacts to certain situations. In this case the attorney wants the jury to feel sorry about the guy who just “lost” his mother because he is an orphan. Anyone that is an orphan more than likely won’t commit murder. It’s simply not logical. That’s what the attorney is basically telling the jury. This is a way to sway the audience’s opinion to a situation by using their emotions against them, too forget about the real problem at