The Power of the Emotional Appeal

I wrote this over 10 years ago. Time flies. What do you think about my argument?

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Someone once told me something to the effect of, "The only reason to appeal to my emotions is because you have failed to appeal to my reason."

I believe this individual's rationale for this statement is not that he or she is summarily opposed to the idea of the emotional appeal, instead he or she is opposed to certain applications of the emotional appeal. Specifically, the use of emotional appeal by advertisers; a Budweiser commercial featuring a cute dog and a horse will have more success than a commercial detailing the differences in ingredients between Budweiser and the next leading brand.

The emotional appeal as a rhetorical device is powerful and can comprise a strong and persuasive argument. However, when used incorrectly, like any other rhetorical device, the emotional appeal will be met with hostility from the audience, who will immediately recognize the use as an attempt to manipulate, rather than to persuade.

The emotional appeal is one of the three rhetorical appeals: the ethical appeal, the logical appeal, and the emotional appeal.

The ethical appeal is not related to moral ethics. The ethical appeal is a mode of persuasion in which the speaker attempts to showcase his or her credibility on the subject, with the underlying idea being that a speaker well-versed and knowledgeable on the topic is more persuasive than someone who is not.

Logical appeal is the mode of persuasion in which logic and reason are used. A speaker using a logical appeal will employ deductive or indicative reasoning, evidence, facts, or statistics, among others, in his or her argument, with the intent that an evidence or fact-based argument will persuade his or her audience.

An emotional appeal is an argument in which the speaker employs emotion as his or her persuasive element. In an emotional appeal, the speaker will construct an argument based on fear, happiness, or even patriotism to persuade the audience to act.

Since the emotional appeal, as its name suggests, deals with emotion, there is great potential for this appeal to be persuasive or disastrous.

An emotional appeal fails when it is used instead of a more compelling argument by a speaker who has failed to analyze and understand his or her audience.

For example, there is a multitude of logical evidence to agree that the concept of animal testing is cruel, and the very idea of animal cruelty evokes a powerful response within an audience, especially members of an audience with a family pet, such as a dog or a cat. Additionally, there are valid arguments to be made against killing and eating fish - an argument that can be made at another time and in another forum - that is also wrong and/or cruel. However, in an example almost tailor-made for my argument, we can see an emotional appeal solely used to manipulate the emotions of the audience; an emotional appeal that has crossed the line into a logical fallacy.

In this campaign, titled "Save the Sea Kittens!" (http://features.peta.org/PETASeaKittens),  PETA suggests that if fish were renamed to "sea kittens," the practice of killing fish for food would cease since they believe that "no one would hurt a sea kitten" (http://features.peta.org/PETASeaKittens/about.asp). PETA's sea kitten campaign is, even for me as a vegetarian, absolutely ridiculous. By pandering to the audience's emotional response to the idea of killing a kitten, without any other style of argument, PETA's campaign is immediately met with hostility by an audience recognizing PETA's attempts to manipulate them via pity.

PETA, in this example, failed to properly apply the emotional appeal because they failed in one crucial aspect; an aspect that is fundamental to the construction of an appropriate persuasive argument: PETA failed to understand their audience. PETA failed to incorporate into their argument the fact that the general population views PETA as an eccentric movement with beliefs and views radically different from their own. As a result, this inherent dismissiveness of PETA resulted in an immediate hostile response to the Sea Kitten campaign.

However, when a speaker has properly analyzed his or her audience, an emotional appeal - applied properly - can become the single most persuasive element of an argument.

In another example almost tailor-made for my argument, I'd like to talk about Matthew McConaughey's closing speech from the movie "A Time to Kill" (https://youtu.be/4lnRK8QpC14?t=2m). This construction of this speech is an amazing example of a speaker fully understanding his audience, and applying both a logical and emotional appeal to masterfully - and successfully - persuade that audience.

In the video I linked to, McConaughey begins with the logical appeal; he chronologically recounts the facts of the case for the jury. This is a pretty straightforward logical appeal. However, it is the emotional appeal at 4:56 of the video that is the persuading element. But it is not the emotional appeal alone that makes it the persuading element. Instead, it is the emotional appeal coupled with the logical appeal that makes it persuasive.

This is where an understanding of the audience is crucial.

McConaughey's character has recognized that this particular audience has a particular set of beliefs. This audience, like all of us, believes that the rape and murder of a young girl is unquestionably wrong. And so, McConaughey employs a logical appeal in the form of a retelling of the facts of the rape and murder of Jackson's daughter.

However, this logical appeal alone is insufficient as a persuasive argument, since the audience also holds another belief: that Jackson's character as a black person is inferior to that of white people. It is this belief that is preventing the jury from empathizing with Jackson and his actions since Jackson is not a person on the same level as they are, and so any logical appeal based on facts or reason would fail.

This audience's belief, their prejudice against Jackson's character, like many deeply held beliefs, cannot be changed by a logical appeal alone. Like us and PETA's campaign above, the jury will respond unfavorably to the sole logical appeal. McConaughey understands this aspect of his audience, which is why he so masterfully employs emotional appeal. After carefully reciting every fact of the rape and murder in excruciating detail, while the jury has their eyes closed imagining the scene, McConaughey hits his audience with an emotional appeal, forcing the audience to picture not some unnamed girl, not Jackson's daughter, but their own. McConaughey's appeal forces the audience to abandon their prejudicial belief and envision themselves in Jackson's place.

Had McConaughey simply employed an emotional appeal, the jury would have responded just as unfavorably as with a logical-only appeal. Without the brutal facts of the case, the emotional appeal would have been weak and pandering. It is not difficult to imagine one of those jurors responding to McConaughey's emotional appeal with annoyance, dismissing it as McConaughey's desperate last-ditch effort to force the jury to empathize with a person they share nothing in common with.

Instead, McConaughey, by carefully analyzing his audience, can create a persuasive logical, and emotional appeal and effectively force the audience to act. By wielding an emotional appeal, McConaughey forces the audience to finally empathize with Jackson's character, to finally understand the emotions Jackson's character felt, and to realize that he acted in a way that they would have acted.

The emotional appeal, like the ethical and logical appeal, is inherently neutral. Neither one is good or bad, better or worse, right or wrong. Whichever one of those designations is granted depends solely on the speaker. Specifically, the speaker's ability to properly analyze his or her audience, then tailor his or her arguments to that analysis and pick the most effective appeal or appeals.

Emotional appeals only feel forced or pandering when the speaker has failed to understand you as his or her audience.

Used correctly, the emotional appeal is just as effective, and just as valid as a logical appeal.