Appeal to Pity

Example 2: Appeal to pity

Emotions have long been viewed with suspicion because of their power to overwhelm reason. In argumentation, the appeal to pity—argumentum ad misericordiam—becomes a fallacy when it attempts to persuade by evoking compassion or sympathy in a way that distracts from the truth of the conclusion or is simply irrelevant to the point at issue. Yet not every invocation of pity is fallacious; sometimes emotion is directly relevant to what is being decided, and in those cases an appeal to pity can be legitimate. The challenge is distinguishing the sound from the unsound.

The basic form of an appeal-to-pity argument can target either a normative conclusion (what should happen) or a factual one (what is true). In the more familiar normative version, the pattern runs like this: a proponent gives reasons, one or more of which are designed to evoke pity, and then concludes that C should (or should not) happen. A more purely factual version occurs when Person A makes a claim, Person B evokes pity or sympathy, and then the claim is accepted as true solely because of that emotion.

To evaluate whether such an argument commits the fallacy, the exact nature of the conclusion and the context matter profoundly. For normative conclusions, two closely related questions are especially useful:

1. What exactly is the conclusion?
2. What is the understood point of the dialogue? In light of that point, does the proponent equivocate on the sense of “should” or otherwise illicitly shift the standards of judgment?

When the conclusion is factual, the key parallel question is whether the evocation of pity supplies genuine evidence for the truth of the claim, or merely an emotional push to accept it without relevant support.

The example of a defense lawyer appealing to a judge before sentencing illustrates these questions in practice.

Your honor, before you sentence my client for bank robbery, I ask you to consider his situation. He is an orphan and has been in and out of facilities and homes his whole life, never learning how to feel at home or at peace.

Here the primary conclusion appears to be something like, “You should, at a minimum, commute any sentence given for the bank robbery.” That asks for leniency, which differs from a conclusion that the defendant is innocent. A difficult childhood does not by itself establish that the defendant did not commit the robbery. Whether background bears on another issue depends on the claim, evidence, and applicable criteria. If the lawyer were aiming at an innocence verdict, the argument would be a clear fallacious appeal to pity: it attempts to make the judge feel so sorry for the defendant that she ignores the legally relevant facts and acquits out of sympathy.

For a request for leniency, the relevant criteria differ from those used to determine guilt. In a hypothetical framework concerned only with the deed, background may have little bearing on the decision. In one concerned with rehabilitation, background may help assess what response would serve that aim. Retribution alone also does not settle which background facts a particular framework permits as mitigation. In that context, mentioning the defendant’s past is not necessarily an attempt to distract from the real issue by stirring pity; it could be a reasonable contribution to a sensible sentencing decision. The difference hinges on whether the argument illicitly shifts from the “should” of judicial practice to a “should” rooted in sympathy alone, or whether it stays within the accepted framework of sentencing considerations.

The same structure appears in everyday normative arguments. Consider this illustration, drawn from Damer (2009):

I think that we ought to give the Teacher of the Year award to Professor Raley. Ever since his wife died last year, he just hasn’t been the same. I think that this award would really lift his spirits. He always seems so sad. I think this year has been hard for him. And he’s not really that bad a teacher.

Here, the conclusion is that Professor Raley should receive the teaching award. The reasons given are almost entirely appeals to pity—his sadness, his loss, the hope of cheering him up. The only remark touching on teaching quality (“he’s not really that bad a teacher”) is weak and secondary. Since a teaching award is presumably meant to recognize teaching excellence, the appeal to pity is irrelevant to that purpose and the argument is fallacious. Similar mismatches plague pleas like, “I know I failed the exam, but I’ve been so busy with my sick grandmother and my part-time job—can’t you give me an A?” The grading standard is about performance, not personal hardship, however pitiable the circumstances.

The fallacy is also deployed to prop up factual claims. In arguments of the form, “Person A makes a factual assertion; Person B evokes pity; therefore, the assertion is true,” the emotional appeal serves as a substitute for evidence. For example:

“Jesus must be God because look at how much he suffered on the cross.”

Here, the suffering is presented as proof of a theological fact. But suffering, no matter how intense, is not evidence of divinity; countless people suffer terribly without becoming divine. The appeal to pity diverts attention from the absence of genuine support for the claim.

Compassion can be relevant to a practical decision without replacing reasoning. A request to relieve suffering, for example, can make the suffering itself part of the reason to act. The question is whether it supports the particular conclusion: evidence of need does not automatically show that a proposed remedy will work, just as sympathy does not establish an unrelated factual claim.

A specialized variation is the Galileo argument, which requests pity for a claim on the grounds that it is unusual or rejected, drawing a parallel to Galileo’s persecution. Instead of offering evidence for the claim, the arguer asks the audience to sympathize with the underdog, thereby attempting to bypass rational scrutiny. In this fallacious use, sympathy replaces the relevant support the claim needs.