Appeal to Emotion

The idea of the appeal to emotion in chapter 10 of Epstein book, "Critical Thinking," is to use the human sense of emotion of fear, pity, vanity, spite, and feel-good of oneself to get the viewers to agree or accept what is being advertised or shown to them. Take for example the emotion appeal of fear, this is commonly use in commercials and adds that would want you to think twice about something or want you to stop doing or using something. A few examples are advertisement for anti-smoking, or anti-tobacco companies, and even anti-drunk drivers. Also, advertisements for things such as abortion, or unprotected sex also uses scare or fear tactics of the emotion of appeal to hopefully prevent their viewers from doing, what they would think, would be the wrong thing to do. Emotion appeal of fear is also a way that many politicians use to try to manipulate viewers for their own benefit. Take for example the campaign going on right now with Meg Whitman and John Brown for the seat of Governor of California. You can see that they try to use the fear tactic by bashing each others in their adds about all the bad things that each opponent have done in the past, and then asking you as the viewer if you would REALLY want someone like that governing your state.