Fallacy of Emotion Emotional appeals are commonly used in the media, although good journalists avoid them when communicating the facts to the public. Politicians, on the other hand, rely willingly and frequently on emotional appeals to sway their audiences in the same way that marketers do. The politicians’ reactions to the Las Vegas shootings of October 2, 2017 reveals the different ways emotional appeals are used to sway or influence the public, while simultaneously diverting attention from the real issues. President Trump responded to the Vegas mass shooting as an “act of pure evil,” a moralistic judgment that speaks directly to those who believe in the Biblical duality of good versus evil. In fact, Trump went on to say, “We pray for the day when evil is banished. May God provide the grieving families with strength to carry on,” highlighting his appeal to emotion through the socially acceptable medium of religion. Expressing sympathy is a logical response in a tragedy like this one, and there are bound to be legitimate emotions. However, reacting to the tragedy using religious terminology is illogical and unnecessary. Equally as fallacious is the appeal to anger among the general public, either by lashing out against politicians and the NRA or against the media for not...

It is important to investigate the root causes of mass shootings, but using emotions to do so may be manipulative and illogical.
Works Cited

“Trump calls Las Vegas massacre an 'act of pure evil'.” The Week. Retrieved online: Trump calls Las Vegas massacre an 'act of pure evil'http://theweek.com/5things/728222/trump-calls-las-vegas-massacre-act-pure-evil

Ethical Fallacy

The straw man argument is one of the most common ethical fallacies. In Robbins’s article lambasting the NFL players who protest, the author writes, “These jocks probably were not history majors.” Not only does his statement come across as sanctimonious and insulting by assuming that the athletes were not history majors (why wouldn’t they be?), Robbins bases his argument in part on the fallacy of discrediting athletes as not being educated enough to use their right to protest. The author makes a blanket assumption about the players’ knowledge of American history and uses the ad hominem ethical fallacy to lure the reader into believing that the players are acting in a way that is contrary to core American values. For example, Robbins also notes that the protests are “not a…