Abstract
The appeal to pity, orargumentum ad misericordiam, has traditionally been classified by the logic textbooks as an informal fallacy. The particular case studied in this article is a description of a series of events in 1990–91 during the occupation of Kuwait by Iraqi forces. A fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti girl named Nayirah had a pivotal effect on the U.S. decision to invade Kuwait by testifying to a senate committee (while crying) that Iraqi soldiers had pulled babies out of incubators in a hospital in Kuwait, and left them to die. Subsequent investigations revealed no basis for this claim, and that it was part of a public relations campaign, financed mainly by Kuwaitis, to get support for the invasion. The normative question studied in this case is whether or not the argument in it can correctly be evaluated as a fallacious appeal to pity. Part of the general issue is what is meant by the key word ‘fallacious.’
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adler, J.: 1993, ‘Reasonableness, Bias, and the Untapped Power of Procedure’,Synthesis 94, 105–125.
Brinton, A.: 1988, ‘Pathos and the Appeal to Emotion: An Aristotelian Analysis’,History of Philosophy Quarterly 5, 207–219.
Brinton, A.: 1993, ‘A Plea forArgumentum ad Misericordiam’,Philosophia, to appear.
Callahan, S.: 1988, ‘The Role of Emotion in Ethical Decisionmaking’,Hastings Center Reports 18, 9–14.
Copi, I. and C. Cohen: 1990,Introduction to Logic, 8th ed., Macmillan, New York.
Degnan, R. E.: 1973, ‘Evidence’,Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed.,8, 905–916.
Eemeren van, F. H. and R. Grootendorst: 1992,Argumentation, Communication and Fallacies, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, N.J.
Facts on File, A: 1992,1992 Index 52, 2669, January 16, 31-32.
Hamblin, C. L.: 1970,Fallacies, Methuen, London [Reprinted by Vale Press, Newport News Virginia, 1986].
Kemp, Jr., E.: 1981, ‘Aiding the Disabled: No Pity Please’,The New York Times, Sept. 3, A19.
MacKenzie, C.: 1990, ‘White House Welcomes Exiled Kuwaiti Leader’,The Globe and Mail, September 29, A10.
Poulakos, J.: to appear, ‘The Logic of Greek Sophistry’, in Douglas Walton and Alan Brinton (eds.),Historical Foundations of Informal Logic, The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, Pennsylvania.
Reuters News Agency: 1990, ‘Patients Killed, Kuwaitis Says’,The Globe and Mail, September 7, A14.
Reutrers News Agency: 1990a, ‘Iraqi Atrocities Cited by Amnesty’,The Globe and Mail, December 19, A1-A2.
Rowse, A. E.: 1991, ‘Flacking for the Emir’,The Progressive 55, 20–22.
Rowse, A. E.: 1992, ‘How to Build Support for War’,Columbia Journalism Review 31, 28–29.
Runes, D. D.: 1984,Dictionary of Philosophy, Rowman and Allanheld, Totowa, N.J.
Shepard, S.: 1990, ‘Atrocities Ravage Kuwait as Time is Running Out’, Cox News Service,Winnipeg Free Press, October 11, p. 1 and p. 4.
60 Mintues: January 19, 1992,CBS News Transcipt, vol. XXIV, no. 18, ‘Nayirah’, pp. 7–12.
20/20: January 17, 1992,ABC News Transcript #1203, ‘The Plan to Sell the War’, pp. 2–7.
Waller, B. N.: 1988,Critical Thinking, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall.
Walton, D.: 1991, ‘Bias, Critical Doubt, and Fallacies’,Argumentation and Advocacy 28, 1–22.
Walton, D.: 1992,The Place of Emotion in Argument, The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, Pennsylvania.
Walton, D.: 1992a,Plausible Argument in Everyday Conversation, State University of New York Press, Albany.
Walton, D. N. and C. W. Krabbe: 1995,Commitment in Dialogue, State University of New York Press, Albany.
Ward, O.: 1990, ‘Kuwaitis Tell U.N. of Iraqi Atrocities’,The Toronto Star, November 28, p. A2.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The author would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for support in the form of a Research Grant, and Victor Wilkes, for assistance in collecting data. Thanks are also due to Alan Brinton and Michael Gilbert for critical comments and suggestions that proved to be very helpful.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Walton, D. Appeal to pity: A case study of theargumentum ad misericordiam . Argumentation 9, 769–784 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00744757
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00744757