Also known as: Ad Misericordiam, Special Pleading
The reader is told to agree to the proposition because of the pitiful state of the author. A logical fallacy in which someone tries to win support for their argument or idea by exploiting their opponent's feelings of pity or guilt.
The fallacy is committed when someone appeals to pity for the sake of getting a conclusion accepted.
An Appeal to Pity is a fallacy in which a person substitutes a claim intended to create pity for evidence in an argument. The form of the "argument" is as follows:
P is presented, with the intent to create pity.
This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because pity does not serve as evidence for a claim. This is extremely clear in the following case: "You must accept that 1+1=46, after all I'm dying..." While you may pity me because I am dying, it would hardly make my claim true.
This fallacy differs from the Appeal to the Consequences of a Belief (ACB). In the ACB fallacy, a person is using the effects of a belief as a substitute for evidence. In the Appeal to Pity, it is the feelings of pity or sympathy that are substituted for evidence.
It must be noted that there are cases in which claims that actually serve as
evidence also evoke a feeling of pity. In such cases, the feeling of pity is
still not evidence. The following is an example of a case in which a claim
evokes pity and also serves as legitimate evidence:
Jill: "He'd be a terrible coach for the team."
Professor: "You missed the midterm, Bill."
The above example does not involve a fallacy. While the professor does feel sorry for Bill, she is justified in accepting Bill's claim that he deserves a makeup. After all getting run over by a truck would be a legitimate excuse for missing a test.
"I did not murder my mother and father with an axe! Please don't find me guilty; I'm suffering enough through being an orphan."
How can you say that's out? It was so close, and
besides, I'm down ten games to two.
Identify the proposition and the appeal to pity and argue that the pitiful state of the arguer has nothing to do with the truth of the proposition.