As a result, they are never acceptable in an argument, though they can be quite effective in arousing non-rational responses.
Fallacious appeals can target almost any emotion, but some are more common than others.
Appeal to Fear . Fear and love are two of the strongest emotions, and this sort of non-rational persuasion is usually designed to tap into both of them, by threatening the safety or happiness of ourselves or someone we love. As a result, it's often called scare tactics or appeal to force because the threats of force are intended to scare us into agreement or action. But the second appeal is, in other ways, more powerful than the first, because it threatens the officer's family with violence . Certainly caution would be the best response in each of these cases but, generally speaking, most of the threats encountered in critical thinking are less direct and less violent than these examples.