Carson Bender

Professor Krause

Rhetorical Arts

12 March 2021

Types of Fallacies

Fallacies of Emotional Argument: 2014 Chevy Commercial - ​Maddie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t6bLugtJkQ
Maddie​ is a product commercial that employs overly sentimental appeal or an appeal to emotion.
Maddie​ can be categorized as an appeal to emotion because the main story of the ad centers
around the relationship of a lady and a dog, a man’s best friend. The piece follows the emotional
journey the two have, from the dog being a puppy and the lady being a young girl to the dog
becoming older and having puppies that are adopted by the daughter of the lady. It is an appeal
to emotion because it focuses on the relationship between a person and his or her pet, something
that everyone relates to and feels for, especially once that animal passes on. All of this is
purposefully done in order to keep the name of Chevy in the audience’s mind through ​Maddie​ so
it could be a possible choice of manufacturer when we look to purchase our next vehicle in the
future. The director could have made this commercial less of a fallacy if there was more of a
focus on the car in relation to the lady and her dog. The ad never gives any details about the
company or any specific car model for sale. But, changing the focus of the ad would ruin the
whole appeal of the commercial, making it far less memorable.

Fallacies of Ethical Argument: Hilary Clinton ad campaign against Donald Trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XOocb-DId4
This piece is a political advertisement that heavily utilizes ad hominem. This advertisement is an
example of ad hominem because Clinton’s objective with the piece is to attack Trump by
expressing his character as one who is misogynistic, greedy, race-bating, and more. The
advertisement never truly focuses on Trump’s plans for office or the policies he wishes to enact.
This commercial would have been able to avoid this fallacy if it focused on the policies of
Trump rather than his character. For instance, instead of calling Trump race-baiting and bigoted,
the advertisement could have focused on his plans to build a wall on the border of Mexico and
the negative effects of that idea.

Fallacies of Logical Argument: Vox- “Anti-maskers explain themselves” by Emily Stewart

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/8/7/21357400/anti-mask-protest-rallies-donald-trump-covi
d-19
This article examines the arguments of anti-maskers who refuse to comply with the nationwide
request to wear masks to prevent the spread of covid-19. This piece displays the fallacy of non
sequitur through the opinion of an anti-masker named Tanya. Tanya states in the article; “I know
they’re lying to the masses...I don’t know anybody who has had coronavirus, I don’t know
anybody who knows anybody, and I know a lot of people.” (par. 36) This statement is a hasty
generalization because it is drawn from the basis of the people that are in Tanya’s life. Tanya’s
close relationships are not a sufficient basis for the argument against the existence of the
coronavirus. The statement is a generalization because the data set only accounts for about 20 to
30 people at most and states that “if I don’t know anyone with the virus, it must not be real”. The
claim also falls apart due to the lack of acknowledgment of the coronavirus’s invisible symptoms
for most people who are infected with it. So to state that the virus does not exist for anyone on
the planet on the basis of not knowing or thinking you do not know anyone who has been
infected with the virus is a hasty generalization that holds no water. One way that the fallacy
could be avoided is by gathering a larger number of people, beyond just who Tanya knows, to be
part of the data set for this claim against the existence of the coronavirus. The more people who
are part of the experiment, the more plausible the argument becomes.