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Appeal To Emotion: Ad Misericordiam

Decent Essays

1.Appeal to Emotion (Ad Misericordiam)

a.The first fallacy from Twelve Angry Men is an example of Appeal to Emotions. The latin term for this fallacy is Ad Misericordiam.

b.Appeal to Emotion is when a person uses “evidence” that elicits emotion from the reader to “support” their argument.

c. The character who committed this fallacy was the Architect.

d.The Architect commits Appeal to Emotion by saying, “He’s eighteen years old.”

e.When the Architect said the boy was only eighteen he was stressing that the boy in manys ways was still a child; according to several jury members this does not excuse the boy. The Architect was letting pathos guide his decision and not logos. Instead of trying to sway the group by pointing out that he …show more content…

The jurors need to look at the facts of the case rather than the boy being young. Justice is supposed to be blind. The Architect was being subjective which is important to realize, when justice is supposed to be objective. Later in the film the jury finds the boy not guilty based on the facts in the case, not based on his …show more content…

d.The Stockbroker uses Guilt by Association when he said, “Slums are breeding grounds for criminals.”

e.The stockbroker, by saying this, is insinuating that the boy is automatically a criminal because he lives in the slums. He should have stated the slums have a high crime rate and most of the crimes are committed by the slum’s youth. This makes his statement a fact rather than a fallacy.

f.What the stockbroker said was important in the film, because it made some of the other jurors think that the boy was guilty due to the fact that he was raised in the slums. The stockbroker is stereotyping the boy by grouping him with every other youth that lives in the slums. The youth in the slums are not all criminals; they are different people with different traits, which are unique to each individual. Looking at the evidence is the only way to tell if the boy committed the crime.

3.Change for Change’s Sake (Argumentum and Novitatem)

a.The third fallacy from Twelve Angry Men is Change for Change’s Sake otherwise known as Argumentum and Novitatem.

b.Change for Change's Sake is changing something without any support to back up why the change was

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