Which Fallacy and how do you respond

You can certainly argue an appeal to emotion here, I just wouldn't because it is a very weak one at best. Here is my reasoning. First, let's look at the actual statement without the media's following statement:

“When I hear the answers from the prime minister, saying, ‘Well, more war is the solution,’ well, no amount of military action would have saved that child on that (Turkish) beach,”

The reference to the child does not appear to be a influential appeal. Yes, the dead child makes people sad and angry, but in the context of this argument doesn't work towards manipulating people to vote against military involvement. In fact, it might even do the opposite. Plus, the claim he is making is a weak one at best that resembles more of an expression of an opinion than a fact.

A clear emotional appeal would be something such as

“When I hear the answers from the prime minister, saying, ‘Well, more war is the solution,’ well, more war will only result in more dead children being washed up on the beach ,”

This is more of a fallacy because:

1) It follows the form if (emotional appeal) then (outcome) with no evidence. If (more war) then (more dead children).
2) The emotional appeal, if accepted, would clearly support his argument
3) There is a very clear claim being made here (as in the if/then form).

Remember that informal fallacies are themselves arguments. Some arguments I would jump right into because they are so clearly fallacious, others are borderline and would be difficult to defend. For me, this would be one that I stayed away from.

{date-time stamp}Wednesday, Feb 08, 2017 06:14 AM{/date-time stamp}
Anonymous asks:

how would you you respond to “If you didn't do it then i guess it must have been the man on the moon or a ghost”

Sarcasm. "Yeah, that must be it."

Himm, Im missing something...

From wiki:

Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones is a logical fallacy characterized by the manipulation of the recipient's emotions in order to win an argument, especially in the absence of factual evidence

Mulcair speaking to reporters, essentially speaking to the public since his comments will be aired:

“When I hear the answers from the prime minister, saying, ‘Well, more war is the solution,’ well, no amount of military action would have saved that child on that (Turkish) beach,” Mulcair said of Alan Kurdi, whose tiny body was photographed washed up in the surf after a failed attempt by his family to flee Turkey for Greece.

“Let’s start acting to save lives immediately. Canada’s done it in the past and we can do it again.”

Is he not using the dead child to appeal to the audiences emotions to make his point? And clearly he lacks factual evidence to make the claim.

I don't see any blatant fallacies here.

“When I hear the answers from the prime minister, saying, ‘Well, more war is the solution,’ well, no amount of military action would have saved that child on that (Turkish) beach,”

Perhaps a military strategist could best address this, but perhaps this just might be a false statement. Would more military action have changed the course of history and prevented that child from dying? I don't know the details, but they are irrelevant to any potential fallacy. False statements are just false, not necessarily fallacious.

Remember that emotion is vital in politics and persuasion, and not necessarily fallacious. Drawing the line between fallacious emotional appeals and legitimate emotional examples is not easy, and perhaps quite a bit subjective.