The New Theory of the Underlying Structure of Fear and Threat Appeal Arguments

Abstract

At this point, the difference between fear appeal arguments and threat appeal arguments has become clearer. Chapter 4, by defining the speech act of making a threat, gives the basis for making a fundamental distinction between fear appeal arguments of the kind studied in chapter 1, and threat appeal arguments, of the kind associated with the traditional ad baculum fallacy. Clearly fear appeal and threat appeal arguments are closely related, and share the same basic structure. But just as clearly now, we can see there is a fundamental difference between the two types of argumentation. In the fear appeal type of argument, of the kind so widely used by advertisers, the advertiser is not making a threat to actually carry out the bad outcome warned of. In contrast, the threat appeal argument is defined by the existence of the making of such a threat by the speaker.