Appeal to fear

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An appeal to fear (also called argumentum ad metam or argumentum in terrorem) is a logical fallacy in which a person attempts to create support for her or his idea by playing on existing fears and prejudices.

This fallacy has the following argument form:

Either P or Q

Q is fearsome

Therefore, P is true.

The argument is fallacious because it concludes P as true, even though this does not follow from the premises. The appeal to emotion is used in exploiting existing fears to create support for the speaker's proposal, namely P. The appeal to fear fallacy is closely linked to the false dilemma fallacy, in which a scary situation is often provided as a proposed idea's sole alternative.

Some examples which rely on this argument are:

"We must raise taxes or else even more hospitals will be closed."
"You should stop drinking unless you want to die young like your father."
"If you don't graduate from high school, you'll always be poor."
"Believe in God or burn in Hell." (this also uses appeal to force)
"Quit smoking or you will die of cancer."
"If we don't introduce ID cards, the terrorists have won."
"If the defendant is acquitted, there will be riots. Therefore, he should be found guilty."

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