APPEAL TO CONSEQUENCES is when consequences are suggested as a reason why something is true or false. In other words, "Agree with me, or there will be terrible consequences."You should clean your room or the zombies will eat you.
Remember, a fallacy is when premises do not support or prove the conclusion. Appealing to consequences is a fallacy when those consequences make no sense, when they have nothing to do with the truth of the idea or belief.
I love Santa Claus.
If Santa Claus wasn't real, I'd be sad.
Therefore, Santa must be real.
Whether something makes you sad or not has nothing to do with whether it is true or not. It either exists, or does not, independently of how you feel about it.
WISHFUL THINKING is a special kind of appeal to consequences. This is when people make conclusions based on what they want, what they like, or what makes them happy, instead of based on facts. Wishing something is true doesn't make it true.
Barack Obama should be elected president, because he will fix all of our country's problems.
I shouldn't have to do all this schoolwork because I'd rather be playing.
We might wish that one person can fix all of our problems, but is that really going to happen? And just because you'd rather be playing video games, is that proof you shouldn't be learning? This fallacy is similar to the Appeal to Belief fallacy. It is also similar to the Appeal to Emotion fallacy.
Let's look at the above argument in the form of a syllogism.
Life has no meaning without god.
There is no other source of information about how to be happy and good, except the god in the New Testament of the Christian bible.
Without the threat of hell and the promise of everlasting life, people would do evil things.
Therefore, god must exist.
This argument is neither sound nor valid. There are many good people who live happy, meaningful lives while not believing in one particular god or another. They might believe there is no god, or they might believe in several gods, or they might believe that there is a creator of the universe but that it doesn't bother dealing with our daily affairs. One cannot prove the existence of their particular god by suggesting that the absence of such a deity would be disastrous. Some people might even suggest that believing in god is disastrous, because much violence, hatred and injustice in the world is perpetuated on god's behalf.
Here are some more statements which appeal to consequences:
We must go to war in Iraq, or else terrorists will destroy our country with weapons of mass destruction.
We must pass this health care bill, otherwise hundreds of people will die.
Either of these statements might be true or false, depending on who you ask. But if you want to look at them logically, they are invalid. They not only attempt to appeal to your emotions and appeal to your fears, they suggest horrible consequences as proof of their premises.
Another form of this fallacy is an APPEAL TO FORCE, when the threat of force is given as a reason to support the truth of the conclusion, or when the threat of force is used to win an argument.
You had better agree with the new company policy or you will lose your job.
Accept Jesus as your savior or you will burn in hell.
The threat of force can be used not just as a fallacy, but as a way to physically suppress one side of a debate. Some governments do this by arresting or killing people who disagree with government policies. This is why our Bill of Rights guarantees us the legal right to Free Speech, Free Press, Free Assembly, and the Right to Bear Arms, so that citizens are free to disagree with the government, without fear of imprisonment or death. Individuals and groups also use the threat of real physical force to silence others. They might threaten to harm a person who disagrees with them, or they might disrupt a meeting in order to keep others from being heard.
