PATHETIC ARGUMENT

1. Pathetic argument

Pathetic as evaluative
A participant may dismiss an argument that he totally rejects as “a pathetic, pitiful argument” because he finds it childish, empty or desperate.
In this use, the label pathetic argument is evaluative and can be applied to any kind of argument scheme. One can say “I find this argument pathetic” (evaluation), but not “I find this argument a pari”, only “in my view, this is an argument a pari” (description).

Pathetic as descriptive
The label “pathetic argument” can be applied descriptively to a variety of arguments based on negative or positive consequences. characteristic of wishful thinking. The conclusion is regarded as impossible and rejected because it would frustrate the arguer; or it is taken for granted because it is agreeable to him.

I fear that P, therefore not-P.
I wish that P, so P

– It can’t rain on Sunday, that would ruin our picnic!
– That’s not possible, we couldn’t handle the consequences!
– If this criticism were true, what would become of our discipline?
– Such pollution is unthinkable, it would claim thousands of victims.

This last case may be a purely pathetic argument, or a step in an argument that ends with a call to action: « urgent action must be taken. »

The pathetic argument applies to the realm of knowledge a style of argument that is quite common in the field of practical action:

I want P, so I strive for P, I pray for P, I try to bring about P.
I fear P, so I try to avoid P, to prevent P…

But wishing for P is different from striving to achieve P. This kind of  argument can be systematically be classified as pathetic i.e., “naive and desperate”.
Here, the label « pathetic argument » corresponds to a particular kind of appeal to consequences, with a feedback loop from effect to cause, as in the pragmatic argument. But the pragmatic argument depends on human action, while the pathetic argument invokes a magical action.

Pathemic argument and pathetic argument
A pathemic argument is not a pathetic argument. Pathemic derives from pathos; one can speak of a pathemic arguments to refer to ad passiones arguments, that is, to any emotion-based argument, such as appeal to anger, enthusiasm, pity, etc

Pathetic arguments and pathemi c arguments. 

2. “Pathetic fallacy”

The label “pathetic fallacy” refers to the anthropomorphic attribution of human emotions to non-human, inanimate beings. The label is evaluative, condemning the use of the rhetorical figure of personification.
The term was coined by John Ruskin:

I want to examine the nature of the other error, that which the mind admits when affected strongly by emotion. Thus, for instance, in Alton Locke,
They rowed her in across the rolling foam
The cruel, crawling foam.
The foam is not cruel, neither does it crawl. The state of mind which attributes to it these characters of a living creature is one in which the reason is unhinged by grief. All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the ‘pathetic fallacy’.
John Ruskin, Of the pathetic fallacy, [1856][1]

The label pathetic argument is consistent with the label pathetic fallacy. The pathetic fallacy condemns the personification of the natural world, while the pathetic argument suggests that the natural world is subservient to human desires; both movements blur the boundaries between the human and the natural worlds.

[1] In Modern Painters, vol. III, part IV, London: Smith Elder, p. 160. Alton Locke is a novel by Charles Kingsley (1850).