103: Introduction to Logic
Argumentum Ad Populum
Abstract: The argument based upon what most
or all people think or believe is characterized and shown to be sometimes persuasive
but normally fallacious.
- Argumentum ad Populum (popular appeal or appeal to
the majority): The fallacy of attempting to win popular assent to
a conclusion by arousing the feeling and enthusiasms of the
multitude. There are several variations of this fallacy, but
we will emphasize two forms.
- "Snob Appeal": the fallacy of
attempting to prove a conclusion by appealing to what an elite
or a select few (but not necessarily an authority) in a society thinks or believes.
(There are many non-fallacious appeals in style, fashion, and
politics--since in these areas the appeal is not irrelevant.)
|Person L says
statement p or argument A.
Person L is in the elite.
Statement p is true or argument A is
- "Bandwagon": the fallacy of attempting to
prove a conclusion on the grounds that all or most people
think or believe it is true.
|Most, many, or all
persons believe statement p is true.
Statement p is true.
- "appeal to emotion": the fallacy of using
expressive and emotively laden language
to arouse emotion in
support of a conclusion.
|Emotions such as enthusiasm,
pride, anger, or disgust are used to express evidence for
Statement p is true.
- Many advertising slogans are based on this fallacy:
Strictly speaking, one statement considered by itself cannot be a fallacy because it's
not an argument. Nevertheless, the import of these
"catch-phrases" seems to be in
some cases by conversational implicature an implicit argument.
I.e., the statement can easily be reconstructed from its
context into an implicit argument.
§ "Coffee is the think drink."
("London (AP) The coffee industry says it will try to convince
youngsters that coffee is the ‘think drink’. … ‘We want
to capture the youth market.’"
[The Fredericksburg Virginia Free Lance-Star "Industry Promoting Coffee as
‘Think Drink’" (December 10,
1966), 82 No. 390, 10.])
§ "Join the Pepsi People Feelin' Free" (slogan early 1970s,)
§ "Join the Pepsi generation" (slogan mid-1980s)
§ "Sony. Ask anyone." (Sony trademark, 1970s)
- Occasionally, it is difficult to make a distinction between
the ad verecundiam (appeal to authority) and the ad
populum (appeal to the elite) fallacies.
- The basis of the ad populum appeal is the assumption that large numbers
of persons are more likely to be right than a given individual is likely to
be right. Also, in light of peer pressure, many
persons feel it's better to be
normal than to go against the crowd. Moreover, our social desire to be
approved by others often results in our joining the
"bandwagon" of the probable winning side in a
- The main problem with this fallacy is the mere fact that many people
agree on something often does not imply that what they agree on is true;
nevertheless, the fact that many people agree, can be relevant evidence for
the truth in some instances, as shown below. The distinction is based on the
nature of the relevance of the premisses to the conclusion.
- Examples of the ad populum:
- "But officer, I don't deserve a ticket;
everyone goes this speed. If I went any slower,
I wouldn't be going with the stream of traffic."
- It is well recognized by most persons that the
present technological revolution has affected the
ethical basis of the nation's institution of
education. Since this belief is so widely held,
there can be little doubt of its accuracy.
- "Man could alleviate his misery by
marriage. This close companionship enhances the
joys of one and mitigated the sorrow of the other, and
anyone knew God always provided for married
[Lee Emily Pearson, Elizabethans at
Home, (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), 289.]
- "Shell was charged with misleading advertising
in its Platformate advertisements. A Shell
spokesman said: 'The same comment could be made about
most good advertising of most products.'"
[Samm Sinclair Baker, The Permissible Lie
(Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1968), 39.]
- "To his dying day, Governor Marvin Mandel will
never understand what was wrong in accepting more that
$350,000 worth of gifts from wealthy friends who
happened to engage in business ventures that benefited
from his gubernatorial influence. The governor
has lots of company … And to a man they have
cried in bewilderment that ‘everybody does it,’
that politics survives on back scratching."
[Martha Angle and Robert Walters, "In Washington: The Public
Isn't Buying" Bowling Green Daily News (September
6, 1977), 123 No. 212, 16.]
- St. Augustine wrote, "For such is the power
of true Godhead that it cannot be altogether and utterly hidden
from the rational creature, once it makes use of its reason. For
with the exception of a few in whom nature is excessively depraved,
the whole human race confesses God to be author of the world."
[Erich Przywara, An Augustine Synthesis (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1958), 122.]
Note, as well, the ad hominem implications of this
- Non-fallacious examples of the ad populum: the
appeal is not irrelevant when what most persons believe or what
the select few believe does in fact determine what is true.
Conventional truth such as the definitions of words,
standard use of symbols, and clothing styles, or voting in juries,
meetings, or political elections are
typical examples where the appeal to the majority , the experts,
or the people-in-the-know would be relevant and so would not
- Many logic sources associate the ad populum
fallacy with the presence of emotion alone in expressions
of rhetorical passages, patriotic speeches, diatribes, or
cheerful accolades. However, it's important to understand
that no fallacy occurs unless the literal significance of
the emotionally expressed evidence is irrelevant to the purported
conclusion. The presence of emotively laden language alone
does not constitute a fallacy unless an argument is being
- If an elite group of people are in a position to
know of what they speak, their authority is relevant and should not
automatically be discounted. E.g., Is is a
legitimate appeal and no fallacy to argue that most
physicians believe that a high fat diet is
unhealthy, and therefore a high fat diet is
- The number of persons who believe a claim can be
probable evidence for the truth of the conclusion.
But without further information about the case in
point, the number of
persons cannot be directly related to the truth of the
- Other examples of where an ad populum
appeal would not be fallacious include the "the wisdom of crowds,"
and "crowd sourcing"
because these instruments are often more reliable than other inductive methods.
- Non-fallacious examples of the ad populum argument:
- "We believe in a generous America, in a compassionate America, in a
tolerant America, open to the dreams of an immigrant's daughter who
studies in our schools and pledges to our flag. To the young boy
on the south side of Chicago who sees a life beyond the nearest
street corner. To the funiture worker's child in North Carolona
who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an
entrepreneur, a diplomat ore even a president—that's the
future we hope for. That's the vision we share. That's where we
need to go—forward. That's where we need to go."
["Transcript of President Obama's Election Night Speech."
New York Times (November 7, 2012) quoted in Donna
Brazile, "Forward," Index-Journal 94 No. 194 (November
12, 2012), 6A.]
These statements do not constitute an argument and so no fallacy
is present in this passage.
- "Why are so many people attracted to the Pontiac Grand Prix? It
could be that so many people are attracted to the Grand Prix
because—so many people are attracted to the Grand Prix!"
[A ABC-TV 1992 advertisement quoted in Irving M. Copi and Carl
Cohen, Introduction to Logic New York: Macmillan
Publishing Company, 1994), 129.}
Undoubtedly, Copi and Cohen are assuming that there is an elliptical
conclusion being implied, but the passage as it stands is the fallacy of