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Ad Baculum
(Appeal to
Force) Examples:
Self-Quiz with Answers

Abstract: Ad baculum arguments (appeal to force) and related fallacy examples are provided and analyzed for credibility in a self-scoring quiz.

(1) Study the features of the ad baculum from webpage: Ad Baculum (Appeal to Force).

(2) Read and analyze the following passages.

(3) Explain with a sentence or two as to whether or not you judge an ad baculum fallacy to be present.

Check your answer.

1. In WWI Raymonde Amondarain, the girlfriend of the German Spy Adolfo Guerrero who was in England posing as a Spanish journalist, was being examined by British authorities:

   “Amondarain shouted at her interrogators in strident voice: ‘You suspect him of being a spy. You ought to be careful of what you say. there are people in Spain who will make you pay heavily for your presumption.’”[1]

   
   

   Answer
   
   
   
   The fallacy of ad baculum occurs. The threat to investigators was a defensive, reflexive, but empty threat.
   
   

2. “The following summary argument follows a monk's review of the convent's financial affairs:

   “[T]here is no more to be done, except to find some means to stop the wasteful expense of the house. The portion that ought to go to the poor is consumed on the convent. It ought not so to be; the convent will come to evil if this continues.”[2]

   
   

   Answer
   
   
   
   The claim is the excessive spending of the convent will cause evil to arise at the convent, so the fallacy of ad baculum does not occur. Whether “evil” here means moral evil or physical harm is ambiguous, so it's not obvious that the fallacy of false cause occurs.
   
   

3. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks to the U.N. Security Council in defense of the U.S. embassy's move to Jerusalem: “When we make generous contributions to the UN, we also have a legitimate expectation that our good will is recognized and respected. … As such, we have an obligation to acknowledge when our political and financial capital is being poorly spent.

   We have an obligation to demand more for our investment. And if our investment fails, we have an obligation to spend our resources in more productive ways. Those are the thoughts that come to mind when we consider the resolution [condemning U.S.'s recognition of Jerusalem as Israeli's capital] before us today.…

   We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world's largest contribution to the United Nations.”[3]

   
   

   Answer
   
   
   U.S. Ambassador Haley argues that since the U.S. contributes much to support the United Nations, the U.S. should not be criticized for its decisions or U.S.funding to the United Nations might be cut. The decisions made at the U.N. are not based on the amount of money a nation contributes; thus, Haley's threat commits the fallacy of ad baculum.
   
   
   

4. “In a Samuel Richardson 18th century novel, a young woman responds to a suitor:

   You are boasting of your merits, Sir: Let merit be your boast: Nothing else can attract me. … Make to yourself a title to my regard, which I can better approve of; or else you will not have so much merit with me, as you have with yourself.”[4]

   
   

   Answer
   
   
   No fallacy occurs — a precondition for having merit with the lady is stated.
   
   
   
5. “Mr. Ben Tillett has given us … his solution of the problem of the unemployed. … His letter is meant to convince capitalists and other hard-headed persons … unless Collectivism is at once substituted for the present order of things, the country will ‘go industrially to the dogs’ … The practical reforms which go by the name of municipal Collectivism ‘are mild compared with what the proletariat will exact when they get in a hurry.’”[5]
   
   

   Answer
   
   
   Essentially the argument is that collectivism can correct the high unemployment caused by capitalism. Mr. Tillett insinuates that workers will cause trouble if collectivism, in spite of its minor difficulties, is not implemented. But it is not clear from the passage quoted whether or not he is asserting that the trouble would be a natural causal result of the continuation of capitalism — if so, the ad baculum fallacy would not occur since any “threat” here would be an economic prediction. However, if he is asserting that collectivism must be adopted in order to prevent the proletariat from revolting rather than be adopted for well-founded economic reasons, then the ad baculum fallacy would occur.
   
   
   

6. “The Athenian historian Thucydides recounts the Athenian argument to convince the Melians to submit to Athenian rule in the following argument:

   “Well, then — we have no intention on our side of presenting a long and correspondingly unconvincing statement adorned with fine phrases about our having the right to rule … You know as well as we do that, in the logic of human nature, Right only comes into question where there is a balance of power, while it is Might that determines what the strong extort and the weak concede.… We wish to avoid trouble in imposing our Empire upon you and to consult our mutual interests by saving you from destruction.… [W]e know for certain that Mankind, is driven by a universal law of nature to rule wherever it is the stronger. … Reconsider, we beg you … and reflect again and yet again that you are taking a decision for your country — the only country that you possess, and a country whose fate hangs upon a single decision right or wrong.“[6]

   
   

   Answer
   
   
   This is a classic example of the ad baculum fallacy. The reason the Athenians state for the Melians to submit is to avoid being destroyed.
   
   
   

7. The following writer argues against moralists who claim to have proved that generally accepted opinions in morals are mistaken:

   “It is very true … that individuals who rejected our principles have been good men. But that was because they had the inestimable advantage of learning practical morality in a society where our principles were accepted. … [But] once let their ideas become current enough to leaven a whole generation; once let our only true and original mould be broken, and then you shall see how morality will go to pieces. … Our only comfort is that we have warned you in time: you may not be wicked and miserable yet, but if you go on at this rate your children will be.”[7]

   
   

   Answer
   
   
   The writer argues that permitting persons to reject current morality will lead to immorality in future generations, but the writer does not provide reasoning to show that this must needs to be the case. The writer argues that objections to current morals should not be tolerated; otherwise, an immoral society will result. This belief is a sociological prediction based on the belief that any morality other the present practical morality will lead to an immoral society, but, again, no rational or empirical support is offered for this view. The ad baculumdoes not occur; the writer is simply iterating an unsupported assertion.
   
   
   
8. “In August 2012, [President] Obama was asked about what could lead him to use military force in Syria. ‘We have been very clear to the Assad regime,’ he said, ‘that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus.’ … Obama made clear publicly to Assad … that Assad would be held accountable. …”[8]
   
   

   Answer
   
   
   President Obama threatens to respond with military force to Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons. Voicing that intent is non-argumentative, so no fallacy occurs.
   
   
   
9. ’I have shown you,’ cries the officious moralist, ‘that on my theory [what] the foundations of morality and the reasons for being a good man are … I have further shown you that the speculations of this impious innovator destroy my foundations and leave no room for my reasons, which, as I have told you, are positively the only sufficient ones. If, therefore, you accept such principles as are now offered by my adversary, you have by all the rules of logic no title whatever to be a good man. Be warned in time, lest by listening to the deceiver you become wicked and miserable.’”[9]
   
   

   Answer
   
   
   The argument presented by the officious moralist is not that you will be convinced by his logic but that if you disagree you become wicked and miserable. In a sense, the fallacy of ad baculum might be said to occur as verbal abuse or “name calling” since the officious moralist's claimed reason for believing in his theory of morality is to avoid being (in the moralists' opinion) wicked and miserable. Despite that, the more obvious evaluation is just that the officious moralist abases anyone who disagrees with his ethical theory.
   
   
   
10. “But lo! in the name of God let us do as is needful for us, protect ourselves as we may most earnestly, lest we all perish together. There was a chronicler called Gildas in the time of the Britons who wrote about their misdeeds, how they by their sins angered God so excessively that at last he allowed the army of Englishmen to conquer their homeland to destroy entirely the seasoned strength of the Britons. … Also by the foul pride of the people … they destroyed their native land and themselves perished. … And let us often reflect on the great judgment to which we all shall come, and earnestly save ourselves from the surging fire of hellish torment, and earn for ourselves the glories and the joys which God has prepared for those who do his will in the world.”[10]
    
    

    Answer
    
    
    The implicit argument is that the reason Anglo-Saxons must follow God's will is so that they will suffer the fate of the Britons who lost their lands and perished because they did not act in accordance with God's will. The reason for doing what is right should not be just to avoid punishment — hence, the fallacy of ad baculum occurs.
    
    
    
11. “President Trump has warned China that it must respond ‘humanely” to the protests in Hong Kong if it wants a trade deal, for the first time suggesting that the United States would impose costs on Beijing if it launched a Tiananmen Square-style crackdown on the city.”[11]
    
    

    Answer
    
    
    Typical implicit ad baculum appeal in the political sphere is reported. As an argument it would be fallacious; as a political maneuver it is pragmatic.
    
    
    
12. “Let me tell you all that have not yet repented, that unless ye repent, and that speedily, ye shall all perish certainly, and ye shall be miserable everlastingly. Repent of your sins, mourn for sin, and turn from sin, or else you will weep for sin hereafter to not purpose, and burn for sin forever.”[12]
    
    

    Answer
    
    
    The argument here is typical religious ad baculum fallacy.
    
    
    
13. “[T]houghtful people cannot seriously dismiss climate change from their concerns about security because we … are facing a world where island nations like the Maldives will soon face disappearing althgether, and overpopulated nations like Egypt, jam-packed with 90 million desperate people, will soon explode. The devilish confluence of threats — drought, a lack of arable land and overpopulation — has already been the cause of tragedies in Rwanda, Syria and Yemen. And as these patterns are repeated across the globe, it only means more and more desperate migrants will head north, inevitably threatening, and in time destroying, the industrialized European and American civilizations.”[13]
    
    

    Answer
    
    
    No fallacy present. The passage describes some predicted consequences of climate change. The conclusion that industrialized European and American civilizations will be destroyed is unsupported and tenuous.
    
    
    
14. “The State Department, which has to implement many of the new rules relating to the President's executive order temporarily banning all refugees and immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries, has become a locus of opposition [by] … perhaps hundreds of foreign-service officers and other State Department employees. Asked about the document yesterday, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, dismissed his fellow government officials as ‘career bureaucrats,’ and told them to resign. ‘I think that they should either get with the program or they can go,’ he said.”[14]
    
    

    Answer
    
    
    Sean Spicer's justification for the President's executive order banning refugees and immigrants from the Muslim countries mentions does not provide reasons for doing so, but, instead, threatens foreign-service officers and State Department employees who disagree with the policy. The ad baculum fallacy is committed.
    
    
    
15. “In short, fracking for shale gas is far from benign, and it could tilt America towards a much greater long-term dependence on this extreme fossil fuel. That would be a mistake … Fracking is an inherently risky drilling procedure that has been allowed to proliferate with little oversight. This much we do know: there is growing evidence that fracking can contaminate groundwater and that it causes significant air pollution. Thanks to natural-gas drilling, parts of rural Wyoming have smog worse than that of downtown Los Angeles. There is also the problem of tens of millions of barrels of toxic waste water that the process generates. A ProPublica review found that structural failures inside wells like the ones used to store toxic, and often radioactive, fracking waste are common. … To increase our dependence on shale gas from fracking would be a dangerous detour from developing a responsible, sustainable energy policy.”[15]
    
    

    Answer
    
    
    No ad baculum fallacy occurs since the threat is relevant since the consequences of fracking is causally related to the practice of fracking.
    
    
    

Notes