An appeal to spite is a type of appeal to emotion. An appeal to spite involves a person trying to reach his objective without providing evidence or support for his claim. According to the Encyclopedia, an appeal to spite is " An `appeal to spite` (also called `argumentum ad odium`) is a logical fallacy in which someone attempts to win favor for an argument by exploiting existing feelings of bitterness, spite, or schadenfreude in the opposing party. Instead of an argument being made with supporting facts or evidence, the argument is made that you should or should not do something simply out of spite. "
Here is an example for this fallacy :
X : Oh wow, Y gave an excellent presentation. I am going to vote for Y's presentation. I think she deserves the trophy.
Z : Yes, I agree, but do not remember that Y did not select your presentation last year ?
X : Oh yea ! You are right, I change my mind. I will not vote for Y.
This is a simple example for an appeal to spite. This is purely based on getting revenge, without providing evidence or support to the claim. Hence, as Epstein states "an appeal to spite often invokes the "principle" that two wrongs make a right" (Epstein , 193). On the contrary, there are times when a claim that evokes a feeling of spite can be judged as an true, factual evidence.
I really enjoyed this post. Appealing to spite is such a common one I that I see. I hate when people do this. This is a poor way of holding a grudge. People need to just get over shit and not be such a sore loser about it. I guess they don’t know about “being the better person”. Either way, this just goes to show that emotions play a huge role in people’s decision making process. You did a good job illustrating an example that was easy to relate to. Classic example of “I won’t help you because that one time you didn’t help me.” Good post!
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