# Appeal to fear

*Also called: Scare tactics, argumentum in terrorem*

- **Cluster:** Emotional pressure — Feeling recruited to do the work of evidence
- **Page:** https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/fear/
- **In Arabic:** https://fallacy.wiki/ar/fallacy/fear.md
- **Licence:** CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

## What it is

Driving acceptance by raising alarm rather than by showing the claim is true.

## In the wild

> Sign now or your competitors will crush you.

## How to answer it

Ask how likely the feared outcome is and what evidence sets that probability.

## Origin and naming

Known in Latin as 'argumentum ad metum' or 'in terrorem' — 'argument to fear'. Logicians catalogued it as the move that wins agreement by inflating dread of the alternative rather than by showing the proposal itself is sound.

## More places it shows up

- If we let the junior developers refactor that module, one bug could take the whole platform down — so the rewrite stays with the same two seniors forever.
- Switch phone carriers and your number might get lost in the transfer; do you really want to gamble with that?
- A campaign ad shows an empty playground and warns that the other candidate's budget will make every neighborhood unsafe.
- Skip one gym session on this program and you'll lose all your progress — better lock in the annual plan today.

## How to spot it

- Notice when the case for a plan is mostly a horror story about its rivals.
- Notice when urgency spikes exactly where the data should be.
- Notice when the feared outcome is vivid and detailed while its probability is left blurry.

## Nearby

- [Appeal to emotion](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/appeal-emotion.md)
- [Appeal to force](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/force.md)
- [Slippery slope](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/slippery-slope.md)

## Read more

- [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_fear)
- [The Fallacy Files](https://www.fallacyfiles.org/emotiona.html)

---

From fallacy.wiki — a bilingual field guide to 91 logical fallacies, published by phi holdings. Licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/): reuse freely with attribution to fallacy.wiki.