Strategic maneuvering with threats: The disguised ad baculum fallacy empirically investigated

van Eemeren, Frans H.; Garssen, Bart; Meuffels, Bert

doi:10.1075/aic.9.18eem

In:Scrutinizing Argumentation in Practice
Edited by Frans H. van Eemeren and Bart Garssen
[Argumentation in Context 9] 2015
► pp. 313–326

Get fulltext from our e-platform

Download Book PDF

The disguised ad baculum fallacy empirically investigated

Strategic maneuvering with threats

Frans H. van Eemeren | University of Amsterdam

Bart Garssen | University of Amsterdam

Bert Meuffels | University of Amsterdam

Published online: 30 October 2015

https://doi.org/10.1075/aic.9.18eem

Ad baculum threats can be seen as a mode of strategic maneuvering which takes on a reasonable appearance in real life situations when it mimics, legitimate pragmatic argumentation. In this paper the hypothesis was tested that ad baculum fallacies are seen as less unreasonable than clear cases when they are presented as if they are well-meant advices in which the speaker cannot be held responsible for the occurrence of the unpleasant consequences if he does not get his way.

Keywords: argumentum ad baculum, pragma-dialectics, pragmatic argumentation, strategic maneuvering

Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

van Eemeren, Frans H. & Bart Garssen

2023. The Pragma-Dialectical Approach to the Fallacies Revisited. Argumentation 37:2 ► pp. 167 ff.

van Eemeren, Frans H.

2018. Pragma-Dialectics Amidst Other Approaches to Argumentation. In Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective [Argumentation Library, 33], ► pp. 169 ff.

van Eemeren, Frans H.

2018. Descriptive Studies of Argumentative Discourse. In Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective [Argumentation Library, 33], ► pp. 71 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 march 2026. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.