What, if any, common fallacy would relate to an appeal to the importance or gravity of a situation?

Question

Is there any common fallacy that might fit the following 'syllogism'?

1. X is important, or urgent
2. Therefore, X

Here's an example of a conversation where this could come up:

1. It's conceivable that our sales dropped last month (but we won't know until our quarterly statement).
2. Sales are important!
3. Therefore, we should sell more units this month!

It's the sort of argument usually followed with "can we really risk the possibility of it being true and not do anything about it?"

So, claim X is uncertain, but a there's a claim that X is important, which somehow trumps the uncertainty and makes X true (even if it might not be). The conclusion is not based on the truth of the premises, which makes me believe this is a fallacy.

What is the name of this fallacy?

Answer 1

That could be an Appeal to Consequences, or a more general Appeal to Emotion, depending on the situation.

Answer 2

In your particular example, I wonder whether you've symbolized the argument properly. Appeals like that, made in ordinary language, often are not actually fallacious, but they leave a couple of premises unstated. Here is what I suspect may be intended:

• P is important.
• No one knows that P and no one knows that ~P.
• If P is important and no one knows that ~P, we should act as if ~P.
• Therefore, let's act is if ~P.

Now, obviously, many people might disagree with the 3rd premise, and with good reason. However, I strongly suspect that many people could find a decent argument for using premise 3 as a sort of rough principle for situations involving practical reason. Using your example:

• I think we've sold fewer units this month.
• If we don't sell, we'll lose our jobs. We can't take that risk!
• We can't (or shouldn't) be sure whether or not we've sold fewer units this month.
• We should act as if we've sold fewer units this month.

Obviously, this may not be the sort of argument intended by the example you gave, but I wanted to mention the possibility. Often, principles of practical reason are presented in a way such that a few of the premises are left unstated, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the speaker meant to assert that the argument would follow logically without the unstated premises.