Emotional Argument, Fallacies of
(1) The fallacy that the strong presence of emotion in an argument validates it: the expression of real feeling is taken to show that the person is sincere, so she has to be right.
(2) The fallacy that the strong presence of emotion in an argument invalidates it: the expression of real feeling is taken to show that the person is not being rigorous, so she has to be wrong.
But neither of these are necessarily fallacies. The logician’s view of this is generally austere. Madsen Pirie writes,
Emotion . . . motivates us to do things, but reason enables us to calculate what to do.E94
Not in Lean Logic. For reasons why the emotions should be recognised as central to judgment, see Spirit.E95
Related entries:
Intuition, Eroticism, Icon, Distraction, Reflection, F-Word Fallacy.
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