Emotional vs logical arguments

[deleted]

I noticed this last election. Every left leaning political ad was based on emotion. About half of the right leaving political ads were based on logic.

If someone uses an appeal to emotion, they are not interested in having their opinion changed. Don’t waste your time, and move onto something else.

The mass crushes out the insight and reflection that are still possible within the individual. Rational argument can be conducted with some prospect of success only so long as the emotionality of a given situation does not exceed a certain critical degree. If the affective temperature rises about this level, the possibility of reason’s having any effect ceases and its place is taken by slogans and chimerical wish-fantasies.

Carl Jung, Civilization in Transition

I fundamentally don't agree with this, because I think our laws and constitution at its core should be rooted in our morality and will to be Good people - as well as a will for Freedom, Liberty, and Equality. If we were using purely logical arguments, it becomes dehumanizing and can then begin to make justifications for the kind of acts that occurred in, for example, Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

Is there really a logical argument to take care of the elderly? Fitting that you can basically decide exactly how good a society is by how it takes care of and respects its elderly.

The problem is that the emotional argument needs to be supported by fact and aligned with the truth. The trouble nowadays in the US is both political parties are developing extremely polar emotional arguments, and the "facts" they back up their arguments with are nit-picked data hunting and outright lies masquerading as "science".

The thing about science and truth is that it is grey area, with many logical arguments able to be developed on either side of a debate to point the arrow closer to truth. Notice how for political arguments nowadays all the "facts" seem to lineup exactly with their belief, and all other facts are simply censored and deleted. The center begins to vanish and the extremes emerge. This is how you get, for example, a "Workplace Gender Equality Agency" that happens to be all women who manage to conclude a gender wage pay gap exists without actually comparing total hours worked.

Just wait until you start to realize that the justifications and philosophy behind socialism and things of that nature has a significant spiritual and religious element. That there is, in deep in the core of it, explanations that revolve around the fundamental problems of existence itself.

That these people have a concept of sin and of spiritual enlightenment that is not entirely alien to the Christian one. That it is actually a utopian cult that believes they must demand a twisted moral purity, unity of thought, unity of action, as well as massive sacrifices in order to bring about ultimate salvation here on Earth.

And that unlike most religions they have a physical manifestation of their god, their savior, that they can touch, that they can interact with. That they can pick up and call on the phone and get a actual reply.

And that because of this there exists many Zealots. Many people willing to kill for it, even.

And that is such a banal and mundane thing that many of them are not even aware that they are part of this religion. It is something that always existed. Because it's "real" in a physical sense they don't even think in terms of things like faith. There is, literally, no question. As in they are unquestioning.

That "physical manifestation of god" is, of course, the state.

Logical arguments aren’t necessarily good or even complete arguments either and typically rely on primary assumptions when considering anything other than rudimentary and universally established facts.

I.E. “A lower average lifespan is financially beneficial to a society as less will be spent keeping people alive beyond average retirement age. Therefore, we should lower the average lifespan.” This is a logical argument, but it’s not a very good argument and most of us would consider it to be unreasonable in approaching a problem.

I.E. “People would benefit from lowering the average lifespan. Therefore, we should lower the average lifespan.” This is a logical argument if we make the primary assumption that financial benefit is the only outcome favored by society, however that would not be reasonable if we consider what society actually wants.

“The objective value of fiat currency decreases as the quantity of that fiat currency increases.” This is not even a complete argument, it’s just a logical statement.

Logic basically just means that if A is true, B will occur. A logical argument is a proposal of B through the means of A assuming that A is true. We would use reason to determine whether or not B is favorable, and whether or not A is true.

An argument from emotion is typically an argument with a reasonable outcome, but without a logical means of achieving it. It can also be an argument without either a reasonable outcome or a logical means of achieving it.

A complete and concise argument must be both logical as well as reasonable.

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If there's one thing economists have learned in the 2 centuries since Adam Smith it's that you cannot decouple humans from their emotions.

With that in mind you cannot take decisions based on logical arguments only. People will always bring up emotional arguments that you do need to take account of.

Take CoVid regulations for example. A harsh lockdown has massive emotional impact on people. So you cannot ignore the emotional arguments against it. A lot of governments have ignored them and they'll reap what they sow: increased amount of burnouts at minimum but IMHO a significant increase in the number of active psychopaths as well.

Here's my two cents: emotional arguments are helpful as a literary device. You're gonna bore the reader with only logical arguments. If you can mask logical arguments as emotional ones, you have struck gold! There is a reason the communist manifesto is the most famous piece of leftist theory; it's passionate. I think the inability of the Libertarian Party to appeal to the layman has lead to its failure as a political party. Either the libertarian nominees are emotional banshees, or they are too esoteric. I hope to see a more lively face for the party in the future.

[deleted]

Over-reliance on logic is what makes libertarians into caricature autists. Please, use the tools appropriate to your audience. While I'm fully convinced that we have the right idea and if given a chance to organize society, would do so in a way that vindicates our positions, I'm much more concerned whether people have faith in existing institutions now than whether they buy into our theory of political everything.

The truth is that we'll never convince more than a tiny fraction of people. The rest just need to be deprogrammed from the existing system so they're not wielded as weapons against us.