Sobre Argumentación

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THE ARGUMENTATIVE USES OF EMOTIVE LANGUAGE
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the logical boundaries of loaded words, euphemisms and persuasive definitions. The analysis of the argumentative uses of emotive words will be carried out based on argumentation schemes, dialectical concepts such as bias and burden of proof, and ethical principles such as values and value judgment. Theobject of our inquiry is emotive words, namely words which have an emotive value often exploited in order to advocate a point of view. There may be nothing wrong with using them to persuade an audience, but when emotive language is used to distort the image of reality it becomes deceptive and even fallacious. Determining the difference between reasonable and manipulative uses of emotive terms inarguments is a task that has often been taken up by logic textbooks, beginning with the ancient dialectical tradition. On our view, a term is considered as emotive if it leads the interlocutor to draw a value judgment on the fragment of reality the term is used to refer to. Emotive words therefore stimulate a classification of the kind good/bad on the grounds of values commonly shared by thecommunity to which the interlocutors belong. Such terms can be used reasonably to support certain decisions or evaluations, and thus frame a discussion in a certain way; however, emotive language can be sometimes used in a tricky way, making it seem like no counterarguments can be successful, or even required. The speaker, by using emotive words in certain ways, can make it seem like that is no need toaccept, or even to consider, a contrary viewpoint, because doing so would stem from unacceptable values. The starting point of our proposal is the concept of emotion. Emotive language is a particular dialectical and rhetorical strategy whose distinctive feature is the persuasion though emotions. First we need to have some staring points on what emotions are, and how it is possible to describeargumentatively what appears to be pure domain of psychology or individual feelings.

2 Our analysis is structured in four steps. First, we need to establish how emotive language can be a persuasive technique. For this purpose, we will offer a brief overview on ancient dialectical theories, which described different argumentative uses of emotive words and inquired into the dialectical or rhetoricalprinciples such uses were grounded on. At a second level, we will show in detail what the different strategies are and classify them according to some basic argumentative principles, namely the relation between a word and the shared knowledge, and the type of foundation on which a conclusion is based. After distinguishing between different types of uses and structures, the next step is to identifycommon reasoning patterns, starting from the concepts of emotion and value judgment. In particular, the different reasoning patterns underlying the rationality of emotions will be presented. Finally, this theoretical framework will be applied to fallacious uses of emotive words, and the different deceptive techniques grounded on emotive language will be compared, examined, and explained startingfrom basic principles such as presupposition and burden of proof.

1. The argumentative use of emotive words in the tradition

The use of emotive and loaded language and the notion of persuasive definition were studied in ancient rhetoric under the heading of fallacious strategies of ellipsis or exaggeration, or under the category of “indignant language”. The use of definitions to advocate acause was analyzed as a rhetorical tactic based on either proper or improper definitions. The analysis of such persuasive sophistical moves has also been pursued in contemporary theories. Emotive language is often classified as “question-begging epithets”, while the notion of persuasive definition and quasi-definition cover the complex field of the persuasive use of definition.

1.1 The...