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0 pointshaswell2y ago0 comments

I agree that people are often swayed by feelings, and that we don’t operate as perfectly logical/rational beings.

But if the only thing that convinced you of a thing is an analogy or emotional appeal, and if in being convinced you learned nothing about the underlying argument the analogy is supporting, you are susceptible to being convinced by similarly compelling analogies or emotional appeals that may or may not have any grounding in a solid argument.

I’m not claiming that people can’t be convinced this way. I’m pointing out that this form of persuasion is problematic and insufficient. “Argument from analogy” is considered a fallacy for this reason. It can lead people to take on new beliefs for bad reasons, even if the position they take is the “right” one.

While emotions absolutely influence our beliefs, it’s not accurate to downplay the role of formal logic, which is often implicitly invoked by emotional dialogue. The two are not mutually exclusive, and they work together.

For example: in a discussion about climate change, a purely logical presentation of facts about the temperature of the ocean and receding ice is not compelling without understanding the implications. Painting a picture of potentially cataclysmic outcomes and mass extinction events and migrations evokes an emotional response that is also necessary for humans to take action.

In this example, either one without the other can be problematic. Pure facts logically presented are hard to interpret, especially if you aren’t a climatologist. And if there is no logical foundation whatsoever, the argument is on shaky ground and the person who now believes it will have no reason not to believe the next emotionally compelling thing.

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ruszki2y ago

> beliefs for bad reasons

It’s easy to argue against and for “badness” of any reasons. It’s a totally valid, and good argument that somebody just feels it. All of us do this on some level. Just because I feel it that we should consider things “good” when they are generally good for world’s society in general in some specific metrics, and builds my thoughts about more topic solely on that, from how to handle cigarette buds to how to ask something from a waiter, it doesn’t mean that somebody has a less valid point when they didn’t made the effort to follow through every questions regarding that, and cut it at “I feel X way”. No matter what they think regarding any topic.

Of course, when they are expressing this feeling, they should be upfront about it. But they are almost never, and they almost never too far away from the feeling.

And even then, you can have internal conflicts. Just because of your feelings.

Case in point: eating beef. It’s not good to anybody. I still do it. I violate my core principles for it. All the time.

And of course some topics are way foggier. Like travelling. It’s definitely good for my state of mind, and my friendships, but it’s definitely not good for the society that I fly every other week and I travel to other countries by other means every week.

Everybody has these.

haswellOP2y ago

I was referring to the formulation of beliefs based on reasoning that is not sound, e.g. an emotional appeal that convinces someone but has insufficient evidence to back the underlying claim.

For example, I convince you that flying causes insanity because my uncle once flew and went insane, and the situation affected me so deeply that I urge you with every ounce of persuasion I have not to suffer the fate of my uncle. Let’s say you stopped flying because of my story, and later found that you had no reason to believe it. This is what I’m referring to. Maybe it’s “good” that you stopped flying for climate reasons, but the reason you stopped was “bad”. And this matters because the moment you realize the reason was a bad one, you may think there’s no longer a reason not to fly (assuming my story was the only reason you were avoiding it).

You’re describing a scenario where you understand the potential “badness” - presumably based on evidence - but choose the “bad” option anyway. This is a very different scenario and not what I was getting at.

ben_w2y ago

> Case in point: eating beef. It’s not good to anybody. I still do it. I violate my core principles for it. All the time.

Wittgenstein was wrong, but people never want to accept it.

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/72280/first-p...

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