Appeal To Emotion
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Whenever I share videos or pictures of animals suffering, like this:
invariably, an antagonistic nonvegan claims: “Fallacious argument! It’s just an appeal to emotion. It’s not rational!”
My response: Emotional appeals are only fallacious if the emotion CLOUDS your judgment. If it INFORMS your judgment, it’s not a fallacy.
Emotion helps us determine VALUE. When you have a strong emotional reaction to something, that’s a clue that you’re tapping into your values. If you’re angered or sad or disgusted or horrified… that means something. You shouldn’t just brush it off like it’s merely irrational internal dialogue. A strong emotion to animal abuse is PERFECTLY RATIONAL. In fact, a lack of emotion would likely signify a psychological disorder.
An emotional reaction to the video above is your conscience telling you to do something. It’s saying, “eat less cheese” or “stop drinking milk” or “go vegan.” Or if you’re already vegan and you have an emotional reaction, it’s your conscience telling you to “get active and make new vegans” or “rescue the animals” or “change the laws.”
Either way, an emotional reaction is your brain’s way of trying to sinc your expressed beliefs with your core values. So listen to your brain and try to ACT HOW YOU FEEL.
Great point! I am reminded of a passage from Eating Animals: in the section with the definitions, there are definitions of realism and sentimentalism that challenge the normal idea that appeal to emotion is “mere” sentimentalism.
Simon´s last blog ..Book Review: Animal Equality: Language and Liberation
I got this response once before as well. I was told I wasn’t using logic but was using a logical fallacy, an “Appeal to Emotions”. That’s when the idea of what I call the vegan syllogism began to form in my head. It goes as fallows:
Major: I am morally opposed to unnecessary suffering
Minor: Evidence proves that consumption of animal products produces unnecessary suffering.
Conclusion: I must stop using animal products if I am to be moral
The video I showed contributed to the evidence needed in the Minor premise above.
All I need from my interlocutor is for him or her to accept the Major premise in order to accept the Conclusion.
So not only is veganism logical, its logic is extremely simple. Plus, video’s aren’t appeals to emotions – they are part of a syllogism.
Of course, it’s logical, tron. The people who argue against gory videos are just grasping for straws, trying to justify to themselves why they don’t behave more rationally.
I like how you’ve spelled it out clearly and precisely, though, for anyone who may doubt the OBVIOUS logic of veganism.
(BTW – my college logic professor was vegan. He was the most rational person I’ve ever met.)
Absolutely true. A reasoning mind is supposed to process emotions accordingly. Emotions are there for the purpose of guiding us to our values. They determine not so much how we “feel” about things, but rather what we “think” about them.
And that is the problem with the whole animal using culture… They really don’t want people to feel/think about the wrongness of it.
@tron – Bravo on your vegan syllogism!
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It seems to me that appeals to emotion strive to get the person to NOT be rational. For example, someone trying to talk their boss out of firing them by claiming they have an elderly parent at home that they are caring for.
But showing videos of slaughterhouse footage is informing people about what’s going on. It’s factual information that is needed to make a decision.
veganprimate´s last blog ..And I’ll have fun, fun, fun til someone takes my Zuma away!