Logic, imo, isn’t persuasive. Naturally, by starting this thread, I hope to see a debate on this, but it’s a problem I’ve seen far too often… and the source of many arguments.
The Problem with Logic
It’s that we aren’t logical beings. We never have been. We just like to fancy ourselves as logical. Maybe it makes us feel better than each other. Maybe it makes us feel better than animals. Either way, we just aren’t logical.
But then people go about trying to convince people of emotional truths - evolution, god, logic, emotion, morality, etc - on the basis of logic. And it doesn’t work. Not really. A few people, with an intuition to logic, will listen, nod, and assent that it makes sense. The rest? Not so much.
I’d argue that it’s far more logical, to not use logic to argue. Not on certain topics. Empathy, relating anecdotes, caring, showing others respect, and using emotional reasoning on the SAME topics… CAN get a person to the exact same place as logic - and has for centuries. And, when measured for efficacy, it works.
If you are a person trying to get to the truth of a matter, then logic should be persuasive. An intelligent person will recognize that emotion, empathy, and the like are very influential but do nothing to help you discern the truth and may lead you in the wrong direction.
If a+b=c, and c is the desired outcome, a is me, and b is a situation… I am far likelier to get c if I expect that people are not innately using logic to guide their decisions. They are using reason, and usually logic is a smaller percentage than the rest.
To them it is an emotional truth. I’m not saying they are right. I know they aren’t. They, ALSO, are misapplying a skill.
At that point you would cite this or that thing that you did. Things you made sure they had…
I have a hard time seeing that as a logical argument. It would be remarkably reasonable. It’s an emotional question, and it would be answering it in kind.
Where logic could come in would be on finances… even so, emotion would be the prevailing point. Intent, attempt, hopes - and not so much in how effectual I was.
An argument that makes use of the peripheral route to persuasion is one. A McDonalds commercial doesn’t contain within it any logic, it merely presents the argument that a child that eats a McDonalds hamburger will love his mother more and be happier. There is nothing special about a McDonalds hamburger when compared with a Hardees burger. Instead of relying on fact-based arguments (central route to persuasion), McDonalds relies instead on playing to your emotions, by using things that elicit strong, positive emotional responses such as the words “smile” and “love”, laughing children, grandma, and cartoon characters. There is a reason Obama uses the word “hope” instead of “optimism.”
The Yale Attitude Change studies have examined what arguments work and why they work. Essentially, there are two methods of persuasion: the peripheral route to persuasion, and the central route to persuasion. The central route relies on facts and logic. For instance: our product contains 3% salicylic acid, whereas theirs contains 1%. At the same price, our product is more powerful. That is an argument that takes the central route.
An argument that relies on the peripheral route to persuasion is one that relies on the authority of the person presenting the argument (I’m dr. john and I recommend this toothbrush), their physical attractiveness, the length of the message, or other such short heuristics that indicate that someone is to be trusted.
We rely on the peripheral route a lot more than we want to admit to. In all cases, both are required for a convincing argument, however the efficacy of either style of argument is going to be influenced by how personally relevant the argument is to the person. If you just want fabric softener, you probably just pick whatever and go with it, although that “pick whatever” is likely influenced by the soft cuddly bear kissing kittens you unconsciously associate with that fabric softener. On the flip side, an argument for why one car is superior to another is likely to rely on the central route to persuasion, because a car represents a sigificant investment for the person. When a person has a high amount of personal investment in a belief, they are going to use more of their brain power and techniques such as celebrity endorsement and sexy women are less powerful. Quick run-through of what I said in slightly more detail.
This is all extremely basic psychology, everyone, and I can’t believe we’re all debating this. I recommend emphatically that everyone read Joseph LeDoux’s “The Emotional Brain” and Daniel Wegner’s “The Illusion of Conscious Will” to shake you of this illusion that you’re the masters of your own destiny and that emotions don’t influence your beliefs or your decisions.
It’s not any kind of argument. It’s simply a statement of position.
Am I being whooshed here? Because if you are attempting to prove that non-logical assertions are persuasive, you’re missing the barn door by quite a bit.
There are a great many times, in my experience, where people will, in the face of being shown the truth of a situation through logical argument and reason; still make the wrong choice, based on nothing but their emotions.
So it might be better to say; Logic will not necessarily persuade those who have made a choice based on emotion.
It can also be said that logic is based on available information, and perhaps your logic fails to persuade because the other party is privy to information that you do not possess. In which case their decision may well appear to be illogical to you, based on your information subset.
“We need to run away from the Wicked Witch!” seems eminently logical to the first time visitor to Oz.
“No, she’ll see us wherever we go and keep sending those damned monkeys after us. We need to get to her and throw a bucket of water on her head” would seem suicidally insane to that same person, but completely logical to the knowledgable person of Oz.
(And damned illogical that the Wicked Witch would then just happen to have a handy bucket of water next to her when confronting Dorothy…)
That’s exactly what I am saying. That emotion and intuition work far better at most forms of persuasion than logic.
Logic doesn’t condescend. It doesn’t get mad. It just is. People get mad, condescend, and what not, because they FEEL about logic. Often on a deontological basis. A fundamental ought statement.
I’m hoping to get some people to examine that premise and it’s efficacy within certain conversations and debates.
He wants you to believe it, doesn’t he? “I didn’t rape that woman” issued in a courtroom is not merely a statement of position, it is an argument for what a person has or has not done, that you are charged with accepting or not accepting. That you believed that he loves his daughter as simply a statement of position proves that his argument was effective.
And experience. Experience informed by a cognitive bias informed by their emotions.
When you run into that, you run into emotion AND experience. It might be a poorly framed experience (“GOD EXISTS DAMMIT!”), but it is experience. For that experience to lose its resonance you have to address the emotional underpinnings of the assertion.