Emotion plays a huge role about whether or not a person is willing to accept another argument. Many people like these kids accept and refuse different forms of arguments solely because they don't like what the argument is saying. So even though all rational and empirical evidence can point to one thing, people can still deny it with their own emotions. Some of the kids I worked with were like this. They held beliefs solely because they liked the ideas that they made up more than reality. I am sure people who claim to be rational do the exact same thing too.
Does this mean that logic and reasoning is weaker than one's own emotional power?
Emotion is a good way to overwhelm someone in a non-argument. It has no place in a real argument. When it opposes truth value, emotion is powerless.
ReplyDeleteI think it is hard in some arguments to get away from emotion or at least world views. I wonder where the line is between arguments in which one must include that something is emotion based and when not. When do we know that a premise, conclusion or inference is true to us because of our culture?
ReplyDeleteThere's the fairly easy example of "P.1: I dislike the taste of raisins. P.2: This cake has raisins in it. C: I dislike this cake.”
But what if it is more complicated? Like: a woman gets out of an abusive relationship and gains independence in her life. In our culture we would congratulate her and see her as a strong woman who is now leading a better life, but there are other cultures in this world in which she would be seen as a bad wife and an immoral woman.
This is why I think adding tacit premises that we may at first find obvious, is so important. For an argument, that seems fairly straightforward to us, to work universally, we have to add “being in an abusive relationship is harmful” and “there is no shame in leaving an abusive spouse”. Because of our cultural conditioning, we fill these premises in automatically. However, they are not obvious to everyone and so the inference, if these premises are not added, may not be deserved.
Caveat: I’m not saying that other cultures, (or even our own, in other cases) especially in this example, have some claim to the truth, I’m merely pointing out that one sometimes needs to add premises that seem obvious at first, but may not be so for everyone.
All of us tend to think our own reasoning is entirely logical -- nothing abnormal about that! Those of us who can get a little objective distance from our immediate preferences and feelings, however, can sometimes realize that what we THOUGHT was good reasoning really wasn't. No culture has a monopoly on that realization; it's hard work for all of us.
ReplyDeletePlease turn off your word verification!!!
ReplyDeletethis always happens when talking about something somebody is passionate about. the person will refuse all logical answers and arguments and "stick to their guns". i can sympathize with you alot griffin on this topic because little kids as we both know can be very stubborn about the silliest of things.
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