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We’ve seen that normative arguments sometimes have hidden premises that assert what we ought to do or how things ought to be. These hidden premises may or may not be fair game depending on how well they cohere to our (and others’) moral standards.
For example, say a new homeless shelter is proposed for a neighborhood and becomes the subject of argument among neighbors. Some might argue that the shelter will lower the quality of life for residents of the neighborhood. The implicit conclusion is that adding a shelter to the neighborhood is bad for the residents. At least one of the hidden premises here is that unhoused people degrade the quality of life of others. This is not a fair assumption. It makes an assumption about the lives of unhoused people and the ways they relate to the people around them. Suppose at the same time, some people supporting the shelter argue that it is a Christian organization running the shelter and people’s worries are unfounded, as any organization that is Christian is morally good. However, this makes a further assumption about Christianity, and it is a highly contested normative assumption. Further, implicitly, this normative claim assumes that this understanding of Christianity is a value shared by the community, which is not obvious and quite likely inaccurate.
In the arguments of the supporters, the normative assumptions are encoded in the language itself. Explicit discussions of Christian organizations being good use evaluative language to influence the audience, to compel them to accept the argument and hence its conclusion. The language used in describing the organization as “good” and “Christian” makes explicit the claim that Christian organizations are morally better than non-Christian organizations.
Normative or evaluative language stands in direct contrast to descriptive language. Whereas descriptive language simply describes a state of affairs, without passing judgment (positive or negative), evaluative language is used to pass some sort of judgment, positive or negative, on something. However, evaluative language can also be less transparent than simply naming a moral assumption as a premise.
Contrast the following three statements:
Many terms are both descriptive and evaluative; we call these thick terms. For example, Sam is nosy. “Nosy” is in part a descriptive term, stating that Sam takes an interest in other people’s affairs. But it also has a connotation, or a feeling that is evoked along with the description. In this case, nosy makes a negative evaluation of Sam, saying that his interest in others is inappropriate. It implies a hidden premise that there is an appropriate amount of interest people should have in others, and that Sam has crossed that line.
We could re-describe Sam’s nosiness using purely descriptive language: Sam is very curious about other people’s affairs. Notice that while the phrase “very curious about other people’s affairs” does capture the descriptive sense of “nosy,” it doesn’t capture the evaluative sense of nosy, since it doesn’t carry with it the negative connotation that “nosy” does. If Sam is frequently seen peeking out of his curtains, one might say, “Sam keeps a close eye on the neighborhood,” which again mixes a description of Sam’s behavior, but now with evaluative language that presents the behavior in a positive way. It has a hidden premise that neighbors should look out for each other, or at least that such behavior makes you a good neighbor.
Evaluative language is rife in our society, perhaps especially so in political discourse. This isn’t surprising since by using evaluative language to describe certain persons, actions, or events, we can influence how people understand and interpret the world. If you can get a person to think of someone or some state of affairs in terms of a positively or negatively evaluative term, chances are you will be able to influence their evaluation of that person or state of affairs. That is one of the rhetorical uses of evaluative language.
However, evaluative language can also be slippery. It attempts to sneak premises by us, to influence us without being transparent. This leads into an important consideration for critical thinking, the use of persuasive language versus reason.
Non-rational persuasion is persuasion that appeals to our emotions rather than our reasoning. Such persuasion is ubiquitous in our current culture. Advertising, political discourse, and even social media posts will often lean heavily on non-rational persuasion and evaluative language. The field of rhetoric is a discipline that explores the full range of persuasive discourse.
Both persuasion and logic are largely about arguments, but there is a key difference between trying to convince somebody based on facts and evidence and trying to convince them by emotional ploys. This led to historic conflict between logicians, who wanted arguments to be entirely based on reason, and rhetoricians, who would use other appeals such as appeals to emotion or pride. Aristotle played a crucial role in trying to bridge this gap between rhetoric and logic. He wrote several important texts on the role of logic in strong persuasive arguments.
Rhetoric can and often does include logic; it is one of the three key elements of persuasion, along with emotions and personal standing. But rhetoric can largely rest on emotional ploys that are not based on reason. If a magazine ad for insurance repeatedly uses the word “trust” (especially combined with heart-tugging imagery), that association might sink in, even subconsciously. Beer commercials use a more visual language, showing people having fun without telling you anything about the beer itself (other than it “tastes great,” or some other entirely subjective comment). The use of emotionally loaded terms and images are hidden persuaders, as journalist and social critic Vance Packard described them—the subtle ways advertisers (and other industries) use non-rational elements to influence our behavior. These are extremely effective and often more successful than facts.
Of course, rhetoric can be used for better ends than selling beer. Throughout history you can find powerful and persuasive rhetoric that is based more on feeling than reason and is used to impel people to do the right thing: Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King come to mind. Some of this is because there are limitations to reason as a tool. You can convince a person something is true, but you may not be able to convince them to care that it is true and to take action without using other rhetorical strategies. In fact, appealing to emotions is crucial to even getting people to listen to you in the first place. In Aristotle’s time, there was debate over whether persuasion should be used at all, or if arguments should appeal to pure reason.
You may fall on the side of the rhetoricians, as most people do. But as critical thinkers, we need to be analytical about the arguments we are presented with, identifying the hidden persuaders and evaluative language that is attempting to guide us toward a conclusion. We identify the hidden premises and ask whether or not we accept them. If engaging in persuasion, we have to decide where we stand ideologically on the use of persuasion or use of pure reason to achieve our goals. Either way, we should make our arguments in good faith.
SOURCE: THIS TUTORIAL HAS BEEN ADAPTED FROM 1)“ETHICS FOR A-LEVEL” BY MARK DIMMOCK AND ANDREW FISHER. ACCESS FOR FREE AT OPEN.UMN.EDU/OPENTEXTBOOKS/TEXTBOOKS/475 2) “INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY: ETHICS” BY FRANK ARAGBONFOH ABUMERE; DOUGLAS GILES; YA-YUN (SHERRY) KAO; MICHAEL KLENK; JOSEPH KRANAK; KATHRYN MACKAY; JEFFREY MORGAN; PAUL REZKALLA. ACCESS FOR FREE AT PRESS.REBUS.COMMUNITY/INTRO-TO-PHIL-ETHICS/. LICENSE: CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL.
REFERENCES
Packard, V. (1957). The Hidden Persuaders. New York: The David McKay Company.
