How to Persuade

A lot of people dismiss emotion in debate and by doing so they're throwing away their most effective tool. One of the goals of logic is to persuasion but it is simply not very effective because despite what some people say, humans are not primarily rational actors. We are emotive actors. Logic's real power is in evaluating the coherency of beliefs, not necessarily communicating them.

A lot more often than we'd like, we operate on an emotional conclusion and then attempt to use logic to rationalize it, and we can do this without being aware of it. This makes for an effective tool of manipulation or persuasion. It's an expedient backdoor into the human psyche.

Manipulation and persuasion aren't really that different aside from intent. If your goal is to sway someone, doing so for honest ends is simply persuasion while doing so for dishonest or malicious ends would be manipulation. Either way, you're working with something very powerful.

Playing on this, there are a number of effective tools of persuasion at your disposal:

• Emotional appeals, especially channeling powerful emotions like fear and anger: These cut right to our core, and if you can do that, it makes them want to believe you. At that point the other party will want to rationalize the position for you. Compassion can work too, but it depends on the opponent. Compassion is often more of a secondary tactic.
• Lead them to the idea to make them think it was theirs: This is a very effective way to appeal to someone's ego, and blindside them by incepting an idea. When done correctly you immediately make the other party deeply invested in the idea. At that point, you're done.
• Build a relationship with them first so they're more likely to listen. This can be easy to execute but does take some time to foster and maintain. It's also a secondary measure as you still have to persuade them, but it opens the door potentially to apply logic.
• Appeal to their self interest. This can sometimes work, but it's often difficult to get someone to believe you're appealing to their self interest, so it's a secondary tactic.
• Ask questions until they run out answers. This is effectively the socratic method, and is a slightly more effective way to apply logic in debate because it forces the other party to consider the questions. We're vulnerable to questions as statements tend to make people defensive, while questions tend to make them more introspective. This isn't as effective as an emotional appeal so it's a secondary tactic.

This list is not exhaustive.

Emotions are not meaningless. They have a place in argumentation because we are emotionally driven beings. It's not just about the effectiveness of using emotion in debate but also the ends are important. A significant part of living well is emotional satisfaction. Emotion is important, and it has a place in our discourse.