• NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.orgM
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    2 months ago

    What do to mean when you say “emotional argument”? I understand it as something like “an argument which rests on an appeal to an emotional experience” or similar.

    For example a mathematical proof is not an emotional argument, as a being without any emotions would be able to verify it as true.

    However “people don’t want to die, so you shouldn’t kill them” is an emotional argument as it fundamentally rests on the counterfactual “a person assumed to have qualia observing a universe in which they had been killed might experience negative valence”. Which only makes sense if the notion of another being you assume to have qualia being sad in a way which is impossible in reality upsets you.