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Glite Dictionary
🗣️ Emotional persuasion 🤔 Emotion-based ethics
emotivism

emotivism

9.9
A way of speaking that uses strong emotional words to influence people's feelings instead of facts
  • noun
  • /ɪˈmoʊtɪˌvɪzəm/
translation icon : emotivismo
  • Our culture, whether we like it or not, does in fact steer us towards emotivism, in part by discouraging us from actually giving good reasons.

Examples

  • During the debate, one candidate used emotivism to connect personally with the audience, aiming to influence their opinions.

  • Central to this problematic situation, to MacIntyre, was the twentieth-century decline of moral disagreement into what he labeled emotivism.

    Academic text (2003)

  • Now, emotivism is not just a meta ethics sort of above the fray of ethics.

  • Politicians often resort to emotivism when trying to persuade voters by appealing to their feelings rather than presenting factual evidence.

  • A common example of emotivism can be found in advertisements that focus on evoking emotions rather than discussing product features.

Synonyms

loaded language
vsemotivism
  • Literature
1 7.9

Words that make people feel strong emotions to change what they think

is a broader tactic using emotional appeals to sway feelings or choices instead of logic
in populum
vsemotivism
  • Formal
9.9

An argument that appeals to what many people think or feel rather than to facts

targets emotional wording and appeals, not necessarily popularity or majority support

Antonyms

rationalism
  • Formal
5 7.7

The belief that reason and logic give true knowledge more than feeling or experience

How Emotional

demagoguery
  • Literature
13 9.5
in populum
  • Formal
9.9
emotivism
9.9
argument
∞ 2.5

Surface Forms

emotivism singular
emotivisms plural

Morphology

emotivism = emotive (transparent) = emotion + ive + ism

Formed from 'emotive' + '-ism'; the meaning 'a practice of using emotional appeals' follows directly from the base adjective and the productive '-ism' nominalization.

Etymology

Emotivism comes from emotion ('feeling') and the ending -ism ('a practice' or 'way of thinking'), and it shares the same 'move' idea you see in motion and motor. So, emotivism is the practice of trying to 'move' people by using their feelings instead of clear arguments.