Judgmental language is a subset of
red herring
A red herring is a figurative expression referring to a logical fallacy in which a clue or piece of information is or is intended to be misleading, or distracting from the actual question.
Red herring may also refer to: Animals
* Red herring (fi ...
fallacies
A fallacy is the use of Validity (logic), invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, or "wrong moves," in the construction of an argument which may appear stronger than it really is if the fallacy is not spotted. The term in the Western intellectual ...
. It employs insulting, compromising or
pejorative language to influence the recipient's
judgment.
Examples
:''The surgeon general says that smoking is harmful to your health. Nowhere in the Bible is it said that you shouldn't smoke. So who are you gonna listen to, some quack or the Lord God Almighty?''
This argument combines judgmental language with ''
non sequitur'' and
appeal to authority
An argument from authority (''argumentum ab auctoritate''), also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument. Some co ...
.
:''
Conscription is the only working way to have a reliable and efficient army. We are far safer when we are defended by our very own sons than by some mercenaries, who will just fight for pay.''
Here the judgmental words are "our very own sons" and "mercenaries", which imply not only professional soldiers but rather soldiers of fortune. This argument is also a
false dilemma: nothing implies that coercion and fear of punishment produces better soldiers than voluntarily, and that a professional army could not be assembled from the nation's own citizens.
It is related to pejorative language, which is a form of
fallacy
A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, or "wrong moves," in the construction of an argument which may appear stronger than it really is if the fallacy is not spotted. The term in the Western intellectual tradition was int ...
.
See also
*
Logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premis ...
*
Weasel words
References
{{reflist, 2
Informal fallacies