Prejudicial Language
Prejudicial language uses favorable or unfavorable labels to make a position seem morally required without supporting the claim. Examine the reasoning behind the label.
THE IDEA
Prejudicial Language
(also known as: variant imagization)
Description: Loaded or emotive terms used to attach value or moral goodness to believing the proposition.
Logical Form: The logical form and the original statements for the examples are not included here. The following passages comment on those missing statements.
Example #1: The phrase “all good Catholics” is the loaded or prejudicial language being used. The implication is that Catholics who don’t resist impure thoughts are “bad Catholics”, which is not fair – they may just not be as strong willed, or perhaps they don’t buy into the mind-control portion of the religion.
Example #2: The assertion is that students who don’t do their homework every night don’t want to succeed in life, which is bad reasoning. Perhaps the student is sick one night, tired, doesn’t understand the work, or was busy making out with his father’s secretary in the office supply closet, next to the memo pads. The point is, dad, you cannot assume that just because I skipped homework a few nights that it means I didn’t want to succeed in life!
Exception: Motivational or emotive wording is not automatically fallacious. The error is using the label to establish a conclusion that still needs support.
When to use it
Identifying when a news article uses terms like 'radical' or 'common-sense' to sway opinion without factual support.
Recognizing in a courtroom when a lawyer calls a witness 'unpatriotic' to undermine credibility based on emotion rather than evidence.
In marketing, questioning if phrases like 'all-natural' or 'pure' are used to imply moral superiority of a product.
In education, avoiding saying 'good students always do their homework' which can unfairly label those with different circumstances as lazy.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Example #1
The phrase “all good Catholics” is the loaded or prejudicial language being used. The implication is that Catholics who don’t resist impure thoughts are “bad Catholics”, which is not fair – they may just not be as strong willed, or perhaps they don’t buy into the mind-control portion of the religion.
Example #2
The assertion is that students who don’t do their homework every night don’t want to succeed in life, which is bad reasoning. Perhaps the student is sick one night, tired, doesn’t understand the work, or was busy making out with his father’s secretary in the office supply closet, next to the memo pads. The point is, dad, you cannot assume that just because I skipped homework a few nights that it means I didn’t want to succeed in life!
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Think of a time when you used emotive language to convince someone of a point. What words did you use, and did they rely on moral judgment rather than evidence?
In a political debate, how can you detect when a speaker is using prejudicial language to attach a value to a position instead of providing reasoning?
How might you rephrase a statement that uses prejudicial language to make it more neutral and logically sound?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Logically Fallacious - The Ultimate Collection of Over 300 Logical Fallacies