Emotion is a powerful force in all human affairs, including arguments. When you like certain people, you are more inclined to accept what they say and to do what they want. When you are angry with them, you are inclined to the contrary. Although the law seeks decisions based on reason, it is undeniable that in many instances, emotion will influence the outcome.
Cicero observed, “Mankind makes far more determinations through hatred, or love, or desire, or anger, or grief, or joy, or hope, or fear, or error, or some other affection of mind, than from regard to truth, or any settled maxim, or principle of right, or judicial form, or adherence to the laws.”
Psychologists teach that people usually make decisions by emotion and then validate them by logic. Aristotle recognized the appeal to “pathos” as one of the three principal modes of persuasion (ethos and logos being the others). Rhetoricians consistently agree that emotion plays an essential role in persuasion.
This emphasis on emotion may strike you as improper or even reprehensible. George Campbell, the eighteenth-century Scottish rhetorician, dismissed such concerns out of hand. “So far, therefore, is it from being an unfair method of persuasion to move the passions, that there is no persuasion without moving them,” he wrote in Philosophy of Rhetoric (1841).
Even judges who must make logical decisions, are no automatons who merely plug facts into a legal framework. It would be a “grave error” to assume they are not “subconsciously influenced by sympathy,” writes Robert E. Keeton in Trial Tactics and Methods.
This presumed dichotomy between reason and emotions is in some respects misleading. Emotion, in fact, provides motive and meaning for many of the rational decisions people make. Indeed, the more intensely people care about truth and justice, the more these values will guide them to good rational decisions.
Regardless of your view of its propriety, an emotional appeal can be a powerful weapon in your arsenal. To achieve success with any consistency, your argument must be addressed to the heart as well as to the mind.
How do you appeal to the heart? What can you say that will strike the right emotional chord? Arouse emotion by contemplating the object that stirs the emotion, not by contemplating the emoting itself. If you seek to arouse the anger of a listener, you must describe a person or situation of a sort that will make your listener angry. Similarly, if you seek to arouse sympathy, you must describe circumstances that will stimulate that feeling.
Framing your argument in the form of a compelling story is often the most effective method to engender an emotional response from your listener. A compelling story is usually achieved through specific, sensory details that paint a vivid picture and present developing characters that people will care about. It should also contain a theme or plot, emphasizing your point of view in an appropriately dramatic or sympathetic fashion.
By weaving your argument into a narrative, you help you listener identify with the protagonist of your story (usually your client) and provide an overarching interpretation of the case.
You can tell a story by using a figurative analogy. When you use a figurative analogy, relate the facts of your case to the elements of the analogy.. If your analogy is “the boy who cried wolf,” for example, be sure to relate the child in the story to your opponent after you tell the tale to the jury. Emphasize that your opponent’s bringing a meritless case jeopardizes genuine cases because, due to too many false claims, people will not take a “real” case seriously.
Or, read a poem such as “The Bridge Builder,” in which an elderly man crosses a stream and stops to repair an old bridge. A voice suddenly asks him why he is stopping to repair the bridge when he will never pass that way again. The man responds that he is making the repair for the next person who comes that way. “So, Mr. Smith is a bridge builder also. He has brought this case not only for himself but also to help all those who will deal with the defendants in the future.”
Horace, one of the great storytellers of all time, offered this precept on his art: “If you want me to feel an emotion, you must first feel the emotion yourself.” If you are cold, aloof, or detached, it will be virtually impossible to stimulate the desired emotional reaction in your listener. The story that you describe should be one that stimulates in yourself the emotional response you want from your listener.
Unless you are an extremely talented actor, you will not be able to command yourself to feel a particular emotion. It must arise from within, based upon the scene or situation that your words portray. This emotion usually should not be overtly displayed, because this will be counterproductive in most legal contexts. Feel, but display with restraint. What matters is the emotion evoked in your listener.