However, the use of emotional argumentation is also rejected by Aristotle, and right off the bat (just as Fr. Ripperger raises it first). In the very first few lines of Rhetoric I, Aristotle knocks out this entire mode of argumentation as illegitimate.
Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic. Both alike are concerned with such things as come, more or less, within the general ken of all men and belong to no definite science. Accordingly all men make use, more or less, of both; for to a certain extent all men attempt to discuss statements and to maintain them, to defend themselves and to attack others. Ordinary people do this either at random or through practice and from acquired habit. Both ways being possible, the subject can plainly be handled systematically, for it is possible to inquire the reason why some speakers succeed through practice and others spontaneously; and every one will at once agree that such an inquiry is the function of an art.Now, the framers of the current treatises on rhetoric have constructed but a small portion of that art. The modes of persuasion are the only true constituents of the art: everything else is merely accessory. These writers, however, say nothing about enthymemes, which are the substance of rhetorical persuasion, but deal mainly with non-essentials. The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a personal appeal to the man who is judging the case. Consequently if the rules for trials which are now laid down some states-especially in well-governed states-were applied everywhere, such people would have nothing to say. All men, no doubt, think that the laws should prescribe such rules, but some, as in the court of Areopagus, give practical effect to their thoughts and forbid talk about non-essentials. This is sound law and custom. It is not right to pervert the judge by moving him to anger or envy or pity-one might as well warp a carpenter's rule* before using it. Again, a litigant has clearly nothing to do but to show that the alleged fact is so or is not so, that it has or has not happened. As to whether a thing is important or unimportant, just or unjust, the judge must surely refuse to take his instructions from the litigants: he must decide for himself all such points as the law-giver has not already defined for him.
Emphasis added.
Aristotle does not reject all sorts of emotion, however: he is specific that he is rejecting a set of prejudicial emotions -- he names especially anger, envy, pity. These emotions should never be raised in political rhetoric because they warp the judgment such that it is difficult to measure correctly even if you are devoted to it. This is the point that Fr. Ripperger makes explicitly.
Of special interest to me is that Aristotle does what I take to be characteristic of his ethics in admitting another class of emotions as a proper standard -- specifically, the feelings of respected members of the community about what is most worthy of honor. As we saw in the EN, this is the ultimate standard of right for Aristotle: not that which receives honor, but that which in the minds of the best is the thing that most deserves honor.
In fact, it is in this book of the Rhetoric that Aristotle goes so far as to paint that relative honor that is deserved by different things as a universal standard of value, something that will allow a community to weight incommensurate goods against each other. Rhetoric I.7 contains a long meditation on this in which Aristotle invokes the sense of what his honorable, what is base, what is noble, and what is fine. These are things sensed by a faculty like sight or smell, what we used to call 'a sense of honor.' It is emotional at least as much as it is rational, and it is -- you will remember from the EN -- based first upon inherited stories heard as part of a good upbringing, and later and more maturely on experienced judgment informed by learning to train one's self to the habit of virtuous action.
I will quote only a small part of it; the whole meditation is available at the link.
Again, that which would be judged, or which has been judged, a good thing, or a better thing than something else, by all or most people of understanding, or by the majority of men, or by the ablest, must be so; either without qualification, or in so far as they use their understanding to form their judgement. This is indeed a general principle, applicable to all other judgements also; not only the goodness of things, but their essence, magnitude, and general nature are in fact just what knowledge and understanding will declare them to be. Here the principle is applied to judgements of goodness, since one definition of 'good' was 'what beings that acquire understanding will choose in any given case': from which it clearly follows that that thing is hetter [sic] which understanding declares to be so. That, again, is a better thing which attaches to better men, either absolutely, or in virtue of their being better; as courage is better than strength. And that is a greater good which would be chosen by a better man, either absolutely, or in virtue of his being better: for instance, to suffer wrong rather than to do wrong, for that would be the choice of the juster man.
So it is not that emotion per se should be omitted from rhetoric, or from political decision making. In some sense it is necessary to making decisions, especially because a sense of what is worthy of honor is what allows us to compare unlike things -- should we buy butter or guns? Is it better to be wealthy or free? To judge that is to ask if it is nobler to be wealthy or free: which state is more worthy of honor?
* It's interesting to contrast this analogy to a warped carpenter's rule to the use he makes of the Lesbian rule in Nicomachean Ethics V.10. There, a flexible (leaden) rule is both bendable/moldable but still also a reliable standard. Here, a rule warped by these emotions is not reliable any longer. Aristotle is talking about a similar case there, one in which a judgment (such as by a magistrate) has to be made because the law has to be applied to the particular facts of a particular case. There is something about these particular emotions that makes the rule warped and useless, rather than flexible and moldable to the facts of the case.
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