Reason, Passion, and Persuasion

             Something I've been thinking about recently. Agree or disagree?: people are naturally passionate about the views they bother to argue for. So, an *obvious* display of passion in defending a particular view should not count in favor of *rationally* persuading someone else to accept it. That is, (1) it doesn't give you "points," so to speak, for passionately arguing for a view versus not passionately arguing for it. Nor, (2), is it permissible (that is, within the person's epistemic rights, so to speak) for someone to accept your view on the basis of your arguing for it passionately.

             It might be unwarranted, of course, to say that passion (in the sense of one's emotions) should not count at all in favor of accepting one view over another. But that is not what I'm saying. Rather, I just want to argue that it is clearly wrong to say that one should accept one view over another just in virtue of the fact that one person displays a greater degree of passion in arguing for their view than someone else who's arguing the opposite or opposed view.