Persuasive Definitions and Public Policy Arguments

Abstract

This paper shows how persuasive definitions are extremely powerful rhetorical tools often used to influence public policy arguments. In five case studies analyzed and evaluated, the use of the persuasive definition as an argumentative technique had consequences that changed social policies in a way that led to significant gains in the interests of some advocacy groups and losses in the interests of other advocacy groups. Several hypotheses are put forward concerning the conditions under which the use of a persuasive definition ought to bejudged appropriate or not in a given case. A new dialectical approach to the study of definitions is proposed.

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