Visual Argument

A visual argument can be more persuasive if done right. Some people take pictures much more seriously than words. Take the 'cruelty to animals' paragraphs we looked at yesterday. Some people might just say- 'Oh, well, that's bad, but I really like chicken and don't care'. If you showed them pictures which showed them a chicken suffering, they might feel more sympathetic towards both the cause and the chicken. Graphic pictures have a tendency to shock people into believing something.

Of course, there are a lot of variables to take into account when creating a visual argument. The book goes into great and tortuous detail about fonts and positioning and things like that. Visual arguments use little process of thought (they don't state explicitly their reasons and grounds in great detail) but rather imply what they mean. It's a little more imprecise than written argument because people might extract different things from the same argument. An example is the tomato-killing people I talked about last time. A pro-tomato enthusiast might put up a picture with a tomato bleeding juice with a knife in it. Some people would go- "OMG, the poor tomato!". Some people would get hungry and eat a tomato. Some people would think it's just weird.

But generally speaking, people who make visual arguments are able to make arguments that make sense to people.

Ethics of Ethos and Pathos

The Question: What ethical responsibilities does an author have in using ‘ethos’ and ‘pathos’? Does our media, or our government, often live up to those ethical expectations?

~~~

When you use ethos and pathos for an argument, in order for it to be ethical, your argument must be ethical. To you, at least. Now this is sort of obvious, but it's what the question asked. If you thought that eating tomatos was unethical, to write an argument advocating the consumption of tomatos would be unethical. The use of appealing to such powerful rhetorical devices such as ethos and pathos would not only make your argument less ethical (from the tomato-lover's point of view) but much more powerful as well.

So basically, the ethical responsibilities are to keep the argument within the bounds of moral reason.

Another thing that I believe is an ethical responsibility, though some people will disagree with me, is that in an absolutely ethical argument designed to convince, one should appeal to logos and ethos the most and leave pathos out of it as much as possible. Logic, to be truly logical, is unbiased. It is based on conclusions drawn from facts. There may be one or more conclusions drawn from said facts, but if they are presented merely as logical options, then they are not swaying you towards one or another because of feelings. If you appeal to pathos, you're then clouding the judgment with emotion, distracting and influencing you away from considering all options equally. While in an argument designed solely to convinced, it is practical to do that, however in an argument that takes into account ethics as well, it is not quite so ethical.

I hope that makes sense.

And the major, most obvious question concerning ethos is that you should not claim credibility when you don't have any. If people discover your lies and lack of credibility, they will be angry.

As for the second question- of course the media and government don't live up to those expectations. The expectations are ideals. No one or thing is perfect. The media is usually at least a little biased towards something, and the government is the most biased thing on the planet. Look at all the political issues that to be a successful politician you have to pick sides on.

Pseudo-Argument

A pseudo-argument that I encountered in the real world was an argument about whether Macs were better than PCs. It was a pseudo-argument because it's impossible that one is better than the other. It simply depends on the preference of the person using them. People who say Macs are better are simply better suited for the features of that particular model of computer. I was on the side of PCs. Or at least on the opposite side of iBooks. There's no right or wrong answer as to which computer was better than the other. But I still argued about it. Neither of us won because neither of us could produce evidence that was capable of swaying the other to their side. In that sense, it was an unreasonable argument as well.

Appeal to Pathos

Pathos is one of the corners of the rhetorical triangle. It is the appeal to emotion. It makes the reader feel sympathetic to the writer's claims. The writer can use it by making an emotional response in the reader. For example, Michael Levin in his Torture Essay appeals to pathos by making us feel guilty about babies dying. Since the human being is influenced by emotions far more than logic in most cases, when you appeal to pathos you make a powerful argument. Sending people on guilt-trips is a good way to do this. If people believe that something is unethical, then they will disagree with it whether or not it is logical. The torture essay is an example of this- torture wasn't logical, but Levin made an excellent appeal to pathos and so loads of people agreed with him. But that isn't the only kind of appeal you can make. You can make someone feel that this argument is good because it makes you feel happy to read it. People like to feel happy. So they'll agree with you. My point is, if you can sway the person's emotions so that they believe your argument is good, then even if you make no or little sense, then people are going to start agreeing with you. Most people, anyway. At first until they look at the other sides of the triangle. Pathos is good for a first impression but fades when you read deeper.

AP Exam Fears

What scares me the most about the AP Exam is the essays. I'm not very good about writing essays within a time limit. WHen I write, I at first just write down what I think, then I edit it so it makes sense to other people. When I'm on a time constraint, there's just not time to do that. Also, I hate writing essays, especially useless ones whose only purpose is to torture us into passing an exam. Also, the essays have to be handwritten. First of all, my handwriting is terrible, especially when I start writing really fast in order to keep ip with my thoughts. I also think faster than I write so it's hard for me to keep track of my thoughts. I also have problems structuring my essays anyway, so this is worrisome.

~Edit: after talking about it in class, my fears about the essay have, um, increased. The multiple choice, fortunately, won't be too bad. Unless the course thingy is lying and deceiving us and it's really much harder but the want to fail us all ahahahahah...

sorry :)