Ch 15: Proposal Arguments

The first essay (the one about the hosts not being paid enough) is the most effective of them, in my opinion. It's clearly and simply laid out. There's no need to read through irrelevant stuff that just sounds nice and means nothing. The reason for it being written like that is because it was sent to a CEO as a practical proposal. CEOs don't hae time to read through lots of stuff; they want a simple, direct approach. Also, the author uses statistics and math to back her reasons up. Again, it provides good support because math and statistics appear to be more reliable than observation. People consider them a mark of a more accurate piece of writing, even if they actually aren't. It lends credence to the argument. The author also uses pathos in her argument, while still keeping it as concise as possible. She talks about her own personal experiences, giving herself credibility and describes why exactly a host deserves the 1% tip using pathos as well.

Argument Evaluation

The middle argument- the one about the pornography law in Minnesota was the best. It set out by setting the scene, then describing the effects and then the Ordinance. It had language that flowed well and was easy to understand. The end thesis- that the law was morally sound but too broad to be put into use- is presented very efficiently. When the author first introduces us to her point of view, it comes as a bit of a shock, because she had been somewhat sympathetic to the opposite point of view up until then, in a sort of implied way. However, the author’s thesis is well-explained and the argument as a whole is pretty strong. The examples she cites are strong as well. They have to be, because the way she presents the argument, it’s almost as if she’s re-explaining herself. She states and explains the horrors of the case, then she argues against a law made to protect the victims. However, she’s either smart enough (on purpose or not) to say that she supports the idea behind the law, just not the way it is presented. In other words, she agrees with the warrant that such a law is needed. However, she disagrees that the exact law proposed is the one necessary.

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?

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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.

Ad and Cartoon

The ad is against genetic altering of foods. The cartoon is for it. The ad uses scare tactics like printing disturbing answers on the picture of the can. It states clearly what it thinks is wrong with biotech foods and orders us to take action. It’s an ad which means that its purpose is to interest and enlist people in it. It this time is taking action for labeling of genetically modified foods. The cartoon pokes fun i.e. mocks people. It shows a large self-righteous hippie withholding a fat ear of corn from a starving poor man. The hippie, who represents those opponents of biotech foods, is using his stand on the issue to prevent people from eating foods that might potentially be bad for you. But the catoonist is showing that the good of such foods can outweigh the bad; in this instance the starving man would much rather have biotech food than starve to death. The cartoon mocks the fallacies of the opposing side; the ad highlights the dangers of the issue and asks for action.

Implicit vs Explicit Arguments

Note: I think I need to stop writing these at one-thirty in the morning. They get too long, and I'm too lazy to change them.
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Implicit arguments are arguments that are not stated directly and usually do not use the traditional media of argument, i.e. a written essay or spoken speech. They're things like pictures, poems, stories, etc., that the point of the argument can be inferred from, though the subject matter is set up in such a way that a specific conclusion is drawn. For example, the picture and poem on pages 5-6 are implicit arguments.

The picture shows how war is all friendship-forging and a deep, special bonding experience in the face of drastic but not insurmountable hardship. This is shown by the emotion of the two main men in the picture. They appear to be undergoing some deep emotional shared relief/happiness. They're also hugging, which is perceived as unusual for two men. That also indicates a close bond between them. However, they're of different generations (you can tell by their age and uniforms) so what bonded them is some greater significant thing, not just being together, but also being part of a generations-wide experience. And the younger man has lost his hand. That's drastic, painful and probably traumatic. But he's there and appears to be healthy and happy, so it doesn't appear that his hardships (and following that, the hardships of war) are forever or completely awful. All that is shown and inferred just from that one picture.

The poem is quite different. Because it's written, to me at least, the implicit argument is easier to see up front, without the book's guidance. It's implicit because the author never came right out to say 'War is bad, because it makes people die.' But by telling of the horrors of the men living through it, (the blood, the shells, the mustard-gas) he makes us feel that war /isn't/ such a glorious, heroic experience after all. The closest he comes to outright saying his point is the last four lines, where he says:

'My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori'

Stating that if people really knew what went on in the battlefield, they wouldn't tell their children that it was an honour to die for their country. And another implicit argument: the fact that children /are/ 'ardent for some desperate glory' means that some cultural influence has wrongly told them that war is glorious.

Explicit arguments are when there is, to quote the book: 'an ordered structure of thesis, reasons, and evidence.' (just a note- that last comma after reasons is bad grammar, I think). That means that explicit arguments are when people say what it is they're arguing about, why and from what viewpoint, the reasons that have caused them to think that way or will cause us to think that way and the evidence backing up those reasons. All of which should be presented clearly and precisely so it’s easy to understand what the argument is about. It's practically impossible to do that in a picture, but easier in a movie or a speech or a written thing. That's why most explicit arguments are speeches and essays.