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Aristotle defined ethos as the credibility or trustworthiness that

the author establishes in his/her writing. Ethos is one of the three
types of persuasion along with  and 
 . Ethos, a Greek
term from which the word ethics derives, refers to ethical appeal in
rhetoric. The author's attitude and character toward his audience
forms the basis of his/her ethical appeal. Character is what gives
value to the ideas in the argument and thus provides support for the
arguments since the audience trusts the speaker.

Aristotle recognized two kinds of ethos ² invented and situated

(Crowley 84). Invented ethos develops in the discourse by the tone
and attitude the rhetor takes toward his audience and subject. If a
rhetor appears unbiased, even-handed, and fair as she/he begins an
argument dealing with a controversial subject, chances are that the
audience is more inclined to listen to the rhetor's argument and to
consider the rhetor to be honest, forthright, and reliable as a source
of information about that subject. However, the rhetor probably
has some pre-existing reputation, and that too can be used to
establish credibility with the audience. One tends to listen to the
"experts" when seeking information about a subject. If someone
such as President Clinton were to discuss the influence of big
money in contemporary American politics, the audience is likely to
know him, as an established character, and to recognize him as a
person who has enormous knowledge of this issue. Notice that
personal character and ethical character are two different things,
though often rhetoricians merge the two. A person can have
enormous credibility about a subject despite what you think of him
or her as a person. President Clinton is a good example here, as is
someone like Dennis Rodman. No matter what you think of
Rodman's character as a person, when Rodman speaks about
basketball, he has enormous credibility on that subject ²
something that advertisers will pay handsomely for to get his
product endorsements. (Admittedly, though, personal character
does influence an audience as well: Michael Jordan's personal and
ethical character make him even more attractive to advertisers of
breakfast cereals as well as athletic equipment.)
Rhetors can establish credibility by demonstrating three
characteristics: intelligence, virtue, and goodwill. The rhetor
establishes intelligence by demonstrating a certain amount of
knowledge of the subject. Rhetors attempt to combine common
sense with logical arguments in favor of their position to establish
this quality. Discussing the various, often conflicting, viewpoints
on a subject also exhibits a certain amount of intelligence. Since
the audience consists of as many opinions as people, it is important
for the rhetor to recognize those differing viewpoints. Such mental
flexibility only helps the author build ethical appeal, enhancing
persuasion.

Virtue and goodwill are the remaining qualities that help make an
author believable. Stating one's beliefs, values, and priorities in
connection with the subject assists in convincing the audience of
the argument. If these beliefs and values coincide with the majority
of the audience, the writer is well on his way to success. If those
beliefs do not match the audience's, the writer needs to establish
the grounds for changing the audience's beliefs. Goodwill helps the
writer establish those grounds. If the writer projects concerns for
the audience's viewpoint and respects the audience's intelligence, if
the writer projects sincerity and common sense, then the audience
is more likely to change its ideas too. Both qualities help the author
persuade the audience.

Consider the Nike ad at right (omitted). That manufacturer of

athletic apparel combines the images of a young Jackie Joyner-
Kersee with the mature athlete in an ad that announces Nike's
P.L.A.Y. (Participate in the Lives of America's Youth) campaign, a
campaign sponsored by Nike to promote the athletic endeavors of
young children. Using Joyner-Kersee's story and image helps add
ethical appeal to the campaign, since she gives testimony to the
importance of athletics in her life. (It's ironic though that Nike uses
third world child labor to manufacture some of its most expensive
ad profitable clothing.)

The attitude which the writer assumes toward his audience is the
central to establishing ethical appeal (Talmadge 157). The range of
attitudes extends from formality to informality. The speaker who
establishes a formal relationship with his audience maintains "an
aloof dignity," suitable for serious discourse. Informal speakers
regard their audience more as a group of individuals with whom
they can become familiar, like friends engaging in an easy
conversation. The writer anticipates which attitude will work best
for a particular audience at an early stage of the writing process
and then carefully maintains that attitude throughout the work
(Talmadge 159). This fact leads us to understand the importance of
audience in rhetorical analysis.

Ethos must attend to the various types of audiences if writers are

to address their audiences successfully. Just as one must adjust his
or her language to communicate effectively with a child, so too the
writer must be able to communicate in the specific type of
language used by the audience.

The writer's attitude toward audience and subject becomes evident

through tone. Tone is the "feeling" that readers perceive about the
writer's attitude. Tone develops through the writer's choice of
vocabulary and sentence structure. Rhetoricians often argue that
the tone of a successful speech will seem inseparable from the
content. "This effect is achieved by the speaker who keenly aware
of his own attitude toward his material, who deliberately sustains
in his mind in the proper tone, and who remains in full control of it
as he speaks" (Talmadge 151).

Martin Luther King Jr. ~



 




   


understood the power of ethos 

 


 
full well. He was able to convey  




  
in writing a respect for subject 








and audience, an intelligence 
 


 








and superior degree of

 

 

knowledge, that combined to 





create for him enormous 



credibility. "His voice and moral   
 




stature were eloquent weapons 

 
  
in the fight for civil rights and


 





integration in the 1960s"


 







(Horner 51). In his "Letter from





 



Birmingham Jail," excerpted at ~



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right, King calmly explains to  




  
 


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several priests, rabbis, and




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ministers in Birmingham who

 

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felt he was an "outside agitator," 




 

unwelcomed in their town, why

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he joined the protests in 




 




 

Birmingham. Notice the first


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paragraphs even, rational tone.  


 



Notice the citation of the )
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Apostle Paul in the second
paragraph. These help to build King's ethical appeal within an
audience that is very hostile toward his actions. "He leaves his
readers with the firm impression that he is a person of intelligence,
virtue and goodwill arguing a just cause and it is in his words,
sentences, and allusions that King establishes his character"
(Horner 54).

¬    

µ µ Crowley, Sharon. ?ncient Rhetorics for Contemporary

Students. New York: Macmillan, 1994.
µ µ Horner, Winifred Bryan. Rhetoric in the Classical
Tradition. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.
µ µ Talmadge, John E. and James B. Haman and Fred
Burnhauser. The Rhetoric Reader. Atlanta: Scott, Foresman
and Company 1962.

¬  
6
6ogos translates into "word" or "reason." In rhetoric, logos refers
to systems of reasoning. Logos, along with
 and 
 ,
make up a means of persuasion called the three appeals ² three
ways of persuading an audience (Covino and Jolliffe 15).

   

For the ancient Greeks, logos meant more than logic or reasoning:
it meant "thought plus action" (Covino and Jolliffe 17). It appeals
to patterns, conventions, and modes of reasoning that the audience
finds convincing and persuasive (Covino and Jolliffe 17).
Although logos, pathos, and ethos are different but complementary
methods of persuasion. Ethos moves an audience by proving the
credibility and trustworthiness of the rhetor, the speaker; pathos
seeks to change the attitudes and actions of the audience by
playing on the feelings of the audience; and logos persuades
through the powers of reasoning (Covino and Jolliffe 17). Rhetors
must consider all three means of persuasion if they with to
convince the audience. Before engaging in discourse, the rhetors
must ask themselves the following:

1. 1. What do we believe, think, or feel in common?

2. 2. Are the premises, or evidence, for the argument just
and appropriate? and
 a. a. Does the proper conclusion follow from the
assumptions of the premises and what would prevent the
audience from accepting the conclusion? (Covino and
Jolliffe 17).

Accurately analyzing a rhetorical situation beforehand requires

theorizing, judging, calculating, concluding, inferring, and
observing the audience. Logos is just one of the many
considerations a rhetor must make when forming an effective
argument.

Consider, for example this ~    

 






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excerpt (at right) from Martin 











Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from  



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Birmingham Jail." King is able /,
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theory underlying nonviolent

resistance, in the first paragraph #

 
    


of this quote, and of the 


 




specifics of injustice, in the  
 
second paragraph.



 





 

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King uses the specifics of racial
 


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injustice in one town, the police 


 
 
brutality, the unequal treatment .

 
 
in the courts, the bombings of  
  
 

black homes and churches, the 
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fruitless negotiations, to warrant



 
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his actions in Birmingham. 

 



















 







 
This is an excellent example of 



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a writer using rational appeal to
sway the audience.

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Logic, the main component of logos, is the study of the principles

and methods of argumentation. These arguments consist of a set of
statements that serve as premises, or statements of evidence, that
conclusions can be drawn from. The key to evaluating arguments
is distinguishing the valid from the invalid ones. The following is
an example of a valid argument:
 All men are mortal.

Socrates is a man.

Socrates is mortal.

And here we have an invalid argument:

All cats are mortal.

Socrates is mortal.

Socrates is a cat.

Sometimes the correctness of an argument depends on its form, not

on the veracity of the premises.

With    logic, the conclusion is a necessary consequence

of the premises with rules pertaining to valid arguments.

1. 1. If A implies B and B implies C, then A implies C.

2. 2. If A implies B and A is true, then B is true.
a. a. If A implies B and B is false, then A is false.

The most common type of deductive logic is a syllogism,

exemplified in the examples above.

With   logic, the conclusion is only more or less

probable on the basis of the premises. Because of this, the
audience and rhetor must evaluate the grounds for belief or the
validity of the premises. The premises of inductive arguments are
based on generalizations, analogies, or causal connections.
Generalization are statements that make an assertion about all
members of a class of objects (such as "Cats are mortal"), and an
analogy is a comparison between two or more things which seem
similar in some respects. Causal connections examine or establish
the cause and effect relationship between elements of the
discourse. For example, if a person sees no change at all after turn
the key in a car's ignition ² no sound, no lights, no noise ² one
might suspect a dead battery, making a causal connection.

ñ   c
 

  
Aristotle analyzed the process whereby a statement can be
logically inferred to be true from the fact that its premises are true,
a process he called a syllogism. A syllogism is the most common
type of deductive logic. Aristotle called it the "main instrument for
reaching scientific conclusions." The "All men are mortal..."
argument from earlier is an example of a syllogism.

Syllogisms have a consistent structure. They must have three

terms (signified below by the colors red, green, and blue), and one
of the three terms must occur in both premises. Finally, the term
occurring in both premises must be modified by "all" or "none" at
least once. For example,

 books printed by Gutenberg are valuable.

These books were printed by Gutenberg.
Therefore, these books are valuable.

Notice too that if a term is modified by "all" or "none" in the

conclusion, it must also be modified by "all" or "none" in the
premise. For example,

 languages used by humans are expressive.

Human expression is important.
Therefore,  languages are important.

An enthymeme is "the rhetorical equivalent of the syllogism"

(Corbett 7a). Aristotle himself defined an enthymeme as a
"rhetorical syllogism," saying that "enthymeme is to rhetoric as
syllogism is to logic" (Covino and Jolliffe 20). An enthymeme
attempts to use the audience's common-sense beliefs to persuade
them (Crowley 156). For example,

John will surely fail his calculus exam, because he hasn't studied.

That example though illustrates some of the interesting differences

between the syllogism and the enthymeme. Whereas the syllogism
produces a valid conclusion from the truth of its premises, the
enthymeme gives us only tentative conclusions based on probable
premises. In the example above, for instance, it is probably true
that John will fail, but it is not certain. However the strength of the
enthymeme is that it relies on premises that are highly probable.
For example,

Where there is smoke, there is fire.

 Enthymemes are powerful because they express beliefs that are
widely shared within the audience. Therefore, whether or not the
reasoning is sound or the premises valid, the audience is very
likely to accept the conclusion of the enthymeme simply because it
relies so heavily on commonly held beliefs (Crowley 159).

Unlike the syllogism, therefore, the enthymeme can not be proven

true. That is the major difference between the enthymeme and the
syllogism. Neither the premises nor the conclusions of the
enthymeme are provable (Covino and Jolliffe 20).

The tools of logos are not totally related to logic and reasoning.
Rational appeal, for many rhetoricians, includes what are called
extrinsic proofs ² the use of data (such as statistics) and testimony
(such as eye-witness accounts or statements from authorities).
Such proofs, though, take us to the edge of logos and force us to
think about ethos and pathos too. After all, statistics can be
deceiving (as Benjamin Disraeli once said, "There are three kinds
of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.") And even eye-witness
testimony can be less than accurate, as police and judicial officers
readily know. The audience must accept the testimony as valid
(ethos), and they must be moved by the data (pathos). Thus, logos,
pathos and ethos work in concert to help the rhetor persuade the
audience.

¬    

µ µ Corbett, Edward P. J. Classical Rhetoric for Modern

Students, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press,
1971.
µ µ Covino, William A., and David A. Jolliffe. Rhetoric:
Concepts, Definitions, Boundaries. Boston: Allyn and
Bacon, 1995.
µ µ Crowley, Sharon. ?ncient Rhetorics for Contemporary
Students. New York: Macmillan, 1994.

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Pathos, also called the pathetic or emotional appeals, persuades audiences by using emotions
(Lanham 74). In his Rhetoric, Aristotle states that there are two different origins of the emotional
 appeals. First, the rhetor may use enargeia. The word enargeia means literally "in work";
energizing or actualizing. It refers to the rhetor's goal of arousing the passions within the
audience to move them to act (Corbett a19). For example, consider the Save the Children ad on
the right. (You may click on the ad to see it enlarged.) The ad uses a photo of a small child, so
malnourished that his bones are clearly visible under his skin. He sits huddled in the open air,
weak, in a fetal position. A vulture sits, waiting, in the background. The images and text in this
ad are designed to have the maximum emotional effect for one thing: to motivate the reader to
act ² to make an act of charity.

Secondly, the rhetor may use honorific or pejorative language to generate emotional appeal
(Crowley 126-7). Honorific and pejorative language together I call suasive language, language
designed to sway the audience in favor of or against a subject. Honorific language heaps praise
on its subject and treats the subject with respect. Pejorative language disparages the subject,
ridiculing and downplaying the significance of the subject. To see and hear an example of
honorific language at work, consider these ads from the MDA telethon, hosted each year by Jerry
Lewis. The first photo shows Lewis with the "Goodwill Ambassador," an honorific title,
elevating the subject from the language of the past, when Benjamin Cumbo would have been
called the "poster child." You can listen to Lewis's appeal for a donation to the Muscular
Dystrophy Association by clicking on the image of the speaker. As you listen, pay attention to
Lewis's use of honorific language, such as "life saving research" and "Thank you for caring."

Enargeia and suasive language work together with
 and  to create a powerful, moving
argument that some ancient rhetoricians described as word magic (Nash 209). But it wasn't
magic that helped MDA raise a record 50.5 million dollars in 1997. It was good, solid, carefully
prepared rhetoric.

Effective use of emotional appeal is also credited with saving the political career of then Senator
Richard Nixon. In 1952, it was discovered that he had accepted several "gifts" from campaign
contributors, gifts that he later had to return.

The scandal came at a bad time, since Nixon was chosen to be Eisenhower's Vice-Presidential
running mate. Under pressure, Nixon made a public accounting of all his assets and an apology
for accepting the gifts. Although the speech has several effective emotional appeals, this speech
has become known as the "Checkers Speech" since he uses his child's dog, Checkers, as an
opportunity to make the most memorable emotional appeal to his audience. I have excerpted the
relevant paragraphs at right. You can listen to these paragraphs of Richard Nixon's "Checkers
Speech" of 2a September 1952 by clicking on the image of the speaker. But be patient: it's a
large file ² 474K.
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The most powerful example of emotional appeal I can think of occurs in Martin Luther King,
Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail." In April of 196a, a young, relatively unknown minister left
his home and church in Atlanta, Georgia to help his friends and colleagues protest nonviolently
against segregation and discrimination in Birmingham, Alabama. That minister, Martin Luther
King, Jr., was arrested and held in jail. While in jail, several priests, rabbis, and ministers
published a letter in the Birmingham newspaper, calling this young minister's actions unwise and
poorly timed. Their letter suggested that King and other civil rights leaders should just wait, that
the life was bound to get better for American blacks, if they just waited.

In response to that editorial, King wrote one of the greatest pieces of literature in English, his
"Letter from Birmingham Jail." In the following excerpt from the letter, notice King's use of
suasive language, especially how he turns pejorative language to his purpose. Notice too his use
of repetition in sentence structure, a rhetorical device we will study later, called parallelism.

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King's sparing use of pathos in this letter is the best example I can give you to illustrate the
power of emotional appeal.

¬    

µ µ Corbett, Edward P. J. Classical Rhetoric for Modern Students, 2nd ed. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1971.
µ µ Crowley, Sharon. ?ncient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. New York:
Macmillan, 1994.
µ µ Lanham, Richard A. ? Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1967.
µ µ Nash, Walter. Rhetoric. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Inc., 1989.

© 1995, 2001 Daniel Kies. All rights reserved.

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