Pathos vs. Ethos

Does an author have a moral obligation when using pathos and ethos? The answer is yes. In fact I visited this topic in my earlier blog post pertaining to pathos, unknowingly covering some of the same topics I will be covering here. If you read the previous post pertaining to pathos, kudos to you. And if you didn't, fasten your seat-belts; it's time for a ride on the truth-train.

Pathos is an appeal to the emotions of your audience. This can add a little spice and something extra nice to your argument. An argument based on pathos however, is not really an argument at all. It's fanaticism. We hear it constantly today. It is much easier to make an appeal to the emotions of your audience than the reasoning. This is partly due to the fact that you do not need to be particularly well informed in order to appeal to the emotions of your audience. All it takes is a knowledge of what makes the audience tick. And here's the fun part: no real information is really required. I watched both party conventions in the past several weeks, and I heard much of the same arguments coming from both sides of the party line. The phrase "The (insert opposing party title here) want to raise your taxes! McCain/Obama and Palin/Biden will keep your taxes low!" How can we sort out the truth from this statement? It offers no evidence to support its' claim whatsoever. It only plays on the emotions of the intended audience. The emotion being a dislike of taxes. It is safe to assume that most Americans do not enjoy paying taxes. At best, if you are extremely wealthy, you don't mind paying taxes. No one enjoys the paying of taxes, and the arguments play off of these emotions. This power is abused far too often today. Appeal to pathos has become an art-form, promising people what they want to hear, then never delivering. If people are ignorant, it is easy to prey upon their fears, which is what the majority of political figures find enticing. It is extremely rare to find a politician who will dissent from this pattern.