Ethos Pathos, and Logos are three of the major rhetorical appeals. Each appeal serves to act as an agent of persuasion utilizing a different approach. Through Ethos, the speaker seeks to persuade the reader by establishing a sense of credibility with their words, granting substantiality to their claims. Through Logos, the speaker guides the reader, through reasoning, to logical conclusions that support the point they are trying to make. Logos is where factual information is used to support opinions and a line of reasoning. When Pathos is employed, the speaker appeals to the emotions of the artist, persuading them by evoking feelings such as sympathy or fear. All three are used interconnectedly by great authors and speakers. For example, if the leader of a nation is convincing their people to go to war, their ethos as a leader is pre-established, and they may pose a problem through an appeal to fear and a sense of brotherhood, or “love for your fellow man” (pathos). The audience will trust the leader that the issue is pressing because of their ethos as a leader (which they may remind the audience of), who will then employ logos to lead their country to the conclusion that the only way to neutralize the threat of another country (which has been established as a threat through an appeal to pathos) is to go to war.
Knowing your audience will always affect the agents of persuasion employed, as well as how they are used. For example, a teacher convincing their preschool class to be quiet for the lesson may offer some kind of reward, such as an extra few minutes of recess time. Their ethos as a teacher gives the students a sense of assurance that the extra recess time can and will be delivered. Logos, however, is the most dominant appeal in this situation, as the teacher offers a direct and concise line of reasoning to the students. The teacher reasons that if the students act accordingly to instruction, then the outcome will be in their favor. In this case, the outcome is extra time to spend in recess. Through this line of reasoning, the teacher most likely will have success in the persuasion of the students, since they have been convinced that the conclusion that the outcome of the situation will benefit them.
Healthcare should be free for all citizens of the United States. For some background on the topic, this is not a completely outlandish proposition. In established and productive countries such as Italy and France, all citizens already receive universal healthcare, with many services such as emergency medicine available to the public for no cost. For a second now, imagine you are the child of a cancer patient, a mere victim of circumstance. Innocent, yet you must carry a burden of pain unimaginable to those who have never experienced it. Unfortunately, costs run high, up to around $300,000 a year. Your family can no longer afford treatment, and your sick mother decides she doesn’t want to run the risk of you inheriting potentially millions in debt. She sadly passes away. Those fighting for a private healthcare industry are fighting for exactly that – victims of circumstance having to choose between millions in debt or death. The total cost of cancer care alone in the US last year was $400b. Thousands of dead children, parents, friends, siblings, and grandchildren would have cost billions more if not for their sacrifice. Pretty expensive, right? Now consider this. The predicted total wealth accumulated in the US this year by the top 1% of wealth earners alone is $140,000,000,000,000. An additional .2%, yes, a point two percent wealth accumulation tax on the top 1% could have paid for all cancer treatment in the United States. Give that one some thought. And to those, especially politicians, in support of a private healthcare system, imagine your baby dying because you couldn’t afford treatment for their leukemia. Remember that thought and remember it would have been due to your failure to implement a tax that could never possibly affect the lives of those who would be taxed by it.
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