Most authors don’t rely on just a single type of appeal to persuade their audience; they combine these appeals to create an effective argument. And the appeals themselves are inextricably bound together: if you lay out your argument logically, that will help build your ethos. It is only logical to listen to an expert on a subject, so having ethos can help build a foundation for an appeal to logos. It’s also possible to build your ethos based on pathos—for example, who better to speak about the pain of losing a loved one than someone who has gone through it? The best political satirists can say things that are both perfectly logical and completely hilarious, thus appealing to both logos and pathos at the same time.
Let’s examine a letter that Toni Morrison, the only African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote to the then senator Barack Obama endorsing him as the Democratic candidate for president in 2008. The letter was published in the New York Times.
Dear Senator Obama,
This letter represents a first for me—a public endorsement of a Presidential candidate. I feel driven to let you know why I am writing it. One reason is it may help gather other supporters; another is that this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril. I will not rehearse the multiple crises facing us, but of one thing I am certain: this opportunity for a national evolution (even revolution) will not come again soon, and I am convinced you are the person to capture it.
May I describe to you my thoughts?
I have admired Senator [Hillary] Clinton for years. Her knowledge always seemed to me exhaustive; her negotiation of politics expert. However I am more compelled by the quality of mind (as far as I can measure it) of a candidate. I cared little for her gender as a source of my admiration, and the little I did care was based on the fact that no liberal woman has ever ruled in America. Only conservative or “new-centrist” ones are allowed into that realm. Nor do I care very much for your race[s]. I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might make me “proud.”
In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity, and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race, or gender and something I don’t see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can’t train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace—that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.
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When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with courage instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country’s citizens as “we,” not “they”? Someone who understands what it will take to help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what it desperately needs to become in the world?
Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb.
There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time.
Good luck to you and to us.
Toni Morrison
(2008)
Let’s take a step back. Who is Morrison’s audience for this letter? Of course, she claims Senator Obama is, yet it is an open letter printed in a newspaper. Thus, we have a sense that while she does intend that he read the letter, she also understands that her public endorsement of his candidacy, and not Senator Hillary Clinton’s, will have an impact on a much larger audience than Obama himself: her audience is the large national and international readership of the Times, readers who value the viewpoint of a Nobel Prize winner.
Given that audience, Morrison need not establish her ethos as a credible person whose opinion should carry some weight. After all, both Obama and the readers of the New York Times—in fact, readers in general—know her as an award-winning author, someone who has written many novels, a professor at Princeton University, and the winner of a Nobel Prize. She is not, however, a person accustomed to weighing in publicly on political campaigns, so she opens with her announcement that this endorsement is “a first” for her. She does not assume that she has the authority or position to make Senator Obama (or others) listen to her; instead, she asks, deferentially, “May I describe to you my thoughts?” (par. 2). As a woman in her seventies with a proven record as a respected author and thinker, she could demand that Obama listen to her, but she does not; by asking a question rather than launching into her viewpoint, she presents herself as courteous and reasonable. The ethos she establishes is as a person who cares deeply for the future of America and is moved to speak out because she believes that the country is at a crossroads (“this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril” [par. 1]).
Although she does not offer facts and figures or cite expert sources, Morrison develops a logical argument. She addresses two counterarguments: (1) Senator Clinton is the better candidate, and (2) her support of Obama is driven primarily by race. In paragraph 3, she concedes and refutes both. She points out that she has “admired” Senator Clinton over the years and offers reasons; gender is not, however, among them. She effectively makes that argument also serve as evidence that she would not support Obama purely because of race, saying, “I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might make me ‘proud’” (par. 3). In paragraph 4, Morrison provides reasons for her support of Obama. She acknowledges that he is a person of “keen intelligence, integrity, and a rare authenticity,” yet those qualities are neither her only nor her chief reasons for supporting his candidacy. She claims that she sees in him “a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom.” Once Morrison makes this point, she addresses another counterargument: that Obama is too young. She refutes that belief by claiming that wisdom is not necessarily a matter of age.
Morrison continues to develop her reasons for supporting Obama as she adds appeals to pathos. By asking a series of rhetorical questions in paragraph 5, she calls up the shared values of the country; for instance, she asks when last the country was actually guided by “[s]omeone whose moral center was un-embargoed?” She chooses language likely to evoke emotions, such as her distinction between “courage instead of mere ambition.” By the end of the letter, she uses images of birth (“the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb” [par. 6]) and language that pulls at our heartstrings, such as “[o]ur future is ripe, outrageously rich.”
She draws the conclusion, again appealing to logos, that given all the evidence presented in the letter—Senator Obama is “the man for this time.” Morrison closes with a final appeal to ethos as she emphasizes that she is an integral part of the community of the country: “Good luck to you and to us.” The “us” is decidedly not just African Americans but all Americans.