Pathos and pets
Pathos is one of the three artistic proofs, or modes of persuasion used to convince audiences. It is used alongside ethos, the ethical appeal, and logos, the logical appeal. Pathos is the emotional appeal. Pathos is used to get an emotional response from an audience in order to elicit a reaction. These three modes of persuasion date back to ancient Greece, where rhetoric was taught by Sophists. The Greek philosopher Aristotle criticized the Sophists use of rhetoric for financial gain, but he did believe that rhetoric was a useful tool to help others see truth. Aristotle introduced his three means of persuasion in his treatise, The Art of Rhetoric. He believed that by teaching everyone to use rhetoric, they would be able to defend themselves against those who would use rhetoric to do harm.
The use of pathos can be a very powerful tool. In a recent New York Times article by Matthew Haag, he describes the plight of pets trying to escape Hurricane Harvey. He opens the article by telling the story of Joe Garcia, who was stuck in his flooded home. Mr. Garcia saw a rescue boat coming, and pushed his plastic tub of belongings out to meet them. Before getting in the boat himself, he went back into his house to get his german shepherd, Heidi. He carried her through the flood waters, holding her head above the water, and placed her in the boat before he himself got in.
If anything can get an emotional response, it is people saving pets during a natural disaster. For many readers, their pets are their family. Sadly, not all the stories are happy. In the same article, Mr. Haag describes one moment when a resident of Corpus Christi rescued her neighbor’s dog that had been left in the backyard. Another person, this time a photographer for The Daily Mail, rescued a dog that someone had left chained to a pole with the water rising rapidly. These stories elicit feelings of sympathy for those who rescued the pets as well as the pets who were rescued, and would understandably cause anger towards those who left them.
Pathos is a great tool to use, but it needs to be used carefully. The circumstances around the abandoned dogs is unknown. The owners could have been away and unable to get back to rescue them, or the owners really could have callously left them behind. Without knowing the facts, pathos becomes a dangerous method of persuasion. Even without the facts, though, you can know enough that there are animals that desperately need help, and there are many organizations working hard to help both people and animals.