ABSTRACT
Most Americans are inured to the regular barrage of direct mail solicitations from charities, political and social organizations, and (more frequently in the current climate of environmental awareness) solicitations from environmental organizations. Often this plethora of environmental direct mailings seems to blend together as one appeal because of their shared basis in the rhetorical appeal of pathos. Traditionally, of course, rhetoric scholars have argued for Aristotle’s classical taxonomy of appeals, preferring logos as the highest form or argument and pathos as the lowest form of appeal. Somewhere between these two comes ethos, the character or nature of the speaker/writer in harmony with that of the audience/reader. Obviously, the adjectives logical, pathetic, and ethical derive from these.
