Stukel- Week 3

In Chapter Six of Thank You for Arguing, Heinrichs recall that Cicero once said that your audience must like and trust you. This is greatly exemplified by Jonathan Safran Foer in Eating Animals. Throughout the book Foer works hard to present himself in a way that makes him a likable and trustworthy guide through the confusing collision of the worlds that are vegetarianism and that of avid meat eaters. Heinrichs says that in order to accomplish this one must demonstrate the on of the core principles of successful rhetoric: Ethos. Ethos, according to Thank You for Arguing, is argument that “employs the persuader’s personality, reputation, and ability to look trustworthy”. According to Heinrichs in Thank You for Arguing, for one to emulate successful ethos, one must demonstrate three particular qualities: virtue or cause, practical wisdom or craft, and disinterest.  Foer demonstrates all three of these to a great extent through out his book. Foer demonstrates virtue, by making readers feel like he also shares their values. To do so he explains his family traditions, his religion (which he explains he has followed loosely), and his experiences as an off-again, on-again, vegetarian. These appeal to readers virtues because, generally, many people can relate to all three of these topics with in their own lives. Foer also demonstrates practical wisdom, by the way he generally tries to always do the right thing. He stops eating meat because he doesn’t want to hurt animals, he writes this book to decide whether his son should be allowed to eat meat. Thirdly, Foer exemplifies disinterest by making it appear up to the reader on whether or not they should eat meat. He instead focuses on the health and ethical detriments of eating meat, all while admitting that he himself enjoys the taste of meat.