What Is The Ethical Appeal In Letter From Birmingham Jail

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. writes the letter to Birmingham jail to address the biggest issue in Birmingham and the United States at the time. The letter describes the injustices happening in the black community of Birmingham. Martin Luther King Jr. uses appeals to emotion, ethical appeals, and logical appeals to justify his desire for racial equality. Rachel Carson wrote “ The Obligation to Endure “ to enlighten humanity on the atrocities being granted upon earths biological systems, and the harmful mutating chemicals that will potentially effect the future generations and their health. Carson addresses these understandable concerns using logical, emotional, and ethical appeal. Carson explains these concerns in this statement “To a large extent …show more content…

Martin Luther King was willing to sacrifice his freedom, and his life to obtain and justify racial equality all throughout America. In the “letter from Birmingham Jail” King writes about many terrible and violent acts the whites committed against the blacks. Dr. King also goes in further discussing about how tough it is for the black children to learn with all the discrimination. “When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Fun town is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people….” Dr. King uses an effective use of appeal because it gives the reader an issue which most can relate too. Dr. king lets the reader know his role as a religious reader through his writings, with that being said this lets Dr. King be seen as a moral, honest, trustworthy person. The letter was written during a time of segregation, and the response was towards religious leaders that were white, so Dr. King calling them “ fellow clergymen” was also using an ethos appeal of being an equal in status. This was important because Dr. King was in jail when the letter was …show more content…

Carson appeals to the arousal of the basic emotions, such as the arousal of fear in the public. Carson also appeals to pathos, or the emotions, by questioning the “highly intelligent” creators of these pesticides. Carson believes irrational bad decisions based on faulty evidence threaten the future existence of mankind. “Along with the possibility of the extinction of mankind by nuclear war, the central problem of our age has therefore become the contamination of man’s total environment with such substances of incredible potential for harm-substances that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and even penetrate the germ cells to shatter or alter the very material of heredity upon which the shape of the future depends.” However, the statement supports Carson’s intention to present a persuasive, and logical point of view without confusing the reader; suggesting she ment to go against a patient audience rather than an impatient one. Carson promotes the problem adequately in the very first paragraph and states her claim as a practical approach to stop or decrease the amount of the spraying of DDT pesticides. Carson argues mosquitoes becoming immune to the man-made vaccines presently available would inarguably have serious, detrimental and adverse negative impacts upon the effectiveness of the survival of our own

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