Toulmin's model

RWS 600, September 9, 2013 

The Declaration of Independence – Thomas Jefferson (P.624)

1. The elements of Toulmin’s model in Jefferson

• Claim: The British colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states.

• Data: A prince, whose character is marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

• Warrant: Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed in order to secure certain unalienable rights such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

• Backing: If any form of government becomes destructive of its own purpose, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.

• Rebuttal: Whenever we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms, our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

• Qualifier: None.

2. The author’s proof: Pathos

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.–He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. … He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.–He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the stances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.–He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. (Rereading America 626-27)

In this text, it can be found that the author uses “pathos” which refers to the emotional state of the audience in order to reinforce his argument. The author explains the British king’s actions as a tyrant repeatedly and reminds the audience (people of the united colony) of suffering from the King's reign. This stimulation of the audience’s emotion is helpful to make the author’s argument persuasive.

Defying the PC police – Juan Williams (P. 648)

1. The elements of Toulmin’s model in Williams

• Claim: The journalists should defy the Political Correctness police

• Data: The journalists are forced to be politically correct.

• Warrant: The acceptance of hypocrisy in journalism is a threat to the nation.

• Backing: Politically correct in journalism is a cause to result in obstructing free expression and debate that are essential to democracy.

• Rebuttal: None.

• Qualifier: None.

2. The author’s proof: Ethos

I, however, am not a bartender.

My job is to be better informed than the average citizen and tell you directly what a professional analyst and newsman thinks is really going on behind the headlines. This is what I try to do. The best news analysts describe for their audience the motivations, the desires, the inside baseball behind the basics of a daily news story–the who, what, where, when, and why. My views must be based on good reporting about current events, inside and sometimes off-the-record conversations with sources, and my past experiences. The goal is a strong presentation of all those elements in a logical manner that allows the viewer to understand how I am putting puzzling events together and why I’m thinking that way. To do my job at the highest level, I tell audiences what I know, what I think, and, yes, what I feel about people looking for advantage in power struggles, military engagements, and racial and cultural wars (the very thing NPR’s Vivian Schiller and Ellen Weiss criticized me for). The only reason to listen to a professional news analyst is to get into the edgy flow of the political debate about the story–a sense of where the story is going, the insights, the ideas, and the spin, as well as the charges of sham, deceit, and corruption. Audiences dialing up news programs in search of in-depth understanding of the news don’t want bartenders. (Rereading America 648-49)

The author explains his truthful character in contrast to hypocritical by giving an example such as “a bartender”. The author also makes his writing persuasive by describing who he is and whom he tries to be. This is a very effective way of making his writing persuasive and a good example of “ethos” that Aristotle originally classified. 

Whether from reason or prejudice: taking money for bodily services – Martha C. Nussbaum (P. 669)

1. The elements of Toulmin’s model in Nussbaum

• Claim: Prostitution is widely stigmatized for a weak or bad reason.    

• Data: Prostitution is a form of taking money for bodily services.

• Warrant: Two factors as sources of stigma are immorality and gender hierarchy.

• Backing1: People thought that non-reproductive and extramarital sex was immoral.

• Backing 2: Female lust is commonly seen as bad and dangerous.

• Backing 3: People committed to gender hierarchy have viewed the prostitute as a threat to male control of women.

• Backing 4: Female sexuality should be kept in bounds carefully set by men with respect to gender hierarchy.

• Rebuttal: None.

• Qualifier: None.

2. The author’s proof: Ethos

Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, writes that there are “some very agreeable and beautiful talents” that are admirable so long as no pay is taken for them, “but of which the exercise for the sake of gain is considered, whether from reason or prejudice, as a sort of publick prostitution.” For this reason, he continues, opera singers, actors, and dancers must be paid an “exorbitant” wage to compensate them for the stigma involved in using their talents “as the means of subsistence.” (Rereading America 670)

A valuable illustration of this thesis is given by Alain Corbin’s fascinating and careful study of prostitutes in France in the late nineteenth century. Corbin shows that the interest in legal regulation of prostitution was justified by the alleged public interest in reining in and making submissive a female sexuality that was always potentially dangerous to marriage and social order. (Rereading America 680)

The author quotes texts of the famous book and research results of French scholar in the text above. This shows that the writer has a lot of knowledge relevant to the topic and strengthens the authority of the writer. In this respect, the writer uses “ethos” as a mean to persuade the audience.