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Examining Pathos, Ethos, and Logos in Manipulative Advertising
Examining Pathos, Ethos, and Logos in Manipulative Advertising
Jongmin Park
Doctoral Candidate
School of Journalism
University of Missouri-Columbia
Address: Department of Communication
College of Social Sciences
Pusan National University
Pusan 609-735, Korea
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Abstract
Throughout the history of human communication, three different fields of study have developed: rhetoric, ethic, and logic. Manipulative advertising in this study is scrutinized by these three modes. The majority of rhetoricians regard manipulative advertising as a type of discourse used to demonstrate their diverse techniques. On the other hand, when consumers get extra utility and affirmative feelings from manipulative advertising, in addition to information, utilitarian ethicists do not believe it is unethical. Deontologists disagree, however, saying that advertisers who employ manipulative means try to use consumers as means to their own ends through nonrational persuasions. From the logical perspective, manipulative advertising employs fallacies, or invalid arguments. From this criteria, we see there is no room for deceptive advertising at all.
Examining Pathos, Ethos, and Logos in Manipulative Advertising
1. Defining Advertising: Rhetoric, Ethic, and Logic
Throughout the centuries-old history of advertising, critics have raised important questions concerning the appropriateness, utility and motives of advertising, and its persuasive power over unsuspecting consumers. These concerns have occupied the minds of social critics, sociologists, economists, historians, and social scientists for generations (Plumley & Ferragina, 1990).
Aristotle insists that there are three ways through which a speaker can persuade an audience of his position: pathos, ethos, and logos (Cooper,1932). Pathos is an appeal to the emotions of the audience. Ethos is ethical proof, based on the convincing character of the speaker. Logos is logical proof that appeals to reason. It is essential to recognize that ethos, pathos, and logos are part of every discourse; they exist as dimensions of the elements of the communication triangle (speaker, listener, subject) as well as in the perceptions of the discourse by those involved in it (Root, Jr., 1987). After Aristole's age, three different fields of study in human communication have developed: rhetoric, ethic, and logic. Even though rhetoric deals with all three means of persuasion, it is mainly pathos-oriented. The field of ethics focuses on the ethos of the speaker and the discourse itself; whereas, logic focuses on intellectual explanations, or logic, in communication and discourse.
What is advertising? Is it information, communication, persuasion, manipulation, or even deception? According to Wells, Burnett, & Moriarity, advertising is paid, nonpersonal communication by an identified sponsor using mass media to persuade or influence an audience (1995). Their definition seems to label advertising as a type of rhetorical discourse; specifically, persuasive communication. Greek philosophers' definition of rhetoric is similar to this definition of advertising. They define rhetoric as a technique in which the orator can use arguments of various types of association and dissociation in order to pass from the premises accepted by the audience to the conclusions he wishes to establish.
The Romans identified three goals of rhetoric: to teach, to delight, and to move. These goals rarely occur in complete isolation from one another because the process of choosing a topic, narrowing it, and selecting evidence in its support gives all messages a persuasive component. Thus, Jamieson distinguishes advertising from news by pointing out that persuasive and rhetorical traits are emphasized in advertising. News professes to inform or teach, whereas ads profess to move- to advocate one purchasing decision over another (Jamieson & Campbell, 1992).
Should there be a standard for ad content and advertisers? To many scholars in advertising, the realm of ethics is a problematic, yet unavoidable subject area. Many libertarians support the commercial morality of advertising: it provides information that helps match buyers and sellers in the marketplace (Wells, Burnett, & Moriarity, 1995). Yet, how can we, in good conscience, protect subliminal, manipulative, and worst of all, deceptive characteristics that are so often present in advertising? Is there any ethical background to justify them?
Can we say that all context of advertising are true? Sandage et al. (1983) centered their discussion within the framework of a type of personal ethical relativism. Concerning the issue of truth in advertising, they offered a quote by Alexander Knoll: "Truth in our times is a personal thing. Individual. Unique. Fragmented."
In Greek, deon means duty while logos is science. Whereas ethics is the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation, logic is a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration or a particular mode of reasoning viewed as valid or faulty.
Even if logicians sometimes use the notion of rational persuasion in some way (if one were to accept the premises of a valid deductive argument, it would not be rational to reject the conclusion; one would in effect be contradicting oneself in practice), logic is not concerned with discovering premises that persuade an audience to accept, or to believe, the conclusion. This is the subject of rhetoric.
The above two premises- truth in advertising is relative, and persuasion is not the subject of logic- can give advertising indulgence against "truth." However, G.E.Moore (1963, 1966) 's "open question argument" suggests a different point of view. Moore would ask: "Is relativity truth in advertising?" We can not answer yes to this question, nor can we accept the assumption that advertising content can be false.
Recently, ads have become more focused, presenting less information more dramatically than in the past. Studies usually show a fairly high percentage of 'persuasive' or 'emotional' advertisements, and a lower percentage of 'informative' ads or ads that make 'rational' appeals (Phillips, 1997). For example, a content analysis of 2,000 print ads from 10 major magazines from 1900 to 1980 showed that the informational content of ads has been decreasing. (Jamieson & Campbell, 1992).
In this study manipulative advertising will be scrutinized; not only because it is controversial, but also because it has repercussions rhetorically, ethically, and logically. The following section will introduce more specific distinctions in advertising and precisely explain the meaning of manipulative advertising as defined for purpose of this study.
2. Manipulative Advertising
We can categorize advertisements in groups such as informative, manipulative, and deceptive. Tom Beauchamp (1984) distinguishes between informational advertising and manipulative advertising. He defines persuasion as "a deliberate and successful attempt by one person to get another person by appeals to reason to freely accept beliefs, attitudes, values, intentions, or actions." Beauchamp goes on to say that "the essence of rational persuasion is that it induces change by convincing a person through the merit of the reasons put forward and this is exactly what purely informational advertising endeavors to do (Beauchamp, 1984)." To him, there is rational persuasion and a form of manipulation called nonrational persuasion.
But according to Phillips (1997) Beauchamp's definition poses a problem because it does not distinguish between manipulative advertising and deceptive advertising. Phillips says "deceptive advertising nonpersuasively alters consumers' perceptions of their choices by misstating or omitting significant facts about advertised products or services." In addition, deceptive advertising manipulates "not by undermining the capacity for reasoned evaluation of products and services, but simply by presenting false or misleading information about their nature (p.15)." Whereas the information used in deceptive advertising is false or misleading, Phillips describs manipulative advertising as "involving efforts to nonpersuasively alter consumers' perceptions of products by means other than deception (p.16)."
Phillips classifies advertisements into informative, manipulative, and deceptive types. He also sub-categorizes manipulative advertising into; subliminal and associate types. He insists:
Subliminal advertising is the nonpersuasive alteration of consumers' desires or tastes using visual stimuli, high-frequency, or low-volume speech. It exposes people to commercial messages of which they are subconsciously, but not consciously, aware. On the other hand, associate advertising associates the advertised product and service with the satisfaction of conscious or unconscious desires that it is unlikely to satisfy (p.19).
Phillips also indicates that subliminal advertising also employs associations, therefore, associate advertising might better be described as "overtly associative." Manipulative advertising in this study will encompass subliminal and associate advertising because the distinction is not clear.
Now we can conclude that informative ads involve efforts to alter consumers' perceptions of products with rational persuasive skills. Also, while deceptive advertising attempts to transform consumers' perceptions of products by deception with nonrational persuasion, manipulative advertising involves efforts to change consumers' perceptions of products by means other than deception with nonrational persuasion.
3. Critique on Manipulative Advertising: Rhetorical Perspective
Corbett (1971) defines rhetoric this way: "Rhetoric is the discipline that deals with the use of discourse, either spoken or written, to inform or persuade or move an audience, whether that audience is made up of a single person or a group of persons (p.3)." Rhetoric was regarded as the highest pinnacle of proper education and was at the center of the educational process in western Europe for some 2,000 years. The ancient art of rhetoric, Institutio oratoria (before A.D. 96; "The Training of an Orator"), introduced by the Roman rhetorician Quintilian, has added the techniques of the psychopolitical analyst, the media man, the know-how of the administrators of giant advertising agencies, public relations firms, and governmental ministries of information that employ armies of analytic specialists and "symbol-handlers (p.4-20)."
Kinneavy (1971) said the communication triangle is the most common model of discourse (see Figure 1 in Appendix). "Basic to all uses of language are a person who encodes a message, the signal (language) which carries the message, the reality to which the message refers, and the decoder (receiver of the message) (p.19)."
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Figure 1
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Rhetoricians views communication and discourse differently than people in other disciplines. Historians, philosophers, literary critics and social scientists are apt to view a text as though it were a kind of map of a certain area of the author's mind. Rhetoricians, taught by their discipline to look at communication from the communicator's angle, consider the text as the embodiment of an intention, not as a map. They know that intention in communication text is influenced by audience. They also know that context results from speakers' intention. Therefore, rhetoricians are involved in the process of intention and creation, and the interpretation of context (Corbett, 1971).
Kinneavy (1971) also acknowledges that the aim of the discourse will determine the form in which it is expressed. He divides the aims of discourse into expressive, literary, referential and persuasive categories, each according to its primary purpose (pp.48-68).
Applying Kinneavy's model to advertising (see Figure 2 in Appedix), Root Jr.(1997) defines advertising as a persuasive communication. Communication in advertising, he says, "attempts to convince an audience to buy a product or make use of service (p.20)."
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Figure 2
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The context of manipulative advertising in rhetorical perspective is persuasive communication, including the advertisers' commercial intention. Although media critics and ethicists would disagree, rhetoricians might regard manipulative advertising as a communication tool, or even creative means of demonstrating their diverse techniques. Root Jr. (1997) cites direct mail as the rhetoric of exhortation, print advertising as the rhetoric of illustration and television advertising as the rhetoric of dramatization (p.51). He explains:
The appeal to pathos in television advertising is likely to be stronger than the appeal to logos. Pathos on television usually accompanies an attempt at identifying the product as the means of alleviating guilt or achieving the romantic or familial goal (p.57).
Copywriters strongly support manipulative advertising techniques. Batten (1932) defines advertising as "the art of mass selling through the medium of public channels of information such as newspapers, magazines, radio, poster, and direct mail." He demands that copywriters should consider four things: whether ads attract attention, arouse interest, create belief, and lead to action (Batten, 1992, pp. 83-105).
Some rhetoricians- we can call them realistic rhetoricians- however, warn of "empty rhetoric" or "mere rhetoric," which they define as a series of maneuvers in communication that attempt to persuade without an honest motive or a valid argument (Root, 1997, p.15). They may criticize over-manipulative advertising warning of the forfeiture of "reality." Argumentation and persuasion, they say, lead to the dissociation of concepts if expression is opposed to reality. Reality is usually perceived through expressions that are taken as signs referring to it. However, when expressions are inconsistent -- oar in water looks bent, but feels straight to the touch--there must be an explanation. Therefore, if the status of expressions in advertising is ambiguous, one is forced to distinguish between those expressions that communicate reality and those that are only illusory. The separation will rely on a conception of reality that can serve as a criterion for judging expressions (pp.105-131). However, it is not easy for "reality" to distinguish between manipulative advertising and deceptive advertising, because its conception is too relative. Therefore, judging whether ads are real or illusory and what amount of manipulation in advertising causes the loss of reality is totally up to rhetoricians' subjective judgment and their relative conceptions about reality. Yet, there is no doubt that a deceptive advertisement has already lost reality by using illusory traits.
The similarity between several rhetorical elements and manipulative advertising tools will be introduced along with a discussion about logical fallacy in the last part of this study.
4. Critique on Manipulative Advertising: Ethical Perspective
Ethics is the systematic study of what we ought to do. If we are referring to ethics proper, it is clear that ethics can only have come into existence when human beings started to reflect on the best way to live. This reflective stage emerged long after human societies had developed some kind of morality, usually in the form of customary standards of right and wrong conduct.
Deliberating between two representative streams in ethics, deontology and utilitarianism, this section will try to define morality in advertising, if it exists, and
to find an ethical framework for advertising in today's world.
Utilitarian Criteria and Manipulative Advertising
Utilitarians focus on the consequences of an act rather than its intrinsic nature or the motives of the agent. According to utilitarians, we ought to act in order to maximize the total amount of utility as the consequences of our act in the world (phillips, 1997, p.42). This need not mean a positive balance of utility over disutility, but merely the best balance obtainable under the circumstances. Because its criterion for the morality of actions is whether they maximize utility, utilitarianism is a teleological or consequentialist ethical theory.
What is utility? According to Jeremy Bentham, utility and disutility are pleasure and pain, respectively. Bentham insisted that whatever increases the net surplus of pleasure over pain is right and whatever decreases it is wrong. He did not allow for distinctions in the quality of pleasure or pain. He insisted that "quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry." His opponents criticize his philosophy as one fit for pigs (Christians, Fackler, Rotzoll, & McKee, 1998).
Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill hold that the good end is happiness or pleasure. Preventing pain and promoting pleasure were for Bentham and Mill the only desirable ends. In contrast to Bentham, however, Mill affirmed that some pleasures are qualitatively more valuable than others (Christians, Fackler, Rotzoll, & McKee, 1998). Thus, he distinguished between pleasures that are higher and those that are lower in quality.
Rule utilitarians, aligned in their thinking to Mill, build moral rules based on proclaiming the greatest broad happiness. The question is not which action yields the greatest utility, but which general rule does. The "utility" is still the major criterion, but at the level of rules rather than specific judgments (Christians, Fackler, Rotzoll, & McKee, 1998).
This section's evaluation of manipulative advertising is from a rule-utilitarian perspective. In other words, manipulative advertising here will be evaluated by asking whether a rule forbidding it would generate more utility than a rule permitting it. An act utilitarian analysis of manipulative advertising will be discussed in the following section.
Utilitarian thinking began with the provisional assumption that advertising increases utility by stimulating the tendency to consume; thus, assisting in a stable flow of consumer goods and the economy's continued functioning. Moreover, the mass communication produced by advertising also generates utility by increasing economies of scale and lowering prices (Doyle, 1968).
Phillips' thoughts on manipulative advertising had a utilitarian influence. According to a utilitarian, he said, when manipulative advertising is successful, we do not merely buy a physical product, but also develop affirmative feelings created by that advertising. "Those feelings should give us extra utility or added value in addition to the satisfaction we get from the product's performance of its functions (Phillips, 1997, p.54)." The extra utility we obtain from such advertising could go beyond the utility we sacrifice because it has made us buy a "suboptimum product." Thus, it seems difficult to confirm that manipulative advertising drains consumers' utility. Indeed, it might even expand their utility (p.54).
Deontological Criteria and Manipulative Advertising
Deontologists place special emphasis on the relationship between duty and the morality of human actions. They disagree that results or consequences should be the only measure of whether an act is ethical or unethical.
Kant said the good will's goodness does not depend on its ability to produce good results. Even if it accomplished nothing, "it would still shine like a jewel for its own sake as something which has its full value in itself (Paton, 1964)."
Kant's ethic is based on his distinction between hypothetical imperative and categorical imperative (Christians, Fackler, Rotzoll, & McKee, 1998). Categorical here means unconditional, without any question of extenuating circumstances, without any exceptions. Right is right and must be done even under the most extreme conditions. (Christians, Fackler, Rotzoll, & McKee, 1998). Whereas hypothetical imperative applies only if we desire the goal any good with intention, categorical imperative must apply to all rational beings, regardless of their wants and feelings. The moral quality of a hypothetical imperative is relative to the moral quality of the end it seeks to advance. But, the categorical imperative "is concerned, not with the matter of the action and its presumed results, but with its form and with the principle from which it follows; and what is essentially good in the action consists in the mental disposition, let the consequences be what they may (Paton, 1964, p.84)."
Two important formulations make up Kant's categorical impertive. The categorical imperative cannot get content from the consequences of actions taken to advance the good (p.70). All that remains to motivate good will is the universality of a moral law or principle. In other words, check the underlying principle of your decision, and see whether you want it applied universally. This led Kant to the first major formulation of the categorical imperative. That is, he gave intellectual substance to the golden rule, which implies that what is right for one is right for all. "Act only on the maxim you can at the same time, and that should become a universal law (Christians, Fackler, Rotzoll, & McKee, 1998)."
The categorical imperative has a second major formulation, one Kant obviously regarded as equal to the first (Kant, 1964, p.88). It says: "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end (Kant, 1964, p.90)."
The first formulation of the categorical imperative makes room to justify manipulative advertising. Categorical imperatives, inherent in human beings, are apprehended not by reason but through conscience (Christians, Fackler, Rotzoll, & McKee, 1998). To violate one's conscience, Christians (1998) suggested, brings about feelings of guilt and "through the conscience, moral law is embedded in the texture of human nature." Advertisers can have universal rules that originate from conscience and good will. They can even think manipulative advertising has the good intention of giving consumers commercial psychological utilities.
Under the second formulation of the categorical imperative, however, manipulative ads are wrong irrespective of their consequences. A common interpretation of Kant's command to treat people as ends rather than means is that we must respect their rationality by offering them reasons for any action we propose, rather than trying to use or manipulate them (Phillips, 1997, p.83). Purely informative advertising, Phillips (1997) said, arguably meets this standard. As its name makes clear, manipulative advertising does not. Advertisers who employ manipulative means try to use consumers as means to their own ends and do so through nonrational persuasion (p.83).
Deontologists and Utilitarians focusing on "Act"
Whereas rule utilitarians question not which action yields the greatest utility, but which general rule does, act utilitarians ask whether a particular action in a particular situation will result in a balance of good over evil (Christians, Fackler, Rotzoll, & McKee, 1998). In other words, the consequences of specific actions are important in deciding whether they are ethical (Patterson & Wilkins, 1994). As Ed Lambeth (1992) put it,
Rules and maxims can provide only rough directions or summaries of moral experience. The act utilitarian, before acting, wants the assurance that the specific thing he does will maximize the good for all concerned (pp.11-21).
Thus, act utilitarians focus on the results of the action. On the other hand, act deontologists support ethical action based on an innate intuitive sense. Whereas rule deontologists pursue universal maxims for all persons, everywhere and for all time, there are deontologists who have been characterized as highly intuitive, spontaneous, and even "creative" in the way they reason in morally demanding situations (Lambeth, 1992, p.12). These persons are called "act deontologists" and "the right thing under the circumstances," Lambeth (1992) said, must be what a diligent human, after searching consideration, feels to be the right thing to do. To an act deontologist, no two environments are identical. Each is so unique that solid rules are not feasible. Thus, the act deontologist must consult a personal innate ethical guidance system (p.12).
For these two ethical orientations, a stable ethical standard for manipulative advertising seems non-existent since they do not involve any regular criteria. Their evaluation of manipulation will change with changing circumstances. Phillips (1997) also warns about the arbitrary nature of the act utilitarian idea:
Act utilitarianism may not maximize utility in the real world. Because continually calculating the consequences of our actions is an onerous business, the whole act utilitarian project involves a certain amount of disutility. Worse yet, the inherent difficulty of those calculations suggests that additional utility will be lost as people calculate incorrectly. Still worse, people may consciously or subconsciously "cook" the calculations when their self-interest is involved (p.44).
Their ethical morality may decrease in the end the social utility derived from the existence of steady moral and legal rules because act utilitarian rules are highly discretionary. Certainly, the ideas of these act-oriented ethicists go beyond the purpose of this study to evaluate manipulative advertising ethically.
5. Critique on Manipulative Advertising: Logical Perspective
Logic is the study of the methods and principles used to distinguish good from bad reasoning (Copi, 1986). If someone claims the form of an argument is correct, the logician is interested in identifying the logical evidence to support that claim. If someone holds that the form of an argument is incorrect, the logician's task is to identify the reason that the form is incorrect. Logicians are interested in reasoning as it relates to making correct arguments and knowing why other arguments are incorrect (Kilgore, 1979). Thus, it is the purpose of logic to discover and make available those criteria that can be used to test arguments for sound versus faulty reasoning.
The statements comprising the argument must be analyzed in order to see how they relate to one another. The analysis of the logical forms of argument can be accomplished most obviously if the statements of the argument are framed in some canonical form. Additionally, when an argument is stated in a disciplined format, it can avoid various ambiguities or other defects that may be present otherwise.
Advertising is one type of argument. If advertisers are trained to build ads with well-reasoned arguments and ads are configured with correct contexts produced from such training, the validity and value of advertising will be amplified.
Some advertising copywriters and creators will criticize the logical criteria of advertising, saying that it results in loss of advertising effectiveness. But in logic advertising is not an art and fiction drama but one type of persuasive communication. In its origin, logic was not separated completely from rhetoric. Certain teachings of the sophists and rhetoricians were significant in the early history of logic. For example, Protagoras is reported to have been the first to distinguish among different kinds of sentences: questions, answers, prayers, and injunctions. Prodicus appears to have maintained that no two words can mean exactly the same thing. Accordingly, he devoted much attention to carefully distinguishing and defining the meanings of apparent synonyms, including many ethical terms (Copi, 1986).
Imagine a world controlled by innumerable incorrect arguments. No matter how many advertisers defend manipulative advertising -- protecting ads with utilitarian ethical criteria or defining advertising as one type of rhetorical skill -- if advertising is really produced by diverse incorrect arguments, it will ultimately lose not only its persuasive potentiality, but also its reason to exist in human society.
A traditional part of the study of logic has been the examination and analysis of fallacies, which are common and often quite "natural" mistakes in reasoning (Copi, 1986).
Errors in argument occur often enough that commom fallacies are given special names. For example, if one were to attack the premises of an argument by using defamation on the character of the proponent of the argument, this would be characterized as committing an ad hominem fallacy ("against the man"). The character of the proponent of an argument has no relevance to the validity of the argument. The following section will discuss the similarity among elements of rhetoric, fallacies in logic, and advertising techniques.
6. Rhetorical Elements vs. Persuasive Strategies for Manipulative Advertising vs. Fallacy
The term "fallacy" is used in logic to refer to an invalid argument or form of argument (The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy & Philosophers, 1960). The idea of fallacy arises from the possibility that argumentation schemes and themes can be used wrongly, as calculated mechanisms for preventing appropriate critical questions from arising at all by impeding the dialogue in certain characteristic ways.
That is, "fallacy is any unsound step or process of reasoning, especially one which has a deceptive appearance of soundness or is falsely accepted as sound (Kilgore, 1979)."
Among numerous types of logical fallacies that have been noted, some of the better known are the fallacies of equivocation, ambiguity, accent, punctuation, and word order.
Others are assuming the cause (post hoc reasoning assuming without proof that a prior event explains a subsequent one), misconceptions about classification, damning the origin, faulty analogy, impressing by large numbers, suppressed quantification, faulty causal generalization, appeal to authority, appeal to tradition, misuse of etymology, amphibole (double talk), popular passions (ad populum appeals to the people), and cultural bias (Fearnside & Holther, 1960).
While fallacy is an eternal counterfeit of logic, to pass from the premises accepted by the audience to the conclusions he wishes to establish, the rhetorician can use arguments of various types of association and dissociation. A detailed analysis of such arguments would require a whole treatise. The best known, however, are arguments by example, by analogy, by the consequences, a pari (arguing from similar propositions), a fortiori (arguing from an accepted conclusion to an even more evident one), a contrario (arguing from an accepted conclusion to the rejection of its contrary), and the argument of authority. Also, rhetoricians make a functional distinction between metaphor and allegory. To the former category belong such figures as simile, personfication, irony, hyperbole, and metonymy, whereas figures such as parallelism, antithesis, congeries, apostrophe, and enthymeme belong the latter category ("rhetoric" Encyclopedia Britannica Online).
Jamieson and Campbell (1985) introduce to advertisers various strategies for persuasion such as pseudo-claims, the pseudo-survey, implying causality and so on (p.192). As shown in Table 1, this chapter will introduce similarities among elements of three categories: rhetorical elements, persuasive strategies for manipulative advertising, and logical fallacies.
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Table 1
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Jamieson insists that many advertisements contain pseudo-claims that use ambiguous verbs such as "control," "help," and "fight." For example: Vaseline Intensive Care helps heal roughness, dryness. These techniques might be assigned to the rhetoric element, a fortiori and the fallacies of equivocation, ambiguity, accent, punctuation, and word order.
Ads often promise "more" cleaning power or "better" continuing ability. But more, better, stronger than what? They do not identify standards for comparison. While such advertising techniques can beautify an ad, as a simile beautifies rhetoric, logicians will regard it as fallacy because it assumes the cause.
Comparing the product to its earlier form, advertisers often adapt its image to include something new or improved (p.196). "Damning the origin" is fallacy in logic but rhetoric accepts this as an analogy or apostrophy (see Table 1 in Appendix).
By coating their contents with scientific speech and referring to surveys, advertisers associate themselves with the scientific and medical fields. In doing so they increase consumers will falsely attribute scientific validity to their claims, impressed by large numbers and suppressed quantification (p.197). Hyperbole, however, is an accepted technique of overstatement and exaggeration in rhetoric.
When celebrities appear in advertising, they are often there to testify to the quality of a product. Sometimes they function as pseudo-authorities which is, positively, an argument by personificated authority but, negatively, an appeal to authority (p.198).
Cannibalizing the past for association and appropriating historical persons and events are now very popular manipulations in ads, whereas appealing to authority and tradition in logic creates an invalid argument. In addition, various advertisers' manipulative strategies such as using someone's good name, appropriating a famous phrase, exploiting social movements, making nationalistic associations, implying causality, creating juxtapositions, exploiting coincidental relationships, and implying "If ... Then," or "If not...then not," are inappropriate in both rhetoric and logic (see Table 1).
7. Conclusion: Professional Advertisers' Criteria and Manipulative Advertising
Manipulative advertising finally returns to advertisers' own hands after the long journey through rhetoric, ethic, and logic. Certainly, it traveled through multifarious and controversial subject matter during its burdensome pilgrimage.
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Table 2
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As shown in table 2, we have used various criteria to evaluate manipulative advertising. Earlier in this study, manipulative advertising was said to involve efforts to change consumers' perceptions of products by means other than deception through nonrational persuasion. The majority of rhetoricians regard manipulative advertising as a type of discourse used to demonstrate their diverse techniques. A small number of rigid rhetoricians regard it as "empty rhetoric, " devoid of reality. On the other hand, when consumers get extra utility and affirmative feelings from manipulative advertising, in addition to information, utilitarian ethicists do not believe it is unethical. Deontologists disagree, however, saying that advertisers who employ manipulative means try to use consumers as means to their own ends through nonrational persuasions. From the logical perspective, manipulative advertising employs fallacies, or invalid arguments. From this criteria, we see there is no room for deceptive advertising at all.
Business ethics investigates what kinds of behavior are right and wrong for corporate executives by judging their professional conduct under the standards that underlie modes of execution (Phillips, 1997, p.30). The concept of fallacy allows us to justifiably judge certain particular arguments as definitely incorrect relative to a normative model of discourse. Above all, advertisers should keep in mind professionally that advertising is a significant persuasive communication in human society, thus it should be required to appeal not only pathos but also logos and ethos.
Appendix
Figure 1. The Communication Triangle (Kinneavy, 1971)
encoder decoder
signal
reality
Figure 2. The Discourse of Advertising (Root, Jr., 1987)
advertiser consumer
advertisement
product/service
Table1. Elements of rhetoric vs. Advertisers' strategies for persuasion vs. Fallacies in logic
Elements of rhetoric
Advertisers' strategies for persuasion
Informal fallacies in logic
A fortiori (arguing from an accepted conclusion to an even more evident one)
Pseudo-Claims
The fallacy of equivocation, ambiguity, accent, punctuation, and word order
Simile
Comparison with an unidentified other
Assuming the cause: "post hoc reasoning"
Misconceptions about classification
An argument by analogy, Apostrophe
Comparison of the product to its earlier form
Damning the origin
An argument by analogy
Irrelevant comparisons
Faulty analogy
Hyperbole
The pseudo-survey
Impressing by large numbers, Suppressed quantification, Faulty causal generalization
An argument by authority, Personification
Associations with celebrities and authorities
Appeal to authority
An argument by authority, Apostrophe
Cannibalizing the past for associations
Appeal to tradition
An argument by authority, Metonymy
Appropriating historical persons and events
Appeal to tradition
An argument by authority, A pari (arguing from similar propositions), Metonymy
Trading on someone's good name, Appropriating a famous phrase
Misuse of etymology, Amphibole: "double talk"
An argument by example, authority, Metonymy
Exploiting social movements
Popular passions: "ad populum appeals"
An argument by authority, analogy, Metonymy
Nationalistic associations
Cultural bias
A fortiori (arguing from an accepted conclusion to an even more evident one), Enthymeme
Implying causality
Faulty causal generalization, Assuming the cause: "Post hoc reasoning"
An argument by analogy, the consequences, Parallelism, Antithesis
Juxtaposition
Assuming the cause: "post hoc reasoning," Faulty analogy
An argument by example, analogy, the consequences, Hyperbole, Enthymeme
Exploiting coincidental relationships
Assuming the cause: "post hoc reasoning," Faulty analogy
A fortiori, A contrario (arguing from an accepted conclusion to the rejection of its contrary), Enthymeme
Implying "If ... then"
Implying "If not ... then not"
Faulty causal generalization
(Jamieson, K.H. and Campbell, K. K. 1985. The Interplay of Influence (2nd edition). Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. Fearnside, W W and Holther, W.B. 1960. Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument Prentice-Hall, Inc.)
Elements of rhetoric ("rhetoric" Britannica Online
Metaphor
Simile - a comparison announced by "like" or "as"
Personification - attributing human qualities to a nonhuman being or object
Irony - a discrepancy between a speaker's literal statement and his attitude or intent
Hyperbole - overstatement or exaggeration or understatement
Metonymy - substituting one word for another which it suggests or to which it is in some way related.
Allegory
Parallelism - constructing sentences or phrases that resemble one another syntactically
Antithesis - combining opposites into one statement
Congeries - an accumulation of statements or phrases that say essentially the same thing
Apostrophe - a turning from one's immediate audience to address another, who may be present only in the imagination
Enthymeme - a loosely syllogistic form of reasoning in which the speaker assumes that any missing premises will be supplied by the audience.
Table 2. Rhetorical, Ethical, and Logical Criteria for Advertising
Rhetorical criteria
Ethical criteria
(Utilitarian)
Ethical criteria
(Deontologist)
Logical criteria
Informative advertising
Acceptable
Acceptable
Acceptable
Acceptable
Manipulative advertising
Acceptable
Acceptable
Unacceptable
Unacceptable
Deceptive advertising
Unacceptable
Unacceptable
Unacceptable
Unacceptable
References
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Fallacy
The term "fallacy" is originally so used in logic as to refer to an invalid argument or form of argument (The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy & Philosophers, 1960). That is, "fallacy is any unsound step or process of reasoning, especially one which has a deceptive appearance of soundness or is falsely accepted as sound" (Dictionary of Philosophy, 1983). The original Greek idea of a fallacy, found in Aristotle's practical manual on the art of argumentation, the De sophisticis elenchis (On Sophistical Refutations), viewed a fallacy (or sophistical refutation) as a deliberate deceptive tactic of argumentation used to trick and get the best of a speech partner in dialogue unfairly.
The view of fallacy that evolved into the modern logic textbooks took on this dominant point of view, seeing a fallacy as an erroneous inference-a kind of error of reasoning that was a faulty inference from a premise to a conclusion.
The term 'fallacy' refers to an underlying systematic error or misdemeanor in the structure of an argument, a basic flaw indicating that the argument is fundamentally flawed in some way. Therefore, the idea of fallacy arises through the possibility that argumentation schemes and themes can be used wrongly, as calculated mechanisms of preventing appropriate critical questions from arising at all, by impeding the dialogue in certain characteristic ways.
Act deontologist and Act utilitarian
one way to frame this rule-utilitarian inquiry is to ask whether a rule forbidding all manipulative ads would generate more utility than a rule permitting them.
Difference between Act and Rule utilitarianism.
For act utilitarians, the basic question always involves the greatest good in a specific case. One must ask whether a particular action in a particular situation will result in a balance of good over evil.
Rule utilitarians, also attributing their view to Mill, construct moral rules on the basis of promoting the greatest general welfare. The question is not which action yields the greatest utility, but which general rule does. The principle of utility is still the standard, but at the level of rules rather than specific judgments.
The act utilitarian may conclude that in one specific situation civil disobedience obtains a balance of good over evil, whereas rule utility would seek to generate a broadly applicable moral rule such as civil disobedience is permitted except when physically violent."
Philip Patterson and Lee Wilkins, Media Ethics: Issues and Cases
The consequences of actions are important in deciding whether they are ethical. Emphasized on the outcome.
Act utilitarianism (Committed Journalism by Ed Lambeth) ¤ Rules and maxims can provide only rough directions or summaries of moral experience. The act utilitarian, before acting, wants the assurance that the specific thing he does will maximize the good for all concerned.
Rule utilitarianism (Committed Journalism by Ed Lambeth) ¤ They ask not what action will results in the greatest good but what rule will maximize the good. They want a rule, not just in the short run but in the long run, too.
Utilitarians (Committed Journalism by Ed Lambeth) ¤ There are at least two difficulties. The first is knowing the result; the second is in finding the act that will achieve the greatest good for all concerned.
Also, Mill saw justice as UtilitarianismĄs largest problem.
Act utilitarian (Committed Journalism by Ed Lambeth) ¤ For humans acting under deadline pressure, as journalists must, the posture of the act utilitarian can be quite vexing.
Rule utilitarian (Committed Journalism by Ed Lambeth) ¤ Can rule or rules be found that in all cases will maximize the good?
Whereas pure rule deontologists (Committed Journalism by Ed Lambeth) pursuit universal maxim for all persons, everywhere for all time, there are deontologists who has been characterized as highly intuitive, spontaneous, and even "creative" in the way they reasons in morally demanding situations (Ed Lambeth p.12). These persons are called "pure act deontologists" and "right thing under the circumstances," Ed Lambeth said, must be what a diligent human, after searching consideration, feels to be the right thing to do. To an act deontologist, no two environments are identical. Each is uncommon, so unique that the solid rules is not feasible. Thus, the act deontologist must consult one's innate ethical guidance system (p.12).
To act deontologists, manipulative advertising is more potential and creative tool. Even, if any advertisers who have act deontological ethical criteria exist, they can manipulate advertising more than any utilitarians because