Critical Rhetorical Analysis of William Damon's 'The Death of Honesty'

This essay presents a rhetorical and critical analysis of William Damon's article, "The Death of Honesty." The analysis dissects Damon's arguments and persuasive strategies, focusing on his effective use of logos, ethos, and pathos to convey his message about the decline of honesty in society. The essay examines how Damon employs logical reasoning, establishes credibility through references to reputable figures and sources, and appeals to the readers' emotions. The author successfully incorporates these rhetorical appeals to persuade the audience of the importance of honesty and to lament its erosion in various societal spheres, including politics, education, and business. The analysis highlights specific examples from the text to illustrate Damon's techniques and their impact on the reader, concluding that the article effectively educates, sensitizes, and challenges readers to recognize and address the issue of dishonesty.

Running head: RHETORICAL AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS 1
Rhetorical and Critical Analysis
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RHETORICAL AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS 2
Rhetorical and Critical Analysis
“The Death of Honesty” is an article that was written by William Damon and published
by the Hoover Institute in 2012. In this article, Damon decries the death of honesty. He laments
over the rising levels of dishonesty in the society. In order to successfully deliver his intended
message, the author had to employ the use of pathos, logos, and ethos appeals. The purpose of
this paper, hence, is to present a critical, exhaustive and insightful rhetorical analysis of the
article.
In the article, Damon made a proper and effective usage of logos appeal. This is a
strategy that is employed in a literary work to help in the creation of a logical appeal. Logical
appeal is an essential strategy because it plays a significant role in appealing to the reasoning of
the readers (Stucki & Sager, 2018, p. 274). Reason is an important concept that must always be
applied by the human beings because it serves as a chief source of knowledge. In the entire
article, the author extensively uses a logical appeal to persuade and win the understanding of the
readers. In one instance, he said, “A basic intent to be truthful, along with an assumption that
people can be generally taken at their word, is required for all sustained civilized dealings”
(Damon, 2012, p.1). Here, the writer is appealing to the readers to acknowledge that honesty is
indeed a good virtue and practice that should be nurtured in the society. However, despite this
assertion, Damon regrets that dishonesty is becoming the order of the day. Thence, he laments,
“Yet to recognize that honesty is not an absolute standard demanded for every life circumstance
—and that we can expect a certain amount of deceit from even our respected public figures”
(Damon, 2012, p. 1). The author believes that all these are happening because “There may be a
perception in many key areas of contemporary life—law, business, politics, among others—that
expecting honesty on a regular basis is a naïve and foolish attitude, a “loser’s” way of operating”

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(Damon, 2012, p. 1). All these statements were incorporated in the article to demonstrate and
appeal to the readers to acknowledge that dishonesty has become a common practice. However,
people should use their reason to weed it out of the society because, as the author exclaims, it has
nothing good to offer.
Damon uses ethos appeal in his article. Ethos, as its name suggests, is a strategy that is
used to make an ethological and persuasion and appeal to the audience. In literary works
ethological appeal can be attained by using a wide range of techniques (Ting, 2018, p. 26). Some
of them include the credibility of the author, accuracy of the argument, incorporation of external
sources in the document, organization of the writing, conformity to standard writing procedures,
and the making of well-substantiated arguments in response to the relevant counter-arguments
(Miller, 2017, p. 295). A thorough review of the article proves that Damon made a proper use of
these strategies in his writing. The author achieves the ethical appeal when he quotes reputable
authorities such as George Orwell, President George Washington, and President Abraham
Lincoln. He alludes to Orwell when he says, “As George Orwell once observed, the very
function of political speech is to hide, soften, or misrepresent difficult truths. Orwell was clearly
skeptical about any expectation to the contrary” (Damon, 2012, p. 1). This indicates that the
writer wanted to appeal to the audience by acknowledging the significant contributions of such
figures whose credibility and reputation is known world over (Zettler, Hilbig, Moshagen & de
Vries, 2015, p. 111). For example, to appeal to the audience, he had to state different arguments
in the society. At one point, he said, “All human relations rely upon confidence that those in the
relations will, as a rule, tell the truth” (Damon, 2012, p. 1). Here, the author was trying to argue
that honesty is a good practice that should not be abandoned. The appeal also succeeds when
Damon asserts, “Honesty builds and solidifies a relationship with trust; and too many breaches in

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honesty can corrode relations beyond repair.” This statement enables the author to appeal to the
audience to acknowledge the essence of honesty in the society today.
The other strategy that was extensively utilized in the article is the pathos appeal.
Pathological appeal is a strategy that is used to enable the writer to establish an emotional appeal
(Potapenko, 2016, p. 159). In the entire article, the author succeeded in appealing to the emotions
of the audience by using his strategy. An example of an instance of pathological appeal is when
the author said, “In “Politics and the English Language,” he put it this way: “Political language
—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is
designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of
solidity to pure wind.” Here, Damon was trying to appeal to his readers to empathize with the
extent to which dishonesty has been sanitized in the society. Apart from this, the author says,
“When money became God, virtue became irrelevant. Personally, my hope lies in the spiritual
awakening that is occurring around the globe and the realization emerging, at a higher level of
consciousness that we are intrinsically” (Damon, 2012, p. 1). The author used this statement
convince the readers to understand and accept the roles of money in the death of honesty in the
society. The other example that is worth mentioning is when Damon said, “Honesty is no longer
a priority in many of the settings where young people are educated. The future of every society
depends upon the character development of its young” (Damon, 2012, p. 1). Here, the author
decries the situation by saying how irresponsible the society has become. All these statements
enabled the author to succeed in appealing to the readers’ emotions and delivering a message that
resonate with their emotional sensibilities, values, needs.
In conclusion, “The Death of Honesty” is an invaluable article that equips the readers
with adequate information on the erosion of honesty and its replacement with dishonesty, a habit

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that Damon argues against. According to his argument, the author believes that the society is
embracing dishonesty because it is slowly-gaining roots in different areas such as politics,
journalism, laws, governance, and education. The article was written to provide enough
information that can be used to educate, sensitize, and challenge the readers to understand how
wore the situation has become. To succeed in delivering all these messages to the audience, the
author had to make a proper use of the ethological, pathological, and logical appeals.

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References
Annas, J. (2017). Which Variety of Virtue Ethics?. In Varieties of Virtue Ethics (pp. 35-51).
Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Damon, W. (2012). “The Death of Honesty.” Washington DC: Hoover Institute.
Miller, C. B. (2017). 5.3 Honesty Revisited: More Conceptual and Empirical Reflections. Moral
Psychology: Virtue and Character, 5, 295.
Potapenko, S. (2016). Rethinking pathos: Media rhetoric of needs. Darbai ir dienos, (66), 155-
166.
Stucki, I., & Sager, F. (2018). Aristotelian framing: logos, ethos, pathos and the use of evidence
in policy frames. Policy sciences, 51(3), 373-385.
Ting, S. H. (2018). Ethos, Logos and Pathos in University Students’ Informal Requests. GEMA
Online® Journal of Language Studies, 18(1), 23-28.
Zettler, I., Hilbig, B. E., Moshagen, M., & de Vries, R. E. (2015). Dishonest responding or true
virtue? A behavioral test of impression management. Personality and Individual
Differences, 81, 107-111.