Tutor profile: Jason F.

Which rhetorical appeal do you find to be the most useful in the persuasion of an audience when writing an opinion article from a news source?

I believe pathos to be a strong tool of persuasion when one is writing from a news source, for this media is likely to be consumed by many different kinds of people. A writer's choice of words when they have a wide audience like that will be critical to the overall message that they send. Each appeal has its strengths, and including logos and ethos into the article would certainly bolster the effectiveness of the message, but I believe that pathos would encourage the readers to hear their message and rally behind it.

John Austin explains that while performative utterances lack truth-conditions, they do have felicity-conditions. Define a performative utterance and describe an example of how a felicity-condition might be violated in the case of a performative utterance.

A performative utterance is any utterance that effectively performs the action that is spoken. What makes this kind of utterance different from a statement is that statements will merely report an action. Performative utterances are actually performing an action. Austin claims performatives have felicity-conditions, which are essentially used in determining whether a performative utterance is appropriate or not. There are times where there are requirements that are necessary for the utterance to be performative. For example, if I were to say “I appoint you consul”, this utterance’s felicity conditions might be violated if you were already appointed, or you were in fact a Welsh Corgi. The performance couldn't be completed because these felicity-conditions were not met.

Do you believe that Rosoce Pound’s view of Sociological Jurisprudence should prevail in the contemporary USA?

Roscoe Pound provided to us the view that the law could be utilized as a tool for social engineering; the law ought to be used to address the necessities of our society at a given point in time. This was a step away from Legal Formalism which, at the time, advocated for an "umbrella" usage of the law. Sociological Jurisprudence allows for us to take these laws and design them among the context of society and individual statuses. Individualism has always been a key part of the American identity, so the law indeed ought to reflect that if we deem that a worthy aspect of our existence as a law-abiding society.