Ethos is about character. In fact, the most literal translation of ethos in English is “character.” So consider the word character in English. On the one hand it can mean things like courage, generosity, truthfulness, wittiness, and friendliness. Generally, when we say someone has character, we mean they have a good character, and when a parent says to their child that doing their chores will “build character,” they usually mean it will make them into a better person. In this sense, having character, or positive ethos, just means being a good person. In another sense, however, character can refer to an actor in a play who is pretending to be someone else. It doesn’t matter if the actor is a good person playing a villainous character, or a bad person playing a hero, they are still a character.

4.2 Situated Ethos

Situated ethos, like the first kind of character discussed above, is derived from the inner qualities described there inasmuch as those inner qualities become recognized and then contribute to the reputation of a speaker or writer in the community. Some of the ancient rhetoricians felt that personal integrity and moral uprightness are essential components of rhetoric, and strongly determine the effectiveness of messages associated with a particular writer.

4.3 Invented Ethos

Invented ethos, like the second kind of character discussed above, is the perception the listener or reader develops from the content or style of the speaker’s or writer’s presentation. Using an academic vocabulary, for instance, might ingratiate a speaker or writer to a particular audience, while at the same time alienate him from others. Demonstrating the same characteristics of positive ethos discussed above solely through style and content can improve a writer’s ethos dramatically, even if they do not have a reputation in the community at all. Invented ethos is the only method those of us who are not famous writers have of establishing our own credibility.

4.4 Borrowed Ethos

Sometimes a speaker or writer enjoys a good reputation in one community while simultaneously suffering from a poor reputation in another community. Sometimes a speaker or writer enjoys a poor reputation in one community because they have a good reputation in another. Thus associations and memberships can play a large part in determining writer’s ethos in a particular community, which is a kind of borrowed ethos. Borrowed ethos is the kind of ethos Martin Luther King was using when he decided to stage his “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial. By doing this, he borrowed from Abraham Lincoln’s credibility with the American people, as one of the most trusted presidents ever.

4.5 A Third Kind of Character

Note that in MLK’s speech when he refers to the “content of [his children’s] character,” he is talking about situated ethos, or the kind of character that is fundamentally achieved by being a virtuous person. But in addition to this character that is derived from personal integrity, moral uprightness, altruism, and the like, and to the kind of character that acts in a play or speaks to a crowd of people, there is the written character: the letters, numbers, and punctuation marks of which written language consists. Since we are here discussing written rhetoric, these are the only characters we, as writers, have at our disposal to convince our audience of our credibility. A speaker can wear a suit and a tie; an actor can wear a costume, but since a writer can not be seen, she can only change the order in which she puts characters on the page to form words, sentences, paragraphs, sections, and eventually essays. In this way, if the person reading our work doesn’t know us, we are judged not by the color of our skin, not by the content of our character, not by the clothes we wear, but rather by the appearance and content of ten to twelve eight and a half by eleven sheets of paper.

4.6 The Truth

The kind of “character” that appeared on these papers (or sheets of papyrus), was what so unsettled Plato, primarily because it could so easily be used to deceive. Now let’s be clear: he didn’t trust actors or teachers of rhetoric either, but writing seemed so much more insidious because using it, someone could pretend to be someone else entirely. The sophists, for instance, were traveling teachers of rhetoric who were concerned more with the ability to persuade people than with the truth. Their idea of good rhetoric was speech that could convince people of something, but whether that something was the truth didn’t matter that much to them. For Plato, this was deplorable, since he felt the business of philosophy was to discover the truth. The business of rhetoric, thought the sophists, was merely to win an argument using whatever means are available, which is one reason rhetoric today has a bad name, and is often associated with people we don’t trust, like lawyers, car salesmen, politicians, and advertisers.

Invented ethos, especially in writing, allows us to lie. But here is the thing: it also allows us to tell the truth in a convincing way. In other words, even if a writer has all of the best qualities that are associated with good character, if their invented ethos is poor they can be perceived negatively, rendering any truth they have to impart suspect. Aristotle believed the the most effective rhetor is the person whose invented ethos matches their situated ethos. For a writer, this means that not only are they courageous, truthful, friendly, modest, etc, but they also exhibit those qualities in their writing. In other words, it takes a good liar to tell the truth well.