Emotion is one of the most powerful human feelings. It can blind someone to the facts because they develop such a passion for a topic. They can go blind to others' opinions and lose all reasoning. Because of this I believe that emotion should be kept to a minimum in civil discourse. Emotion is necessary, but it can't be to the point where it overwhelms the individual. People need to keep an open and clear mind so that civil discourse can be as beneficial for society as possible. In the Rhetorical Traditions, Emotions, and Modern Discourse article it says that the classical thinkers thought "Nonetheless, all were apprehensive about possible systematic exploitation of audience emotions by opportunistic or self‐serving speakers". The creators of rhetoric identified that pathos needs to be included as a method of persuasion but it can be easily abused and used to exploit people. Pathos can be used to convince people to go against logic just because of how strong emotions can be.
Pathos influence on science can be seen in the article from my third blog post. It is about the ethical and moral issues with doing genetic engineering on human embryos. People sympathize with the unborn embryos and think of what they can become. They feel emotional attachment because they are the first stage of human life. The scientists are trying to repair defective genomes. Repairs would allow the embryos to survive and eventually grow and be born. However peoples' love of religion and the embryos causes them to question the methods and slows down the process of science without looking at the possible benefits that could come.
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