Name Marley Mullen. Per 6. The Good Life Argumentative

Name: Marley Mullen Per: 6 The Good Life Argumentative Essay Mae West, an American actress and screenwriter, once said that â€Å"you only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough†. However, people have different philosophies of what the â€Å"right† way to live life is. Priorities and routines differ for most people and some believe that because the way that they live works for them, they should encourage other to live in a similar way, like Thomas Jefferson, Machiavelli, and Pema Chodron. While Jefferson and Machiavelli exhibit strong arguments through their use of argumentative strategies, Chodron’s document â€Å"Start Where You Are† is the most effective of the three in terms of evidence-usage, connecting to the audience, and overall†¦show more content†¦Although one may question the credibility of this piece of evidence, due to the fact that the specifics of the teacher aren’t explicitly stated, the author focused on what was truly important about this line: what the teacher said to he r, not who the teacher was. Also, one could infer that the teacher was one who taught Buddhist traditions, considering that this is what Chodron discusses throughout the document when going in depth about her ideology of life. While Chodron displayed strength in her evidence through her use of argument strategies like pathos and logos, her argument is slightly faltered by the use of fallacies in her document. For example, one of the most prevalent fallacies that can be found in her document is where she discusses the various stepped programs and how the number of steps seems to increase exponentially, even though all of these programs have the same endgame in mind; her assumption that a program with over 100 steps will not be too far away is what makes this a slippery slope fallacy (Chodron 2). Although she may not necessarily be incorrect in her assumption, she doesn’t cite any specific evidence or sources that would potentially help her claim, so it ends up lacking credibil ity.