Ethics

Introduction to Ethics: Take-Home Essay

General Instructions

Your essay must be submitted to me electronically on Canvas (in “Assignments”) by 11:59 pm on Tuesday, 6 May 2021. Given time constraints and the need to grade ~90 papers in time to submit final grades, late work will not be accepted. The essay, combined with a short quiz on Novalis, is worth 40% of your final grade.

You may write on an author of your choice (Seneca, Kant, or Novalis). Select ONE question (and ONLY ONE QUESTION) from the prompts below and write an essay in response. Your essay should be 2-3 pages, typewritten, double-spaced, in a standard 12-point font (Times New Roman, for instance), and with one-inch margins. Just to be clear: Do not write on all three philosophers and do not respond to more than one prompt!

Feel free to quote from the relevant text(s) but try to avoid padding your answers with long quotations. Use my own translation for references to Novalis. When you do, cite the fragment number (for example, Faith and Love, fragment 36). Please feel free to consult with me about your work in progress. I can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. We can also arrange to meet over Microsoft Teams.

For a few writing guidelines, please see pp. 2-5 below (note: some of the advice is idle in light of current off-campus circumstances). You will also find the rubric I use to evaluate written work on the final page of this document.

Prompts

SENECA

Select one of Seneca’s letters that furnishes advice on a practical/moral problem and write an essay that explains the advice Seneca offers and applies it to a circumstance of contemporary relevance. For instance, you may wish to write about Seneca’s theory of fear (see Letter 13) and how to manage it in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. You may also cite passages from other letters that support your position.

KANT

Prompt One: Discuss Kant’s distinction in the Preface between logic, physics, and ethics as thoroughly as possible, in the terms Kant himself employs in the Groundwork. Be sure to explain why Kant draws these distinctions (and what this has to do with the statement of purpose for the work as a whole, which Kant gives us at 4:392).

Prompt Two: The opening pages of the first section of the Groundwork begin with an account of the good will. What (on Kant’s view) constitutes the goodness of the good will? Why does he think that the good will must be the locus of moral worth? And what role does the appeal to the good will play in the argument of Groundwork I? You should say something about where Kant doesn’t think moral worth is to be found. And your answer should address the distinction between acting out of duty (aus Pflicht) and acting out of inclination (aus Neigung), with Kant’s several examples and our discussion of them in view.

Prompt Three: It was said in class that the categorical imperative of morality cannot embody any of the particular features of human action (ends, motives, circumstances, consequences, and the like). Discuss this claim as fully as you can. Keep in mind what was said in the Preface to the Groundwork concerning a priori and a posteriori knowledge, and Kant’s insistence that the moral law must be applicable everywhere and at all times (it must be, in his own words, “universal” and “necessary”).

NOVALIS

Novalis’s Faith and Love can be read as an essay in the philosophy of moral education. Write an essay that considers several of its chief claims (about the French Revolution, the exemplary status of the king and the queen, the basis of political unity in fragment 36, etc.) from this point of view (i.e., as contributions to a theory of moral education).

Writing Guidelines

Preparing to Write

The work of writing an essay in philosophy should not begin when you sit down officially to write. If you’ve been reading carefully, annotating the texts, taking notes on the readings, and getting involved in the conversations in class, you should be sufficiently prepared to begin work on the formal assignment. You should have already begun to track recurring themes, and you should have some sense, however dim, of what you might be prepared to say about the topic you find yourself moved to consider. If you are still in doubt, you should re-read the texts, take additional notes on them, and allow yourself to think at first rather freely about what you think is going on in them. I never begin the official draft of an essay until I’ve accumulated a substantial body of notes, including excerpts of important passages from the primary sources, with my own commentary, thoughts that occurred to me along the way, and an outline of what I think I’d like to consider. Once I’ve done most of the preliminary work, I try always to stay as focused as possible upon the topic at hand and the main line of argument and interpretation I intend to develop.

A Dozen Strategies for Good Writing in No Particular Order

1. Write with clarity and precision.

This is not to recommend simplifying your vocabulary or shortening your sentences in a way that mimics a storybook for children; but the words you select and the order of their arrangement should convey the thought you are trying to express as accurately and as accessibly as possible. For instance, do not say “Kantian space-time theory underwrites a strategy that problematizes the functionality of rationality and dialectically mediates self-conscious exercises of judgment” when you could have said “Kant’s theory of space and time assigns limits to human reason; and space and time themselves, which Kant calls pure intuitions, give the human mind content for the exercise of judgment.”

2. Avoid making unsupported and unexplained assertions.

Remember: A philosophical thought is only as valuable as it is explicit and supported. Do not assume that your thoughts are legitimate just because they’re yours. It is, at the very least, possible that your reader doesn’t share your view or the tacit assumptions that support your claim. You may well believe that life would be pointless without religious faith, for example. But if this conviction finds its way into a philosophical essay, you’d better take the trouble to explain what you mean and provide reasons for your belief. Of course, it isn’t possible to make all of your assumptions explicit; nor is it necessary to defend every claim. (An argument for the importance of compassion in moral theory does not need to revisit the problem of other minds.) But you should be careful to distinguish between what cries out for argument and what can be safely assumed.

3. Make specific references to texts.

Avoid vague remarks about what a philosopher thinks. For instance: “Hegel thinks that reason is a social phenomenon.” Even if this is a reasonable claim to make, by which I mean that someone could argue for it (in fact, Terry Pinkard, among others, has developed this interpretation), it is not beyond the ken of controversy. The skeptic (a perennial figure in philosophy) will probably ask herself: Does he? Where? Go back to the text and either quote directly or offer a summary of the philosopher’s argument in your own words, including a specific reference to the source from which you’ve drawn the summary, as in the following: “In the opening paragraph of section 16 of the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories, Kant maintains that the capacity to represent presupposes the possibility of becoming the self-conscious possessor of representations (Vorstellungen).” (Vide B131-2.)

4. Consider possible objections to your argument with sympathy.

Some of the best arguments in philosophy are those that take seriously and respond to possible objections. If you are writing in defense of faith as a grounding condition of value, you should consider at some length what speaks in favor of other possible sources of the weight and worth of a life and attempt to show where and how they fall short.

5. Don’t shift tense in the middle of a summary.

It is typically better to cite philosophical positions in the present tense: e.g., “In Nicomachean Ethics II.1 Aristotle argues that moral virtue does not come to be by nature.” If you are making a biographical or historical point, the past tense is appropriate: “Hegel wrote the Preface to his Phenomenology with Schelling’s ‘philosophy of identity’ in mind.”

6. Avoid unnecessary abstraction.

You may in the long run earn the right to write like Judith Butler (although I’d not advise you to choose her as a model), but for now you need to show greater empathy for your reader. Of course, philosophy is an exercise in abstraction. (German philosopher Martin Heidegger [1889-1976], for instance, asks always about the meaning of being [Sein], which some would say is the most abstract thing of all.) But there are forms of abstract writing that seem designed solely in order to protect their author from criticism, by refusing to tie down the meaning in a way that invites further discussion. For diagnoses of bad writing, and for useful examples of what to avoid, I cannot recommend too highly George Orwell’s fine essay “Politics and the English Language.” You can find a copy in A Collection of Essays, published by Mariner Books.

7. Write in complete sentences.

NO: Write in complete sentences. Not in fragments.

YES: Write in complete sentences, not in fragments.

NO: I didn’t come to class yesterday. Because the weather was just too splendid.

YES: I didn’t come to class yesterday because the weather was just too splendid.

8. Avoid run-on sentences. These are often the result of combining two independent clauses.

NO: Marx’s youthful writings reveal the influence of Hegel, his theory of alienation was central to Marx’s own early critique of capitalism.

YES: Marx’s youthful writings reveal the influence of Hegel: his theory of alienation was central to Marx’s own early critique of capitalism.

YES: Marx’s youthful writings reveal the influence of Hegel. His theory of alienation was central to Marx’s own early critique of capitalism.

9. Don’t make grand pronouncements and sweeping generalizations, even at the very beginning of your essay.

I have too often encountered statements like the following in student papers:

NO: “Since the dawn of mankind, belief in the divine has been central to human self-understanding.”

NO: “Heidegger’s ontology is the most important contribution to philosophy in the twentieth century.”

You can get away with this if you’re citing someone else.

YES: “Heidegger’s involvement in the politics of National Socialism may not be sufficient reason to neglect his philosophy. As Habermas once observed, Being and Time is the most important and influential philosophic book to have appeared since Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.”

10. Avoid misuse and confusion of terms.

The word ‘concept’ may not be synonymous with ‘idea.’ (Kant, for instance, usefully distinguishes between them in the Critique of Pure Reason.) You should write with a good dictionary handy and make liberal use of it. In philosophy, succumbing to the temptation to vary terms for purely stylistic reasons can play havoc with your argument. If you are discussing the good in Aristotle’s ethics as “that for which all things reach out,” for example, you should not shift from ‘good’ to ‘beneficial’ or ‘noble’ or ‘useful.’

The word ‘it’s’ is a contraction of ‘it is’; the possessive pronoun ‘its’ has no apostrophe.

‘Affect’ used as a verb means ‘to influence’; as a noun, it is usually synonymous with ‘emotion.’

‘Effect’ used as a verb means ‘to bring about’; as a noun, it means ‘result.’

11. State your thesis clearly and as early as possible.

Your reader should not be two or more pages into your essay and still be wondering about your topic and the position you intend to argue for in the rest of the paper. You are encouraged to work your way toward a thesis statement in a way that arouses the reader’s interest in what you have to say; but your reader should not have to work too hard to discover what your position is. This is, surprisingly, one of the most common mistakes my students make.

12. Keep track sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, what each thought has to contribute to the argument you are in the process of developing.

Re-read the day’s produce carefully at the end of the day’s labor and ask yourself whether you discern the lines of a coherent argument-in-the-making. If you find yourself straying significantly from your theme, you need to rethink what you’ve done. Don’t be afraid to scrap. One of the more important skills of a good writer is her capacity to let go of irrelevant material, no matter how difficult it might have been to bring it into being.

Some Thoughts on Dealing with a First Draft

Let your draft sit for a while. Take a break and revisit it when you’re feeling refreshed. Then revise and rewrite. Proofread for errors in punctuation, grammar, and spelling. Look for places where you need to explain yourself more fully and places where your argument could be made more concise. Read your paper aloud to detect infelicities of style. Have an honest and capable person read your paper with a critical eye. Consider sharing your work with a tutor in the Writing Center and ask for specific advice about what needs to be done to improve the essay. And feel free to discuss your work in progress with me. Although I won’t read full drafts, I’m happy to meet with you during office hours to discuss sections of your paper and to make recommendations for improvement.

	EFFECTIVE (9-10)	ADEQUATE (7.5-8.5)	STRUGGLING (6-7)	LITTLE-TO-NO SUCCESS (1-5)
POSITION	Clearly stated and maintained position; well introduced, a decisive thesis statement;	Clearly stated and maintained position; adequately introduced; a clear thesis statement	Does not develop or state position well or clearly. The position is not always clear	The position is not developed
ARGUMENT	Convincing & well supported; logical	Generally convincing & generally supported; logical	An argument is attempted, but perhaps too simple or simplified	Fails to present an argument or simply summarizes sources as a substitute for real argument
COURSE TEXTS & LECTURE MATERIAL	Used effectively to support the position; integrated smoothly and meaningfully in the service of the argument.	Most sources are used effectively to support the position; required course texts and materials used.	Uses required texts, but may misunderstand, misrepresent, summarize and/or simplify the sources. The link between the argument & sources may be weak.	Merely alludes to knowledge gained from the sources rather than citing them; misreads or misunderstands sources.
PROSE	Demonstrates an ability to control a wide range of elements of effective writing; controls language	May contain lapses in diction or syntax but is generally clear.	Immature control of writing; vague & imprecise phrasing; lapses in grammar	Consistent weakness in writing; lack of development or organization; grammatical problems; lack of control

TOTALS

SUM

1