Philosophy Etichs Essay

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Dear Class, Below, you will find your final writing assignment of the semester. In response to the prompt, you are to compose an essay of no less than 1500 words—or, roughly, six full pages, double spaced, size 12 Times New Roman font, standard margins—and no more than 2,500 words (roughly ten full pages), due no later than midnight (via ecampus) on Sunday, May 10th. Late assignments will not be accepted without previous arrangements having been made prior to the deadline, and, as the syllabus clearly states, you must turn in all assignments in order to be eligible to pass the class. Your response must be thorough and well-written, with references to the text; to that end, I invite you to visit the ‘Course Materials’ tab in ecampus for resources that provide greater clarity regarding my expectations for what constitutes a strong paper, as well as the standards according to which I will evaluate your essay. I encourage you to consult secondary sources, but be sure to cite them to a fault; if I catch a whiff of plagiarism, then you automatically fail the assignment and are subject to further disciplinary actions by the Dean of the School of Humanities, Fine and Performing Arts. Prompt Question The primary purpose of this assignment is to determine how well you can wed text to context (or, in this case, podtext). The final half of our semester found us delving into the deepest of ethical depths through a sustained engagement with the most incandescent of all ethical luminaries, each of whose unique shine further brightens the path of moral understanding and development as thus far traversed by the Western tradition. Meanwhile, you have been immersed in a very complicated, very concrete situation that has yet to find its resolution: the Bowe Bergdahl case. Your final essay, then, asks you to do one of two things: First, you may select a common ethical theme(s) (such as duty, self-interest, moral relativism, moral objectivity, sentiment, justice, utility, or freedom, etc.) as articulated by one or more philosophers, clearly define the terms, and identify various examples or counterexamples thereof as they crop up throughout Serial: Season 2. Your list need not be extensive, but those examples that one does cite must be fleshed out in a rich and logical fashion. Secondly, you have the option to select one unifying thread in Serial: Season 2, trace it throughout the story, and analyze it using the terms and overall philosophy of one or more of the thinkers we have covered. For example, you may choose to focus on the decisions made by the US government and who, if any thinker, would consider them just/unjust and why; mine Bergdahl’s own account of his life-story up to the present versus the account provided by others and determine if he exhibited any particular virtues; Bergdahl’s justification of his decision versus the US Army’s justification to try him, which is to ask, did he do what he had to do out of a duty to his fellow troops vs. a duty to his country or some inborn inclination towards benevolent action guiding him? Is podcast host/investigative journalist Sarah Koenig fair or ethical throughout her narration, and, if so or not so, according to whom (again, which major thinkers)? To be sure, these are merely questions to inspire you and not a list of questions that you are required to address in its totality

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In crafting your response, you are required to draw from at least three of the primary- source articles covered in class that are contained in ‘Part One: Fundamental Questions’ of Beauchamp’s Philosophical Ethics; these include articles by the following six authors: R. Dworkin; G.J. Warnock; J.L Mackie; Brandt; MacIntyre; and Gauthier. You are, of course, encouraged to draw from more than just three articles; similarly, you are certainly welcome to draw from Beauchamp’s own commentary when designing your argument, yet citing Beauchamp does not count as one of the requisite primary sources. To be sure, this is NOT an assignment that invites you to write freely on your individual opinion as though it were a ‘personal reflection’ or a ‘journal entry’ assignment. Rather, the nature of the assignment compels you to engage the course text in an extremely detailed fashion; failing to do so will result in a poor grade. *Finally, this essay prompt, like most assignments in the discipline of philosophy, compels one to engage in introspection and, in many ways, could help one come to a fuller awareness, or realization, of who one is and why; to that end, I invite you to be sincere, thoughtful, and bold in this rather unique academic undertaking - I look forward to your response!