Philosophy essay

Guidelines for essays

Your essays will be assessed using two broad criteria: 1) how well you demonstrate an understanding of the central arguments relating to the question; 2) how well you argue for the thesis of your essay, including how well you handle possible criticisms of your argument.

Whenever you reproduce passages or sentences from texts substantially unchanged, the source and page number should be indicated clearly. Similarly, when you directly quote from someone, you should indicate where that quote comes from, sufficiently clearly for me to locate the page in the book or article in which it appears. Generally, keep any direct quotation to a minimum – no more than few sentences or short passages. And when paraphrasing, use your own words. That means a lot more than changing one or two words in a sentence for a supposed synonym.

Have 1) an introduction, 2) a main body, and 3) a conclusion.

The introduction is typically a paragraph where you:

i) Introduce the question – that is, you explain what the question to be about, perhaps explaining/defining any key concepts or ideas mentioned in the question (so long as it can be done very briefly, otherwise you might leave it for the main body),

ii) Clearly state the conclusion (‘thesis’) for which you will be arguing – in other words, your answer to the central question and

iii) Very briefly state how you will tackle the question. You will be expected to defend your thesis with reasons and argument (other components of the question may prompt you to explain some philosophers argument). The view that you defend is your thesis. Always have a clear thesis statement.

One way to think about the introduction is as an outline of a journey on which you are about to take the reader, including an outline of the route and, of course, the destination. Here is a sample introductory paragraph for an essay addressing the question “Is happiness all that ultimately matters in living a good or ethical life?”

“It is sometimes suggested – most notably by utilitarians such as J.S. Mill and Jeremy Bentham – that happiness is all that ultimately matters ethically. From such a view, in order to be an ethical act it must serve the goal (whether in intention or actuality) of maximising happiness. Such authors often also argue that a life without happiness would not be worth living. By contrast, in this essay I shall argue that happiness is only one of the ethical ends of a good life. In its place, I shall argue that authenticity, understood roughly along the lines discussed by prominent existentialists, such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, plays at least as significant a role to happiness in an ethical life. I shall argue for this position by detailing and developing two key examples taken from Sartre’s later existentialist writings.”

Main body: this is where you try to argue for your conclusion and where most of your marks are lost or accumulated, and will typically constitute around ¾ or more of the essay.

Conclusion: this is typically a single brief paragraph at the end where you summarise the arguments you’ve made in the main body of your essay. There should be no new arguments or points raised here – only a rounding up or summary of the arguments made in the main body.

Remember to stay focussed on the question that is put to you (not on what you might have liked the question to ask) and on arguing for your thesis. In other words, keep it all relevant to your thesis. The most common mistake is to try to cover too much ground, talk about too many philosophers, to drift off topic, or merely to fill in background. Even if what you say is interesting and/or true, the central justification for inclusion in your essay must be relevance to your thesis. Just because something is related to the subject of the question does not mean it is relevant to establishing your thesis. A useful technique to keep you on track might be this: for each paragraph ask yourself “what is this paragraph doing for my argument? – i.e., how does it help to establish the rational persuasiveness of my thesis?”. With the point of each paragraph clearly in mind, for each sentence in that paragraph, ask yourself: “how does this sentence help me fulfil the point of this paragraph?” It is much better to focussing on a single issue and going deeply into it than to cover a lot of issues rather thinly.

Strive to be clear . Clarity of expression is important in a philosophy essay because it is difficult or impossible to distinguish sloppy thinking from sloppy expression of that thinking. No matter how clear your thinking on the question at hand, you will fail to get a good mark if you fail to express those thoughts in clear English. You will not be penalised marks merely for (say) poor grammar or poor spelling (although I expect you all to run a spell-checker!) – this is not an English class. But typically, poor grammar will have a negative impact on the clarity of your argument. I highly recommend the careful use of a grammar checker.

Think about structure . A good essay will “flow”. When making a point ask yourself whether this is the best place to make that point and whether it might not be more appropriate to mention it earlier or later in the essay. At the finer level, consider whether each sentence can be swapped with the sentence before or after it without changing the sense or meaning. If it can, that is typically a clear sign that the essay lacks structure. (A shopping list, for example, lacks any structure.) There are innumerable ways to create structure and flow in an essay, but some examples include the following: “Firstly, ... secondly, ..., lastly, ...” (when you have several reasons each supporting a single point); “although”, “nevertheless”, “however” (when contrasting one point against another), “moreover”, “furthermore” when making additional points in support of a claim, and so on. The effective use of such terms communicates to the reader the argumentative relationship of what you are now saying to what has come before.

Related to this is the requirement to be perfectly clear why you are telling your reader what you are telling them. For example, it should be clear to the reader whether what you are now saying is intended to support your first point, raise an objection to your second point, counter an objection to your conclusion, constitute your final conclusion, and so on. One useful question to ask of each paragraph is: will it be clear to the reader what the point of this paragraph is?

Ultimately, you want to provide us with some good reasons to think your thesis is correct. It is a good idea to think about and demonstrate awareness of potential criticisms of your argument, but remember to address them (preferably by giving us reason to think that the criticism fails to undermine your argument). Remember, good philosophy reasons very carefully.

In general, arguments are constructed through the use of initial claims (premises) and inferences from those claims to other claims (conclusions or intermediate-conclusions which themselves may function as premises for a further conclusion). To be a good (“sound”) argument any initial claims should be plausibly true and accurate. The more doubtful or controversial or questionable are the basic claims, the less rationally persuasive will be your argument. Additionally, a good argument will also require that you make only reliable inferences, so think especially carefully about your sentences that justify claims on the grounds of other claims – sentences that use logical linking words such as “therefore”, “thus”, “since”, “if … then …”, “consequently”, “because”, “hence”, and so on. Ask yourself: could a reasonable person accept your basic claim(s) and yet still reject the conclusion(s) that you draw from those claim(s)? If so, then it is probably a dubious inference that you draw and will not help your argument.

Originality is encouraged and shows that you’ve thought about the issues for yourself, so long as you can present a good argument for your position. An insightful, original, and to the point example to illustrate your argument will often impress more than a précis summary of a chapter of a book.

Avoid purely rhetorical questions . Any questions raised in your essay should be addressed, or else rephrased as a claim if that’s what they really amount to. For example, if you mean to say that “no one knows whether there is a god”, say that, rather than “who knows whether there is a god?” Unless raising a question helps you to defend your thesis, it really should be omitted. If a question deserves to be asked then it deserves to be answered.

Don't use dictionaries to try to do philosophy . It’s often tempting to suppose that in a philosophical or conceptual enquiry about some important concept, we can just go to a dictionary to find out what the word means. This won't work for several reasons. Firstly, dictionaries essentially simply describe how ordinary speakers of a language use words, regardless of whether that usage is technically accurate and precise, or confused and contradictory. Secondly, dictionaries will often define words in terms of synonyms whose meaning is no more clear (or perhaps even less clear) than the word defined. Thirdly, words often have several meanings or senses, and it is all too easy to pick a sense that is inappropriate to the philosophical issue. Most importantly, philosophy is centrally concerned with questioning (though not necessarily ultimately rejecting) the everyday presuppositions that are implicit in how we ordinarily use words. Simply turning to a dictionary to do philosophy will reproduce those presuppositions uncritically, defeating the whole purpose of doing philosophy. For example, suppose we wanted to decide whether non-human animals, such as dolphins or chickens, should count as “persons” with moral rights. Many dictionaries define “person” simply as “human being”. This is correct inasmuch as many or perhaps most speakers of English will treat these two terms as roughly equivalent. This may be because most humans uncritically presuppose that human beings have a distinctive or superior moral status when compared to non-humans. But to rely on this linguistic fact about English speakers as a basis for denying non-humans the status of “persons” completely begs the critical question of whether non-human animals should count as persons in the moral sense of that term.