Philosophy Essay

Essay 1: Midterm

Parameters:

1. Papers are due in class in hard copy on Tuesday, April 10, not later. They may be printed front/back.

2. They should be roughly 1200-1450 words in length.

3. They should be double-spaced, black/white, 12 pt. type (e.g. Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri)

4. They should not be mere regurgitations of class notes. Use your own brain. “Compare and contrast really means to do just that….”

5. They should try to describe as best you can the relevant arguments, including identification of the central issue about which an argument is being formulated.

6. They should not contain BS, e.g. “Since the dawn of man…”

7. They should contain properly quoted material with exegesis of the same along with proper in-text citation, e.g. (Dworkin 13).

8. I have included on a separate page in Canvas a “rubric” for the purposes of explaining in general terms how papers are graded.

Write an essay on the following:

In On Liberty Mill writes, ““All that makes existence valuable to anyone depends upon the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people” (7).

In the Euthyphro, Socrates asks, “Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods” (Euthyphro lines 10-11)?

These statements and questions apparently represent two different ways of conceiving of moral value and its origin. Write an essay in which you carefully explain each of these views and suggest some ways in which they are similar and different.

Then complete your essay by writing on ONLY ONE of the following topics:

(a) Discuss what these conception of moral value means for the relation between morality and religion for Plato and Mill respectively. (Make sure to find and cite relevant texts.) Try to make some determination about whether or not they are correct.

OR

(b) Try to make some determination about what is more valuable in relation to happiness – individual liberty (whether or not you can do as you like) or virtue (what kind of person you are and character you have). Justify your response.