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PHI208: WEEK ONE ASSIGNMENT GUIDANCE

WEEK ONE ASSIGNMENT GUIDANCE

The Purpose of This Paper

• This assignment, along with the Week Three Assignment, is intended to prepare you to write the Final Paper.

• This is not intended to be an essay, but an exercise.

• The five components of the exercise involve important skills to practice in order to be able to write the kind of

coherent, well-composed philosophical essay that you will write in later papers.

Specifying the Question

Essays that address ethical issues are typically most coherent and focused when they are oriented toward answering a

specific ethical question. The answer will be your “position” (in the Final Paper we’re going to call this the “thesis”), and

the main body of the essay seeks to explain and justify how your position represents the best answer to the question. So

it’s crucial to have a well-formulated, relevant, and focused ethical question to start with.

The list below identifies the general topic areas from which you are to decide on and formulate the specific moral question

that will guide your essays, and suggests some sub-topics. It will be impossible to examine broad topics in the final paper,

and so you will need to narrow down the topic as much as you possibly can. Do not attempt to address all of these

topics.

Once you have decided on a topic that interests you, think of the controversies and debates, the difficult choices and

dilemmas, etc., that surround this topic. Consider some very specific problem, and formulate that as a focused, concrete

question. The more narrowly-focused the question, the better your paper will be.

Be sure your chosen question is itself an ethical question. An ethical question concerns what is right or wrong, what we

ought or ought not to do, what kinds of things are good or bad, honest or dishonest, courageous or cowardly, generous or

selfish, etc.

Ethical questions should be distinguished from questions of psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, etc. If you are

unsure, please consult your instructor.

Example 1

PHI208: WEEK ONE ASSIGNMENT GUIDANCE Suppose you were interested in the topic of bioethics, and more specifically the topic of abortion (please note: this is not a

topic that is available to you to consider, since we aren’t addressing it in class).

Overly-vague or broad questions that you would want to avoid might include:

• Is abortion moral?

• Should a woman obtain an abortion?

• Should abortions be outlawed?

Better, more-focused questions might include:

• Should abortions be allowed in certain cases, such as when the mother’s life is at risk or when a pregnancy is the

result of rape or incest, but not in other cases?

• Should a women have a right to an abortion if we recognize the fetus as a person?

• Is restricting abortion rights an unjust restriction on a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices?

Example 2

Suppose you were interested in the topic of criminal justice, and more specifically the topic of capital punishment (please

note: this is not a topic that is available to you to consider, since we aren’t addressing it in class).

Overly-vague or broad questions that you would want to avoid might include:

• Is the death penalty moral?

• Should we execute people?

Better, more-focused questions might include:

• Should we execute people convicted of first-degree murder?

• Should we execute convicted murders that have mental disabilities?

• Is it just to use capital punishment when there is the possibility of executing innocent persons?

• Is the capital punishment system racist?

In order to hone your thesis to something that is manageable you will need to do research and become familiar with the

topic of interest, trying to focus on a specific sub-topic within it.

PHI208: WEEK ONE ASSIGNMENT GUIDANCE Constructing an Introduction

Be sure to take special note of where the instructions say that the introduction should remain neutral. It is very easy to

want to start “defending” one’s position in the introduction, or to frame the issues in a way that biases one side over

another. You want to avoid this. Instead, stay focused in establishing the issue in a way that is as objective and unbiased

as possible, so that the reader will have a clear sense of how you are framing the topic.

Providing a Position Statement

Aim to have a clear, concise statement of your position that provides a clear answer to the question with which you

started. You may end up having to reformulate your opening question to align with the position statement.

The position statement shouldn't simply be a “yes” or “no” on the question, but should be more precise formulation of a

position. For example, on the examples question on abortion provided above, a position statement might be, “Abortions

should only be permitted when the life of the mother is threatened by continuing the pregnancy, or when she is the victim

of rape or incest, since any other reason would unjustly violate a fetus’s right to life.” or “A woman has a fundamental

right to determine for herself whether or not to continue a pregnancy, no matter the circumstances.”

Supporting and Opposing Reasons

One way to approach this is to imagine yourself in friendly conversation with someone that doesn’t necessarily agree with

your position (perhaps they disagree, or perhaps they are undecided). When you state your position, they might ask why

you think that. They might also raise a problem with your position, a reason to doubt that your position is the strongest

one. These are the kinds of things you will try to briefly articulate.

Remember that we can recognize good reasons why our view might be called into question while still believing that our

view is strongest overall. Or we might be able to appreciate worries, dilemmas, doubts, and so on, that make the issue

complex. The ability to honestly and thoughtfully acknowledge these kinds of reasons is a very important part of ethical

reasoning, and a crucial part of the kind of defense of a position that you will undertake in later papers.

The questions you can ask when trying to identify and express reasons for and against your position might include:

• What values are at stake in this question?

• Who is affected by various possible actions or policies?

• What features of individual human life are brought to bear on this question?

• What features of social life are brought to bear on this question?

• What common moral standards might be at risk in different answers to this question?

PHI208: WEEK ONE ASSIGNMENT GUIDANCE

• What other considerations would have to be addressed when formulating and defending a position on this

question?

Checklist

This checklist can help you ensure that you have completed all of the assignment instructions.

Make sure that you

 Narrow the topic to something specific.

 Formulate a specific ethical question, and place it at the top of the paper.

 Provide a brief introduction to the topic, and label it “Introduction.”

 Provide a statement of the position you believe is strongest, and label it “Position Statement.”

 Identify and explain a reason that supports the position, and label it “Supporting Reason.”

 Identify and explain a reason that opposes or challenges the position, and label it “Opposing Reason.”

 Include a title page and list of references (if necessary).

 Proofread carefully for mechanical and grammatical errors.

 Format the assignment in APA style.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.