Phil
102 – The Good & the Beautiful
[
Fall 2011 ]
Assignment #1: This short paper assignment asks you to apply some of the categories and distinctions we have learned from Blackburn to several of the cases (from George's collection) already discussed in class. It imposes general guidelines but leaves specific choices of topics and cases to each student. Everyone will deliver a different product, drawing from the same body of materials.
You should approach the assignment from the direction of Blackburn, using the cases from George to exemplify the relevance, importance, or usefulness of concepts learned therein. The aim is not to describe or analyze the cases (again) for their own sake, but rather to use them to illustrate the concepts and distinctions encountered in Blackburn's text.
Along with these instructions, you will also (have) receive(d) a sheet summarizing various topics in Blackburn, including those we have covered in class. You should pick three topics (spanning at least two Parts), and then apply them to two of the cases we have covered thus far in class (i.e., the first 6 for 001, and the first 7 for 002 and 003; see the case lists for each section in BB/Assignments). For example, you could choose evolutionary theory as a 'threat' to ethics (I.4), and paternalism as a threat to freedom (under II.14), and the meaning of life (II.10), and apply them to two cases we've already discussed in class. There are various ways to 'apply' the topics. One is to use them to express or clarify the cases, or their solution. Another would be to show how the difficulty of the case rests on the unsolved theoretical problems discussed by Blackburn. The point of the exercise is not to find a particular solution, and it certainly does not anticipate a specific response from anyone. Rather, it expects students to use the theoretical machinery learned from Blackwell in order to make moral case analysis more precise and technical. If you have read Blackwell carefully and followed the class presentations, and if you have read each of thescheduled cases in George (so far) and thought about them in class discussion, then you should be generally ready to do this assignment.
Suggestion: Focus on topics in Blackburn that you found interesting, useful, troubling, or otherwise challenging, and then find two cases from among those covered thus far that may help you discuss those topics more thoroughly. You could also start with a compelling case, and then move to Blackwell in order to dissect it more adequately. In this instance, however, you should not discuss the substance of the case for its own sake (as we did in class), but use it to move on to the topics in Blackburn which are the main focus of the paper. Your discussion will do two things: (1) it will clarify the topics in Blackburn by applying them to cases, and (2) it will clarify the cases by articulating them in more formal, theoretical language. And you will become more adept in making this transition in your own moral thinking.
Begin by clarifying your chosen topics, and explain why they are important and of interest. However, you may assume that the reader (moi) is familiar with the cases, whose details need not be generally restated. Rather, focus on those aspect of the cases which are relevant to your chosen topics.
Try, also, to make the paper coherent. That is, relate the three topics to one another by showing how they may bear upon each another. For instance, evolutionary theory might be seen as a threat (also) to the meaning of life, or it might open up the possibility of different meanings, including the availability of different kinds of lives (including different sorts of pleasure). Also, it might be used either to justify or to oppose paternalism or elitism, depending on how one interprets or uses it (here is a connection to the determinism threat in Part I). Not all of the topics will lend themselves to easy associations, but the goal is to try. This is, in other words, an exercise in active thinking. It asks you not only to review and recount material that we have covered, and should understand, but to do something (intellectually) interesting with it.
Details : 4
pp. length (typed, in 1.5 spacing*) value: 15 points.
Submit in hard copy,
not as an email
attachment. Use in-text citations, especially for
quotations, such as (Blackburn, p.
27) and so on.
Due : Friday,
Sept. 30, 1 p.m. Deliver papers to my mailbox in CH 300.
( * to get 1.5
spacing, select the text, hold down
Ctrl and type ‘5’ )