Basic assignment: Write a 3-5 page (typed, double-spaced) paper explaining and supporting your position on some issue raised by one or more of the writers we have read (or will have read) since the last paper.
Some guidelines:
1. Your paper should contain your thoughts and opinions, not just a summary of Locke or Hume (or whoever). Tell me what you think, not just what other people have said.
2. Do, however, address the position and/or the arguments of at least one of the philosophers we have studied. Give references to the text to support your interpretation of their views.
3. Be sure that the question or issue your paper is addressing is clear and well focused.
4. Be sure that you have provided a clear statement of your position on that issue (or your answer to that question).
5.
In addition to explaining what you think,
your paper should contain reasons why you take the position you do. Your main job is to explain why a reasonable
person should agree with the opinion or position you are expressing.
6.
Include in your paper at least one statement of
an objection to your view and a reply to that objection. How might someone who disagreed with you
criticize your argument? And how can you
respond to that criticism?
7.
You are not required (or encouraged) to consult
any other sources besides those already assigned for class reading. If you do use any other sources, give them
credit for whatever you take from them: list them in a bibliography at the end
of your paper and give specific references for any ideas you have
borrowed.
Some possible topics:
1.
One or more of the positions or arguments we
studied on the problem of free will.
2.
One or more of the positions or arguments we
studied on the nature of mind.
3.
One or more of the arguments we have encountered
for or against the existence of God.
4.
Whether proof or evidence is necessary or
desirable or relevant for belief in God.
5.
Whether Phillips’ version of the Christian
doctrine of immortality is sound.
6.
Hume’s argument against believing reports of
miracles.
7.
Hume’s claim that inductive reasoning has no
rational justification.
8.
In what sense “all men (sic) are created equal”
or in what sense equality is (and/or isn’t) an important social goal or ideal.
9.
Is Hobbes right to say that people are roughly
equal in ability? Is he right to argue
that this natural equality should lead us to acknowledge equal rights?
10.
Is it helpful to think of the legitimacy of
government as arising from a social contract of some kind?
11.
Which version of social contract theory is best:
Hobbes’ or Locke’s or Rawls’?
12.
Locke’s justification of private property.
13.
Locke’s argument for limited government.
14.
Is Tawney right to say that equality of
opportunity is possible only if we have “a high degree of practical equality”?
15.
Is Hayek right to say that equality of
opportunity is impossible in a free society?