By proceeding more or less historically through the different ways that politics, law, and the common good have been conceived, we have seen how various events have impacted thought (government policies, laws, and philosophies) and how thought has impacted events. In particular, we have studied five different approaches to the common good and are now studying a sixth. These approaches are American Theistic Suarezian Natural Law, Thomistic Personalist Natural Law, Catholic Social Justice, Progressive Liberalism, Wokeism: Progressive Postmodernism, and Marxist-Leninism.
The question for your life and for your final paper is this: Which one of these philosophical approaches (if any) provides the best way forward? Answering this question requires the following steps: evaluating the pros and cons of these various political philosophies both in terms of their goals, core values, and practices (this will enable you to pick the one that you think is best and identifying the reasons why the others are inferior). Then, in your paper, argue either that one approach is better than each of the others for achieving the common good of one and all OR by constructing your own system by scavenging key ideas from each of the other systems. Finally, in your conclusion argue the relevance of your position for contemporary issues.
Justify your decision by using only course materials to prove the correctness of your decision, by including citations and quotes to prove your interpretations. This paper is a take-home final exam and not a research paper. Provide at least one quote for each approach. Use Chicago style footnotes at the bottom of the page (author, title of work. In title of anthology, editor, page #. Here is an example of a pre-midterm citation: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Bk 10, ch 7, pdf page #; here is an example of post midterm citations: Woodrow Wilson, “First Inaugural Speech.” In Documentary History of the United State, edited by Heffner. p. 323.). If you cannot supply a page number, then identify the title of the subsection and count the number of paragraphs to the quote (the idea is to make it easy for me to find the quote and be impressed with your perceptiveness). Pay attention to the word count. No brain-dumping; focus like a laser on making your case.
To help get your creative juices flowing, I’m attaching a handout briefly describing the key events and sources for each theory except for Catholic social justice which we will be working on for the next several classes. Even if you are not attracted to this approach, you will find Novak’s approach to making the case for Catholic social justice a helpful illustration of how to make a case philosophically–as our class discussions will show. Final Paper Options-2.docx
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Remember, I don’t grade opinion and so the paper earns points only by accurate analyses of course materials and by insightful arguments that are on-target and logical.
