An analysis of a contemporary philosophical theories in education.
Weighting: 40%
Length and/or format: written piece, 1000-1200 words
Purpose: The purpose of this task is to provide you with the opportunity to think for yourself about the goods that education might deliver, to help you understand a variety of philosophical theories, to assist you to learn to write analytically and critically, and to help you to develop your own autonomous response to philosophical questions.
Learning outcomes assessed: LO1, LO2, LO3
Overview: You will write a paper that develops exactly one response to the argument from Brighouse, the argument from Nussbaum, or the argument from Schouten. Your response must have the structure described on pages 2–3 of the task sheet, which you can find by clicking the ‘next’ button at the bottom of this page two times. Your response will be one reason for rejecting one premise of the argument that’s also a reason for rejecting the conclusion. Your paper needs to be between 1000 and 1200 words. Your paper is required to have the format described in the extended task sheet — you cannot depart from that format.
Brighouse
The only way for some people to live well is for them to have the ability to evaluate alternative good ways of life.
The ability to evaluate alternative good ways of life requires being well informed about alternatives and being able rationally to compare them.
Mandatory education is necessary if all citizens are able to be well informed about alternatives and be able rationally to compare them.
Just governments give their citizens what they require to live well.
Conclusion: being able to evaluate alternative good ways of life is important enough by itself for just governments to mandate education.
You will reject this conclusion by identifying a reason why being able to evaluate alternative good ways of life is not important enough by itself. You can argue that it’s not important at all, or you can argue that it’s only important enough to justify mandatory education in combination with something else, or you can argue that just governments don’t need to mandate education.
Below is Brighthouses Argument Paper and the marking Rubric
