Paper description: Pick a single topic (1)-(3), and answer both part A and part B in less than 2000 words. Answer each question as fully as possible by summarizing BOTH articles relevant to the topic. Your paper will lose points for a lack of organization (switching between ideas or questions without clear indications), lack of clarity (ambiguity or lack of sufficient detail / explanation), lack of correct content (not accurately describing a philosopher’s idea), or general omissions (failing to describe some aspect of someone’s view that is important to their position).
Part A
(1) Explain and analyze the following argument against procrastination.
(P1) An action is right if and only if it is what a virtuous person would do in the circumstances.
(P2) A virtuous person would not procrastinate.
(C) Hence, procrastination is not right.
An adequate essay will explain (P1) by summarizing relevant parts of the Hursthouse reading, and (P2) by summarizing the Baker reading.
(2) Explain and analyze the following argument against eating meat.
(P1) An action is right if and only if it would promote at least as much net happiness (over unhappiness) than any alternative open to the agent.
(P2) Eating meat does not promote at least as much net happiness (over unhappiness) than vegetarianism.
(C) Therefore, eating meat is not right.
An adequate essay will explain (P1) by summarizing relevant parts of the Bentham reading, and (P2) by summarizing the Norcross reading.
Part B
Explain why you disagree with the argument. You should explicitly criticize the specific premise you disagree with. Successfully arguing against the argument requires that you offer reasons for why you think a specific premise is false.
Additional Explanation of Assignment
You will need to clarify each premise by summarizing relevant parts of the reading for each premise. For example, with respect to (1):
(P1) An action is right if and only if it is what a virtuous person would do in the circumstances.
Explain what a virtuous person is. Give examples of character traits that a virtuous person has and how they would act in specific circumstances.
For another example, with respect to (2):
(P1) An action is right if and only if it would promote at least as much net happiness (over unhappiness) than any alternative open to the agent.
Explain what happiness is (for Bentham). Explain what it means to say this theory is value based, comparative and maximizing.
The same applies for the second premise of each argument. Here’s one example:
(P2) A virtuous person would not procrastinate.
For this premise, you should clarify some key concepts that appear to help explain the argument as a whole. For example, explain what procrastination is, and explain why a virtuous person wouldn’t do it. This explanation needs to identify a specific virtue that is relevant to doing your work on time (hint: it is not offered in the reading, use your own creativity). You also need to include something about how procrastinators lack self-control due to human emotion (and how they feel after failing to do their work), but virtuous persons possess self-control (and so do not procrastinate). Alternatively, you could explain that procrastination is a vice, and hence, a virtuous person wouldn’t do it (look at the Stoics/Epicureans)
For Part B, Explain why you disagree with the argument. You should explicitly criticize the specific premise you disagree with. Successfully arguing against the argument requires that you offer reasons for why you think a specific premise is false.
You may use counterexamples to challenge premises.
For example, if you attack (P2) of the virtue topic argument, you need to think of a case where a virtuous person WOULD procrastinate. Give an example of someone with all the positive moral traits, yet nevertheless would do what Baker describes as procrastination. Alternatively, you could attack (P1) by arguing that either (a) there are actions that are right that a virtuous person wouldn’t do or (b) there are actions that are not right that a virtuous person would do. Either (a) or (b) would suffice to challenge the truth of (P1).
Another example, if you attack (P2) of the argument against eating meat, you need to provide an argument that eating meat promotes MORE net happiness than vegetarianism. If you remember our discussion in class about eating roadkill, that might work here to refute (P2). If you attack (P1) of the argument against eating meat, you need to come up with an example where (a) an action is right but doesn’t promote at least as much net happiness as any alternatives, or (b) an action is wrong but does promote at least as much net happiness as alternatives.
Do not challenge the validity of the arguments (assume that the argument is valid). You do not need to disagree with the conclusion (e.g., that procrastination is a character flaw, eating meat is wrong, and so on) – perhaps you agree with the conclusion, but disagree about how the proponent of the argument got their conclusion.
