You are to write 2000 word argumentative/philosophical essay on a topic from the first part of the course. You can write on a prompt from below, or you can write on a topic of your own choosing, as long as it relates closely to the material we have covered in the unit.
The word count includes footnotes, but excludes your bibliography.
You can use any standard referencing style you like as long as you are consistent, and you use the style correctly. I recommend using a bibliography manager to insert references and generate your bibliography. If you can’t decide which style to use, I recommend The Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition).
A good 2000 word philosophy essay will typically cite 4 or 5 academic sources. We prefer quality of engagement with sources over quantity. Do not feel pressure to cite sources you are not carefully engaging with. You do not have to cite or engage with the required readings, although these are often obvious places to start.
Topic: The Value of Liberty
Why should we care about individual liberty? What is its value? Where should we draw the line between what people should be free to do without interference, and what people can be prevented from doing by the use of coercion?
Why might freedom of speech matter? What are its limits?
Is liberty intrinsically valuable, or is it valuable merely as a means to something else of value, like flourishing or autonomy?
What is the distinction between positive and negative liberty? Is the distinction a stable one? Which kind of liberty should we care about?
Writing a Philosophical Essay
The main challenge you will face in writing your essays is understanding the expectations we have for a philosophical essay on the topic. One thing that this means is that we expect you to engage in the project of argument construction, reconstruction, and evaluation in your essay. This is a necessary condition for a good philosophical essay. But it is not a sufficient condition.
Another thing that this means is that we expect you to engage with philosophical arguments on the topic. What is a philosophical argument? Well, you will be exposed to many philosophical arguments in the readings. This should give you an idea, by way of example, of what we mean by a philosophical argument.
Another way to explain what we mean is this: most of the arguments we will examine, in one way or another, concern the central normative or evaluative concepts of political philosophy: legitimacy, justice, liberty, equality, and democracy. A philosophical argument in this context will engage in some way or another with these concepts. For example, arguments around the ethics of markets in particular goods might focus on the way some markets undermine a particular kind of equality among citizens. Such arguments will require both a defence of the importance of some conception of equality, and of the claim that markets in a particular good undermine that kind of equality.
