skills in Philosophy
INSTRUCTIONS: Articulating complex ideas and applying them to practical contemporary problems are essential skills in Philosophy. In this course, you will post three short Case Studies. These papers are a required part of the course. You can find the specific subject paper topics in each of the modules on the assignments page. Read the assigned pages in our text for the philosopher for this case, the section from the primary work for which there is a link provided on the syllabus, and the case I′ve assigned for each philosopher from the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics National Ethics Bowl Competition Cases for 2020, and then answer the five questions in the Case Study assignment. The completed assignment should be approximately 1000 words, not counting your end-notes. Please follow the assigned format as exemplified at the end of this document. Each answer should be separated, numbered and of proportionate length to the number of points possible. This study is worth a total of 60 points. Please take note of the different point value for each question and draft your responses accordingly. Use correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. The papers must be completed by the due dates specified on the assignment itself and also specified in the Course Calendar and on the syllabus. You may develop your response by typing directly into the Canvas rich content editor window or you may upload your paper from a Word Doc or Google Doc on your computer. I found that writing the assignment in Word, then uploading it when complete was the easiest way to do end-note citations. When you have finished entering your answer click on the “Submit” button. Once submitted you cannot go back and change your response. The Canvas Doc Team (Links to an external site.) offers detailed instructions for submitting papers online. General Suggestions for Writing Case Study Papers I. Focus & Relevance Be sure that you understand the assignment and have understood each question. Your responses should be focused on the questions I’ve asked & not the questions you wish I had asked! It is important to weed out all irrelevant considerations or concerns that an economist or historian or political scientist might have but are not strictly speaking, ethical concerns. Look at the completed sample case study for some ideas. II. Format Each response should be numbered and separated with headings following the format of the assignment. Please do not re-type the entire prompt. Example: First Philosopher′s Name Second Philosopher′s Name Conclusion (your position on the case). III. Tone/Voice Ever since George Carlin pointed out that “using your own words” would result in a private and hence meaningless expression, I’ve had to give up on the phrase. However a certain degree of originality is still important. Your task is to explain a concept as if you were the Teaching Assistant for this class. If you simply repeat the text or my lecture, you haven’t helped your imaginary student. You need to clarify the argument/concept in a way that demonstrates that you really understand it and can express the same ideas in a way that is different than has already been explained by the text or by me. IV. Adequate and Balanced Defense of Your Argument In question one and two, you are asked to make an argument using the philosophers we’re studying. You should be clear in your thesis in the first sentence of the first paragraph of each section (and your own thesis should be in the first sentence of section #3). It is important to ensure that your application is consistent with the philosopher’s theory and that you support that application with a well-thought-out defense. Your analysis should reflect a degree of familiarity with not only the philosophical theory but also the key facts of the issue gleaned from a number of reputable sources. You should include counter-considerations that are relevant to that theory and could impact the philosopher’s conclusions. V. Quotes & End-Note Citations All direct quotes, references, data, and close paraphrases should be cited properly using standard MLA format. All citations should be presented as end-notes, not footnotes, not works cited and definitely not as a bibliography with no actual citations. Quoting is a way of supporting your interpretation of an argument or theory and is critical to a scholarly endeavor. Relevance to your response and to the question asked is critical. Quotes can be edited to shorten them but be careful not to take the quote out of context, thus altering the intent of the author. The length and number of quotes must be appropriate to the length of the assignment; short papers require shorter and perhaps fewer quotes. Most of the quotes on the philosophers should be from primary sources – i.e. should come from the original author’s works, and not from the secondary commentary of the author of our text nor from my lectures, nor my power points. If the quote was found in our text, they need only be cited with the page number of our text where it was found (see sample completed assignment). However, quotes from all other sources must be fully and completely cited. You should not use quotes that I’ve already used in my lectures or power-point slides! No quotes should come from sources such wiki-quotes, intelli-quotes, brainy-quotes, Mill-quotes, Kant-quotes, etc. as these are insufficiently scholarly and often include misquotes. All close paraphrases and every piece of data/factual reference should also be cited though not necessarily encapsulated in quotation marks. I believe that end-notes are easier to make in Word, then upload the document to Canvas, though end-notes can be done in Google Docs or manually using the rich content editor in Canvas. An additional really valuable use of end-notes is moving the actual data, or a discussion or definition which would be a distraction in the body of the text to the end of the paper. This way the reader is provided with the relevant information but the flow of the argument presented is not interrupted. VI. Length Part of the criteria for success is effective use of the space allowed. If you write just 600 words for a 1000 word assignment, you have not satisfied this criterion. However, this is not an invitation to use the additional space for stream-of-consciousness or irrelevant information not pertinent to the assigned issue. If you are having difficulties with the length, it is usually because you have not recognized or developed sufficiently the various issues involved. Conversely, if your draft is too long, you need to whittle it down to just the relevant essentials, perhaps editing out the anecdotes or redundancies; more is not always better! I am very willing to help if you submit drafts sufficiently before the due date. VII. Rough Drafts I have invited all of you to bring rough drafts of your completed assignment in for a preview reading. I do not offer re-writes after I have graded your papers. I support pro-active measures that encourage preparation and thought and with rough draft readings, both the student and I should benefit with the end result being a better final draft. [unique_solution]Rough drafts are brought in during my office hours or by appointment and I only read them in person – with the student present. Please do not submit rough drafts electronically nor should you drop them off in my box. Please do not submit your rough draft in Canvas as once you′ve hit the ″Submit″ button it is being submitted for grading and the system will not allow further editing. Your rough drafts must be brought in at least two days prior to the due date. Please note! Before you begin with this assignment, please carefully and thoroughly read the ″Detailed Instructions and Rubrics for Papers″ provided for this assignment as a page in the module! The case selected from the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) National Ethics Bowl Competition Cases for 2020, which is the context for this assignment, is included below. Once you have read the instructions, the case from the APPE, and the reading assignments for Mill indicated in the syllabus, you should develop your response to the following prompts. This assignment is worth 60 points and should be approximately 1000 words, not including your end-notes. Only those submissions following the assigned format as described in the detailed instructions and rubrics will be graded. THE CASE: THE WAR, ON DRUGS. Because of budget cuts, the US military deploys fewer fighter and bomber aircraft at air bases outside the United States. Therefore, when the US Air Force performs missions in war zones on the other side of the globe, its pilots and crew members are often required to sign waivers and accept “go pills” — amphetamines or Modafinil—in order to ward off the effects of fatigue during missions that can take up to twenty hours or more. If a pilot were to refuse the pills, it could mean being removed from the mission and endangering his or her military career. When US military personnel were being prepared to launch the 2003 Iraq War, they were given a drug prophylactically to protect them from suspected chemical and biological weapons. The drug, however, was not approved for that purpose. When there were objections to forcing service members’ submission to this experimental inoculation, Congress decided that the President alone had the authority to order them to take it. On the other hand, special-forces units, looking for performance enhancements, have actively sought drugs to give them a battlefield advantage. Research by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has funded research into drugs and nutritional supplements that can reportedly help Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, and other elite units must go for days without sleeping or eating yet stay mentally sharp. DARPA is also funding research into possible genetic modification to enhance the survivability of war fighters. If any of these programs were to exist in the civilian medical world, serious ethical restraints would be applied to ensure the morally appropriate application of scientific research. The US Department of Defense, however, operates within its own ethical sphere where gaining enhanced performance from its soldiers through drugs and other means is seen as a good thing. War is not a sport. When lives may be saved and battles won it is felt that the potential benefits outweigh the risks. PAPER PROMPTS: Briefly explain Baron d’Holbach’s concept of hard determinism. How would Baron d’Holbach respond to this case? Does it make sense to claim that the US military personnel freely choose these drugs? Briefly defend your answer. Be very specific about the relevant causes that might be operant on their behavior in this case. (25 Points) Briefly explain Jean Paul Sartre’s concept of freedom of the will. Include in your explanation why, even if determinism is true, we’re still radically free. How would Sartre respond to this case? Does it make sense to claim that the US military personnel freely choose these drugs? Briefly defend your answer. Be sure to address Sartre′s probable response to those causal factors identified in your response to the first question. (25 Points) With which of these two philosophers do you find yourself most inclined to agree? Briefly defend your answer. (10 Points)