As mentioned in the syllabus, the paper is due on Friday, April 17. The paper should be 10-15 pages in length (double-spaced, twelve-point type, one-inch margins, . . .).

Evaluation

I will be looking above all for three things:

1. Argument. It is not enough to make autobiographical comments about what views you prefer to others, or to construct an aesthetically pleasing theory: you need to explain why your views are plausible; that is, you need to support them with critical argument. The paper should have a thesis or main point, and the body of the paper should be devoted to explaining and defending this point. It is easier to attack a position than to defend one, and a primarily critical paper is perfectly acceptable – e.g. the main point of your paper might be that Boyd's version of moral realism won't work, or that Anscombe's attack on modern moral philosophy misses the mark. If you want to develop and defend a positive view, it is more difficult (but just as important!) to provide arguments for the view. In either case, your paper should include a consideration of, and responses to, possible objections to your view. A very good way to decide which objections to consider is to think of essays you have read which take a different position from yours, and ask yourself, "how might the author respond to my arguments?"

2. Thoughtful, reflective, and critical use of philosophical literature on your topic. The paper must make some use of class readings, and should use them in a way that shows you have understood them well enough to apply them to an issue that interests you. The paper should also include some discussion of outside reading you have done on your topic. A good way of locating recent discussions of your topic is to consult the Philosopher’s Index, available in the library. If you find a particularly good essay and want to see what other essays have cited it, the Humanities Citation Index can be very useful. Web searches can sometimes turn up interesting material, but be wary of things you find in this way – there’s no peer review process for most web publications! They range from very sophisticated and sometimes technical discussions (e.g. the book of Peter Unger's which is linked from Lawrence Hinman's Ethics Updates site), to confused, aimless, and ill-informed meanderings (I won’t list examples here!). When you cite ideas or passages from the reading or from other sources, it is very important to give page references and complete bibliographical information. Format does not matter--you can use footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical references with a bibliography -- but it is vital that I know where to look to find the relevant quotation or idea.

Probably the best strategy with respect to the philosophical literature is to focus in on a fairly specific topic, do a literature search, read a fair amount of material fairly quickly to get a sense for the lay of the land, and then settle on a very limited number of readings for careful study and detailed discussion in your paper. At this last stage, one or two essays is plenty; trying to write about too much material will simply leave you unable to say anything very detailed or interesting.

Note that this is not a research paper. In particular, your aim is not to survey what other people have said on your topic, but to use their writings to help you arrive at your own conclusions. It is never appropriate to cite philosophical essays as authorities. What I mean by this is that the fact that philosopher X or Y says something should never be offered as a reason to believe it. (Some people have believed that utilitarianism can be modified in such a way as to meet potential counterexamples. But Thomas Nagel says it can't. So there.) The fact that a particular author defends a particular view is of no interest whatsoever; what is potentially interesting is how the author defends the view. What arguments does he or she offer? Can these arguments stand up to criticism?

3. Clarity of presentation. Clarity is important in any kind of writing, but especially in philosophy: if you don't say exactly what you mean I may not be able to figure out what you had in mind. So I would like for you to write carefully and to organize the paper very explicitly. (For example: if you say that something is "true by definition," you need to state precisely what definition you have in mind, and explain carefully how the proposition in question follows from this definition. If you argue that time can be analyzed in terms of relations between objects, you need to specify precisely what relations you mean and how the analysis would go. If you say that a certain view is "contradictory," explain carefully what contradiction it leads to and how. More generally, if you say that a particular view is "absurd" or "ludicrous" or "crazy" – terms which it might be better to avoid, actually -- explain carefully what absurd consequences it has and how those consequences follow from the view. That a view strikes you as crazy is not an argument! You need to convince the reader that it should strike him or her as crazy too.) Avoid vague generalities – or at least follow them up with more precise and detailed points and arguments.

Remarks on writing the paper

1. If you are to write a good paper, you will need to write at least two drafts. You probably have your own strategies for writing papers, but here is one approach: study the class reading and other material you have found on your topic and begin to gather your thoughts about it. Then, for the first draft, just sit down and start writing; you will find ideas coming to you as you write. The second time outline the paper carefully in advance and then write a polished draft. In your final draft, pay careful attention to such mechanical matters as sentence structure and spelling.

2. You should be aware of the University policy on academic integrity. Copying an entire paper of course is plagiarism--but so is copying or closely paraphrasing a single sentence. If someone else makes a point in a particularly elegant or entertaining way it is all right to make use of their words, but only if you enclose them in quotation marks and give a complete reference indicating where they came from. If I discover that a paper has been plagiarized in whole or part, I must, according to University policy, either give the paper a failing grade; reduce the course grade by one full letter grade; or give the student a failing grade in the course. I must then notify the student in writing, and send copies of this notification to my chairman, the Dean of Humanities and Arts, and the Vice President for Academic Affairs. (Details of the academic integrity policy are the first item in the Student Handbook. Note that the policy also spells out a procedure for appealing such an action on the part of a professor.)