For your second short philosophical papers (about 4-6 pages double-spaced) you will address one of the questions we have discussed in the past few weeks. While it is important to show familiarity with the issues covered in class, you do not need to address everything that we discussed. The primary purpose of these papers is to practice philosophical reasoning to work through an issue.
Your short paper should include:
1) An introduction with an argumentative THESIS statement that is as specific as possible. In this paper, you are arguing for a specific answer to the questions.
2) You will present two points of view and the reasons why a person might support both views. You will be graded on your ability to present arguments from two different points of view.
Suppose you decide to answer the following question:” what is virtue theory?” DO NOT just describe what virtues are and who came up with the idea. Instead, you need to explore at least two arguments related to virtue theory. If you are not sure what two perspectives to pick, you can also present arguments for and against the question: one side that says virtues are true because and one side that says virtues are false because
3) After presenting at least two points of view, you will DEFEND the point of view that you think is strongest/ most correct and then show how/why it is stronger than the other point of view.
4) Finally, you will add a conclusion, reworking your thesis statement, and showing why this question is essential.
Your final paper will be graded as follows:
__/ 10 Articulates and Answers Question [Is it clear what philosophical question your paper is answering?]
__/10 Introduction and Conclusion [Can any reader tell what is your thesis? Do your introduction and conclusion fit in well with the rest of your paper?]
__/20 Quality of Argument [How well do you present the argument for your point? Do you take your reader through your argument so that they do not get lost?]
__/20 Rebuttal [How well do you respond to (at least one) of the cons mentioned for the position you are arguing for?]
__/20 Quality of ideas [How creative is your position? Is it obvious that you spent more than 5 mins thinking about this issue?]
__/10 Organization and Clarity [How easy is your paper to follow? Do you answer all of the readers questions?]
__/10 Editing and formatting [Does it look like you read over your paper? How many grammatical/ spelling or editing errors are obvious?]
Details: about 4-6 pages double-spaced, 12-point font. Please use a professional font, such as Times, Arial, or Cambria. 1-inch margins. Please cite any source that you reference, both primary as well as the textbook. Upload your paper as a .doc or .pdf to Blackboard. (Each day it is late I will subtract five points from your overall score.)
