Writing a philosophy paper calls for exercising a different ‘skill set’ than writing a paper for other academic disciplines. Writing a philosophy paper in the area of ethics is an even more demanding task because doing so entails that you exercise not only the general skills of careful and logical thinking but that you take into account the normative implications of your writing. In other words, I know when I am engaged in or dealing with ethics when I am confronted with the question of “How should I act….” or “How ought I to proceed…;.” and “What must I do that is most appropriate as a response to this situation or this person?” This is what is called responsibility.
Your assignment:
Write seven to eight (7-8) pages, double-spaced paper with one-inch margins that provides your personal response to an ethical issue in your own life. ( I chose Responding to Injustice in a professional context. My personal experience is working at a pizzeria and my female co-worker was harassed and hit on by our boss. I chose Hegel’s ethicality and Levinas’ Ethics as First Philosophy.) This will entail that you first briefly describe the issue at hand or that occurred and that calls for or called for an ‘ethical decision’ on your part. Give two or three reasons why you think that it is or was ethical according to what we have studied in this class. Your task is, secondly, use the philosophical positions (the ‘ethical’ positions) of two philosophers as guides to compare how you should make your decision or to evaluate how you actually made your decision. The third part of the paper consists in your adopting (or rejecting) one or both of those ‘guides’ with respect to the decision that you will make or that you have already made.
Your essay should have an identifiable introduction and conclusion, a clearly stated thesis, a body that develops that thesis, and the inclusion of at least six direct quotes from the book that we are using for the course for each philosopher that you use. That means that you have to use at least six direct quotes from thebook (three from Levinas and three from Hegel). Cite the book and the page number for each quote (Marino, xxx).
You will be graded on three general rubrics:
1. The originality and insightfulness of your thesis
2. To what extent you addressed the assigned topic
3. The quality and form of your writing, syntax and semantics