You you may use at most one additional source other than lectures and their slides and your textbook. If you do choose to use an outside source, be sure to cite your source, just as you do when you use the course texts. If you use a quotation or an example from a website, cite the website’s url and the date accessed.
⁞ Prompt
Choose one prompt from Topic A or Topic B and one prompt from Topic C or Topic D. Include your answers in the same document, so be sure give them their own titles. To answer each topic completely, it takes a minimum of 400 words (so a minimum of 800 words in total). Use the topic questions and the scoring rubric to see if your draft responds fully to all parts of the question. A complete thoughtful answer is more important than word count.
⁞ Topics A, B
Topic A:
Suppose you have an opportunity to either: (1) send $800 to Africa to save a dozen people from starvation or (2) give the money to your little sister to buy books for college (assume that you have a little sister in college). Which would you do? (3-4 paragraphs).
Begin by describing the scenario. You have the money and you want to do somethign morally good with it, but you can’t send it to Africa and give it to your little sister – you can only choose one.
Then identify which option you think is the morally correct choice. Use one or two moral theories to explain why this option is a morally good way to spend your money.
Then explain why the other option is not as morally good of a way to spend your money, according to the theories we’ve disussed. Would it stil have been a goog thing to do, just not as good? Or is the other option not even worthwhile? Why?
Finally, identify a moral theory we’ve discussed that tells you to make the other choice. Why was your choice wrong, according to that theory. Alternatively, if you think every theory tells you to make the choice that you did, explain why.
Topic B:
In this essay, you will identify a major obstacle to being a good person and speculate how to overcome it. (3-4 paragraphs).
First, identify what you think is one of the biggest obstacles to being a good person in today’s society. How and why does it prevent people from being morally better? Give an example of why our society is worse off, morally speaking, because of this phenomenon.
Then, explain how our moral theories would describe the obstacle as a bad thing. Is it a bad thing according to all the theories we’ve discussed, or only specific theories?
Finally, explain what you think someone can do to be a good person in spite of this obstacles and/or what you think needs to change to remove this obstacle from our society.
⁞ Topics C, D
Topic C:
Read “The Ethics of Care as Moral Theory” by Virginia Held (starting on page 209). Write a short, objective summary of which summarizes the main ideas being put forward by the author in this selection. (3-4 paragraphs).
Topic D:
Read “The Need for More than Justice” by Annette C. Baier (starting on page 188). Write a short, objective summary of which summarizes the main ideas being put forward by the author in this selection. (3-4 paragraphs).
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