Assignment Question
In this paper, you will write an essay of at least 1800 words (but no more than 2000 words) in response to the following prompts: If you teletransport to another planet, we might wonder whether the resulting person is you; that is, we might wonder whether you have really survived the process. Derek Parfit argues that identity is not really what matters when we consider our futures in such cases. He reaches this conclusion by considering fission, or “branching” cases. Explain Parfit’s argument. Do you think Parfit is right that identity is not what matters? Why/why not? A philosophy paper consists of the reasoned defense of some claim
• Your paper must offer an argument. It can’t consist in the mere report of your opinions, nor in a mere report of the opinions of the philosophers we discuss. You have to defend the claims you make.A good philosophy paper is modest and makes a small point; but it makes that point clearly and straightforwardly, and it offers good reasons in support of it. This is not a research paper; you do not need to cite sources outside of the assigned texts. You should be wary of consulting outside sources. Why?
• Many of them are very bad. Without knowledge of credible journals etc., you are likely to stumble upon some very bad philosophy.
• I don’t want to see the most interesting/sophisticated/convincing argument out there. I want to see your argument. You can (and often should) write in the first person. (e.g., “I will argue that…”)
• You should say at the very beginning (i.e. the introduction) of your paper what your thesis is, and what your main line of argument is. (No surprises!) Sophisticated, technical, or unfamiliar language is undesirable. Say what you want to say in the clearest way possible. (Philosophy is hard enough as it is!)
• Quotations are undesirable if they take the place of your explaining the material yourself. You should make the structure of your paper obvious to the reader. Your reader shouldn’t have to exert any effort to figure it out.
• How can you do this? Make it clear what sort of move you’re making at each point in your paper. Say things like: …We’ve just seen how X says that P.
• Nothing should go into your paper which does not directly address the prompt. Explain yourself fully
• pretend that your reader is lazy, stupid, and mean. He’s lazy in that he doesn’t want to figure out what your convoluted sentences are supposed to mean, and he doesn’t want to figure out what your argument is, if it’s not already obvious. He’s stupid, so you have to explain everything you say to him in simple, bite-sized pieces. And he’s mean, so he’s not going to read your paper charitably