Wednesday, November 24, 2010

lots of stuff: abortion, poverty, animals

First, recall that you have a paper on abortion arguments due next Wed. The assignment is on the blog and was sent out via email. Here is an (old) Powerpoint you might find interesting and relevant to that:

http://nathannobis.com/papers/abortion-talk.ppt

Second, we too briefly discussed Peter Singer's argument regarding poverty. The Powerpoint on that is here:
http://nathannobis.com/papers/famine.ppt

Here is a worksheet with some objections discussed in the Powerpoint:
http://philosophy302.blogspot.com/2007/04/worksheet-on-objections-to-singer.html


Second, Monday an argument for vegetarianism was presented in class. This argument is discussed in this short 3 page article online:

"Reasonable Humans and Animals," John Simmons:
http://sites.google.com/site/aphilosopher/veg.pdf

Thursday, November 18, 2010

For Friday, please have read "The Singer Solution to World Poverty."

Hi,
I have three requests:
1) Would anyone mind if the deadline for paper 3 were extended until, say, Wednesday after Thanksgiving? That's the last day of class. Unless anyone objects, I move that the deadline be changed, for a number of reasons.
2) Please be to class ON TIME.
3) If you would, for tomorrow, review the syllabus, I would appreciate that. I would like you to do something of a survey on the syl.: http://philosophy302.blogspot.com/2010/08/fall-2010-syllabus.html
and
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B97NLmtzSgh_NDZjNDEyNTUtNmRhZC00ZDJmLWFiNzMtMWZhY2ZjODYxNjgy&hl
Thanks

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

As mentioned in class today, there is no class with Dr. Nobis this Friday. See your blogs and email for the assignments you should be working on, and for what we'll do Monday. Thanks.

Paper 3

Ethics Paper 3

Due by Monday, November 22, in class and via the Turnitin system

In this paper you should state, in logically valid premise-conclusion format, at least five arguments for the conclusion that abortion is wrong (or all or most abortions are wrong, or abortion is prima facie wrong) and then carefully explain, for each of these arguments, whether it is sound or not and why.

These arguments should be arguments that you believe are the most important or common or influential or challenging arguments. All of these arguments should be ones we discussed in class and at least three of them should be ones presented and discussed in our readings (Warren, Marquis, Thompson).

You need not argue for a general thesis about abortion: you only need to argue for a thesis concerning these arguments.

Your paper should be clearly written and well-organized. Please re-read your paper on how to write a philosophy paper. This paper gives you the opportunity to show that you have mastered the methods of moral argument analysis that we have been practicing in this class.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

As was mentioned in class, the due date on the Thompson OPS was extended to tomorrow, Wed, at class time and not later. We will discuss her article tomorrow, Wed.

Thursday, November 04, 2010

For Monday, an for Monday, OPS of Judith Thompson on abortion is due, online and in class.

Warren and Marquis have already been assigned and were already due, of course.

Some people have already done Thompson, even though she was not assigned.