Vegetarian Paper

FINAL PAPER Option: VEGETARIANISM


Are we - including you - morally obligated to be a vegetarian or a vegan? Or is it morally permissible to not be a vegetarian or vegan?

Read, by philosopher John Simmons, online  "Reasonable Humans and Animals" (also, here)

Optional: try to read Singer's "All Animals Are Equal" online and in RTD. 

Watch:
Our Friends at the Farm:



Please look at these webpages:

- Vegan Outreach
- Farm Sanctuary 
- NY Times: Calling All Carnivores: Tell Us Why It’s Ethical to Eat Meat: A Contest,
the winning essay,  other notable essays.
- Animal Agriculture Alliance
-  "Intensive Animal Farming" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_animal_farming
- "Eight Arguments in Favor of Eating Meat and Objections Thereto" http://www.mesacc.edu/~davpy35701/text/meatarg.html 
 
Read: "Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper," by James Pryor.

Writing assignment: Simmons and Singer (and others) argue that YOU should be a vegetarian, or a vegan. Please write an essay where you explain his (or their) arguments (that is, their main conclusion and the premises given in favor of that conclusion), and explain and evaluate at least five arguments against their argument(s), stated in logically valid form. 

Your essay should have this structure, which you should use in your paper: your paper should have these sections explicitly in your paper:

I. Introduction
- Here you explain what you will be doing in the paper

II. Simmons' and/or Singer's Argument
- Here you explain the MAIN argument(s): their MAIN conclusions, the premises, etc. Make sure the argument is stated in logically valid form and you explain, for each premise, whether it is true or false.

III. Objections and Responses
- here you discuss at least five objections the arguments, stated in logically valid form, and responses to the objections: are the objections sound arguments or not?

V. Conclusions
- here you summarize what you did in this paper and explain what you believe you should or should not do regarding these issues and why.

No comments: