Helpful Hints Concerning the Paper Assignment

• This paper assignment has two different but interconnected goals. 
  • The first goal is to achieve mastery in explication. Your aim in the first section -- section ( I ) -- is to develop a concise, detailed, and thorough analysis of virtue ethics as a system. Your aim here is to achieve maximum accuracy and precision in your description. You are not arguing for or against virtue ethics, you are explaining what virtue ethics is. While explaining virtue ethics to the reader you will also demonstrate your mastery of the appropriate texts -- Confucius's Analects and Aristotle's Ethics -- by citing the text where it is appropriate and then skillfully interpreting and analyzing those textual selections.  
  • The second goal is argumentative. Glaucon's suggestion to Plato is that virtue ethics (all ethics, actually) is really just a sham.  People act "virtuously" -- Glaucon argues -- simply because they know that if they do otherwise they will get punished. So, according to Glaucon no one is really ethical at all. Rather, people do what looks ethical because they have been "trained" that way through punishment and reward. In this section you will try to argue for a response to Glaucon from Confucius and yourself, and then you will analyze what your agreement or disagreement with Confucius reveals about your view of ethics as a whole. Essentially, if Glaucon is right, everyone is an egoist at heart. If he is wrong -- and virtue ethics is right -- altruism (and thus ethics) is indeed possible. Here you will make a stand either way in favor of your own personal values.  
• Write for the audience of the wide world, not just for me, yourself, your peers, or people of your own gender, race, culture, or century. Hence, be sensitive to the fact that large sectors of your audience share few if any of your values or background assumptions, and simply do not take for granted what you take for granted. Assume that your audience has read the books for the course and is open-minded, but does not (yet) agree with you on their meaning or merits. Make sure that this very diverse audience knows (1) what you are talking about, (2) why they should agree with you, or at least why they should find your view reasonable and responsible, and (3) why they should care. Writing a paper is like selling a product to a buyer. You want to convince the buyer that he/she understands the importance of the product, and wants it.
• To make yourself intelligible you will have to strive for a philosopher's clarity and precision, not those of daily discourse (the two are miles apart!). To make yourself persuasive you will have to make cogent use of textual evidence in your interpretation and argument. The requirement to argue is not a requirement to be quarrelsome, defensive, or aggressive. It is a requirement to be accountable to your audience, giving it good reasons in place of asking readers to take your word or to believe blindly. 
• Always think of yourself as a salesman pushing a product. You must show the reader that your product is (a) useful, (b) right, (c) better than the other available products. A failure to do (a) usually results in a dogmatically "argued" paper. You assume that your audience agrees with you already, and so you "preach to the choir", essentially listing a number of conclusions you think are right, but with no argumentation behind them. You must assume that your readers do not agree with you at all. No salesman assumes that his/her audience is already convinced about the usefulness of the product. Having a bad dogmatic attitude turns the reader off from your project. A failure to do (b) and (c) can take a number of directions. You fail to clearly show what the other available products claim to have to offer, or you do so in a manner which makes the other products appear entirely worthless. In addition, you do not argue for your theory or against the other theory, but rather state that yours is better than theirs is. Sell your reader -- a reader you assume to be hostile to your point of view -- on your argument.

Your abstract is your paper's "mission statement" or the "advertisement" of the paper to your prospective audience. Your abstract is essentially a concise summary that draws out the "roadmap" your paper's argument takes. Your abstract is the first thing written, and should be wholly contained on page 1. Essentially, it will look like this (the blah blah blah is the abstract):

Your Name                                                                                                                                                Pg. 1
Prof. Panza
Values Analysis, Spring 2003

"Your Title Here"

Begin the main body of the paper here.

Abstracts contain the following:

(1) A statement of your thesis. Example: "It has been argued by some -- namely Glaucon from Plato's Republic -- that a virtuous person would not remain virtuous if it were impossible for that person to get caught doing unethical things. In this essay I will argue that Glaucon is wrong -- it is difficult, but possible for a person to be virtuous even if no one would notice the ethical or unethical deeds done by that person."

So first you "set up" the paper by telling your reader what your main goal is.

(2) You tell the reader how you will accomplish the goal(s) you laid out in (1). Here you will detail your strategy for argumentation, and present that strategy in parts. For example, you can say "To accomplish this goal, I have divided this paper in two parts. Since there is no sense discussing what a virtuous person would do until we understand what it means to be a virtuous person, in section ( I ) I will examine in detail what virtue ethics is. Then, with this explanation at hand, I will turn in section ( II )...."

You get the point (hopefully). You must lay out for the reader step-by-step what your argumentative strategy is.

(3) When you are done, double space and center a " ( I ) " in the middle of the page to signal that you are ready to start section ( I ) as laid out in the abstract. Then begin section ( I ).

The paper is not due until week 7. However you must make an appointment with me in either week 5 or 6 to have a tutorial about the paper. During this time we can speak about possible ways you might want to go, or just about general things you've been thinking about with regard to the paper. 

I also highly recommend that you form study groups. These are excellent ways to talk about the arguments and see what obvious objections others might have to your position. This in invaluable when writing a philosophy paper. Most people shrug off this advice. Those that take the advice -- and treat it seriously -- often do well. Some helpful things to think about:

• By the time the first paper is due, we will have only covered two ethicists in class -- Confucius and Aristotle. So you needn't discuss any other authors. However, you may want to look at Rachels' chapters on virtue ethics and egoism. 
• In trying to understand what virtue ethics is, remember that virtue ethics is a part of a larger system of ethics called "agent ethics". How does "agent ethics" differ from "act ethics"? Find quotes in Aristotle or Confucius that seem to highlight which side of this basic distinction they are on. 
• What makes a virtue ethicist a virtue ethicist? Is it enough to do the right acts? Does the agent need the right character? The right intentions? Find quotes.
• What is character? Is character simply a conglomeration of habits? Quotes.
• Does a conformist individual have character, according to Confucius and Aristotle? 
• What are the virtues? How do they play a part? When does a habit to tell the truth become a sign of a virtuous character?    
• Find more quotes.
• If you want to use the web to help you understand something regarding virtue ethics, that's fine. But do not quote or footnote web sources (they are often unreliable, and you are not qualified at this stage to tell which sources are qualified and which are not).

Glaucon's challenge to Plato is no small one. According to Glaucon, all supposedly virtuous people would turn wicked eventually, once they were given the Ring of Gyges. To answer the challenge one way or the other you must first ask some questions about your own value system:

• what is the core of my value system? 
• Do I think an altruistic ethics is possible? 
• Do I think that everyone is really just an egoist at heart? 
• Why am I on one side or the other? What are my arguments for my side and against the other side? 
• What do you think Confucius would respond, if asked this by Glaucon? Why would he respond in that way?

Here is the proper format for a using a footnote, using as an example a small blurb from my doctoral dissertation:

Thus the brain is affected, but no mental impression is formed, and thus no subjective experience had. This view was not

uncommon in Locke's time. Descartes talks the same way, claiming that: 

Locke of course agrees, and essentially repeats Descartes' position, asking:

               
                     Like Descartes, Locke is very clear here in explicitly pointing out that in terms of the body everything is

working as it would be in cases where one was aware of the sound produced (the ‘sound', again, being...

------------------

1. Descartes, Optics, Discourse V from The Philosophical Works of Descartes , (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1967), pg. 42.

2. Locke, Essay, II. ix. 4.

Notice a few things. 

• All lines of a block quote are indented to the same degree you would indent a new paragraph. 
• Quotes that are less than two lines in length should not be block quoted. Just put them in the regular body of the paper as normal text.
• Block Quotes are single spaced, not double spaced . 
• Spacing between block quotes and the body of the text is double spaced, not triple spaced.
• The first time you quote from a work (footnote 1 in this case), type the author's name, then the book it came from in italics , then in parentheses the city the book was published in, followed by a comma, then the publishing company, followd by a comma, then the year of publication. Then after the parentheses place a comma and the page number followed by a period.
• If your next quote (immediately) is from the same work, this time simply put the author's name, the work title (in italics), and the page number.

• Only use Times New Roman font.
• Font size: 12 point.  
• Margins: one inch on every side (top, bottom, right, left). Not even 1.1 inch fonts. Don't try it -- I'll spot it.
• No independent cover page needed. Your first page should follow this example:

Mary Smith                                                                                                                                                 Pg. 1
Prof. Christopher Panza
Values Analysis, Fall 2002


"Place Your Title Here"


          Begin the body of your paper here.

• Note that there is no additional line spacing between your name, my name, and the name of the class. 
• You then skip down three lines, and type the name of your paper
• You then skip down three lines and begin your paper, starting with the proper new paragraph indentation.
• Place page numbering in the top right corner. 
• Do not name your paper "Draft #1," or "Paper on Confucius," or "Values Analysis Paper," or anything that sounds remotely similar to these. Your paper title is the first thing that catches your reader's eye. Remember you are a salespereson. Get your reader interested by first having a good title. Something acceptable could be a title like "Are Intentions Really Important in an Ethical Theory?" or "An Analysis of Ethics without Consequences". Your title should give the reader a good idea of the subject matter of the paper. Be different, interesting, and informative. "Great Moogley Boogley" is different and interesting but doesn't meet the "informative" criterion (this was used by someone once). "Paper on Confucius" is somewhat informative (it tells me the paper deals with Confucius), but it doesn't give me any other information regarding your position, not to mention being boring and typical. "Draft #1" or "Values Analysis Paper" fails all the criteria for a good title. People who title their papers "Values Analysis Paper" give off a clear impression to the reader that they didn't care about the essay . 99 times out of 100, this impression is confirmed after the paper has been read.
  

• The proper spacing between the end of one paragraph and the start of a new one is double spaced
• The paper should be a minimum of 10 pages. When I say "10 Pages" I mean that ALL ten pages of the essay must be filled with text. An unacceptable paper has a final sheet of paper with "pg. 10" in the right top corner and then a paragraph of text written below it (such a paper is 9 pages long). 
  • For every page the paper is short, your draft loses the % of text missing as a penalty. A 10 page paper that is 9 pages long starts with a full grade deduction (A-). A paper 8 pages long starts at B-, and so on. It is NOT worth it to short cut the length. There are ALWAYS areas in the paper that need more detail and/or thought. 

Let me try to be as up-front as possible about the method used for grading your papers and exams. Hopefully this will get rid of some of the inevitable "I'm not sure what you want" questions and statements. 

1. The criteria for grading has been pre-established by the Philosophy and Religion department. What this means is that the criteria for an "A", a "B" and so on are fixed by the department as a whole by agreement. So although I am in full agreement with the criteria, they are not my "personal" criteria shared by no one else.

Here are the Philosophy and Religion Department criteria:

  

To me, a "C" means average work for a sophomore level class . Please be sure to understand that "B" does not mean "average" -- it means above average. Do not expect to do average work in this class and get a "B".

Regarding (d), some students do not believe that a serious grade reduction will result for typographical/spelling/grammar errors in papers (I do not penalize for such errors in exams). It should be noted here that I interpret multiple errors of this sort as a lack of care about the assignment. Please be assured that since I care about the course and your learning, such a lack of care will not be rewarded. Although it seems inevitable that at least one or two students always end up testing me on this policy every semester, it is not worth it to do so. I will deduct for such errors. You are forewarned! 

Regarding (c). Expositions at an above "C" level must be capable of moving beyond a simple "reproduction" of the basic concepts in the literature. You must show a detailed and nuanced understanding of the material. Be prepared to write in detail about the subject. Show me that you have done more than simply taken notes in class and leisurely perused the readings. Of all the grades of "C" and below that I give out, this criteria is usually the one that students have failed to master as their expositions remain introductory and basic. 

Regarding (a). You must be capable of showing the reader (that's me) that you can skillfully use the relevant texts in your papers by using quotations where appropriate. A paper that lacks quotation at important junctures is an average or below paper. 

Criteria (a) states that your ability to write about the subject matter has moved beyond a mere introductory level analysis. 

Criteria (b) states that your essay/paper has a thesis statement/argument, and that this statement/argument is integrated throughout the whole work. In addition, your thesis/argument is logically defended/presented (this means that you must use arguments to make your points).     

• Late papers without a proper excuse (proper excuse means serious excuse, see below) will be docked a full letter grade for each late day. So a paper that is one day late now starts at the highest possible grade of "A-", a paper that is two days late is now at best a "B-", and so on. Obviously papers that are four days late or worse receive an automatic "F". 
• I will not give a longer extension when the only excuse is bad planning or simultaneous work for another course, or when it will unduly crowd up your remaining work at the end of the semester, or cause you to fall behind in the reading. Here are some acceptable excuses: 
  • A serious family emergency (I will contact your advisor for verification)  
  • A serious illness, accompanied by a doctor's note. Under the definition of "serious illness" is not "a cold," "a stomach ache", or other such everyday kinds of ills. To get an extension, you must really have a serious illness that has incapacitated you.  
  • Remember that long extensions tend to shift your workload and distress from the middle of the semester to the end of the semester. They rarely help more in the middle of the semester than they vex at the end. Even if you have an acceptable excuse, ask for an extension only as a last resort. They rarely help. 

Tutorial Penalties

• If you miss your tutorial for a draft, the draft will be docked 20%. "Missing your tutorial" means (a) you made an appointment and didn't show up and failed to contact me with anappropriate excuse, (b) you never made an appointment for a tutorial and so obviously never showed up.
• If you cannot make your tutorial appointment, you must call me or email me. You must have a good excuse. Oversleeping, forgetting, or having a stomach ache, strep throat, or a cold are not good excuses.