Final Exam

Just a reminder: the final exam is Monday, December 19th, in our normal classroom at noon. You'll have 50 minutes to take it.

Term Paper Guideline

Due Date: The beginning of class on Friday, December 16th, 2011

Worth: 15% of your final grade

Assignment: Write an argumentative essay on the topic below. Papers must be typed,
and must be between 600-1200 words long. Provide a word count on the first page of the paper. (Most programs like Microsoft Word have automatic word counts.)

Topic: Explain and defend your definition of person as it relates to morality, and
specifically to the ethics of abortion, stem-cell research, impaired infants, and animal research.

(1) First, briefly explain and critically evaluate the different definitions of “person” that we have discussed in class. Be sure to consider each definition offered by Mary Anne Warren, Insoo Hyun, Gerard Magill and William Neaves, Tristram Engelhardt, John Robertson, and Carl Cohen.

(2) Second, explain how each of the following authors uses the concept of “person” to attempt to settle the particular ethical debate she or he wrote about (Warren and Don Marquis on abortion; Hyun and Magill & Neaves on stem-cell research; Engelhardt and Robertson on impaired infants; and Peter Singer and Cohen on animal research).
[NOTE: Some of these authors think personhood is irrelevant to their issue.]

(3) Third, explain and defend your own definition of “person”: do you agree with one of these authors’ definitions, or do you have one of your own?

(4) Fourth, explain the solution your definition of “person” gives to the ethics of abortion, stem-cell research, impaired infants, and animal research.

When considering your definition of person, be sure to consider and answer the following questions: Which living entities are persons, and which living entities are not persons? Do you believe one needs to be a person in the moral sense in order to be worthy of moral consideration (for instance, do some non-persons have a right to not be killed and a right to not suffer unnecessarily)? Do persons have special moral significance? Can someone have moral rights before they have moral duties? Be sure to fully explain and philosophically defend each of your answers.

Quiz #2

We're having another quiz! Quiz #2 is worth 10% of your overall grade, and will be held at the beginning of class on Monday, November 28th. You'll have about 25 minutes to complete it. It will consist of about 6 short answer questions, and will be on everything we've covered since the test:

• abortion (Warren and Marquis articles)
• stem cells (Hyun and Magill & Neaves articles)
• prenatal screening (McMahan and Davis articles)
• cloning (Kass and Strong articles)
• homosexual parenting (Hanscombe article)
• impaired infants (Engelhardt and Robertson articles)
• euthanasia (Callahan, Rachels, and Nesbitt articles)

10/26 Class Canceled

I'm sick, so Wednesday's class is canceled. This confuses a few things logistically, so here are the changes:

• Group #1 should be prepared to present their consensus session on Friday, October 28th.
• Group #2 should be prepared to present their consensus session on Monday, October 31st. 
• Other groups should be prepared to present on their originally scheduled dates.

Consensus Email Tips

I'd like to clarify something. In the email your group sends me a week before your consensus session presentation, I only want two things:

1. A formal premise/conclusion version of the main argument in your article.
2. Your group's systematic evaluation of this argument (check each premise and the argument's structure).

That's it! Furthermore, this is basically what I expect you to do in your group presentation: present and explain the main argument in the article, and lead a class-wide evaluation of this article using the thumbs-up/thumbs-down voting system.

In other words, I don't expect your group to give a general presentation on your topic. There's no need to go into a detailed explanation of the topic, or explain the science behind your issue, or whatever. Nor do I want you to make up your own argument for what you believe on the issue.

I just want you to present the author's argument as you understand it. I don't care whether you like or dislike this argument; your job is to (fairly) explain it to the rest of the class. If you dislike the arg, you can mention reasons why when you lead the class-wide evaluation of it.

So here's an example of the type of email I expect:

To: slandis@camdencc.edu, other members of your group
Sent: at least 1 week before our presentation
Subject: Ethics Group #1's Argument

Our Version of Mary Anne Warren's Argument
P1) A fetus is at best a potential person.
P2) A full-fledged person’s rights always outweigh a potential person’s rights.
P3) A pregnant woman’s right to have an abortion outweighs a fetus’s right to life.
C) Abortion is morally acceptable.

Our Evaluation of Her Argument
P1: we buy her definition of 'person,' but others might not...
P2: questionable! While persons' rights IN GENERAL might be more important than non-persons' rights, it's not clear this is ALWAYS true.
P3: this is supported by P2. We actually buy this, but not for the reason that Warren does. Her arg for this isn't the best.
Structure: good!

That's it! It doesn't have to be a long email. Just give me the argument and your evaluation of it.

Consensus Session Guidelines

During the 2nd half of the semester we’ll be holding group presentations on specific issues we’ll be discussing in class. Your group’s assignment is to figure out the main argument from a specific article, then present that argument to your classmates in class and lead a discussion about whether the argument is good or bad. More specific directions are below:

Preparing for the Consensus Session
First, your group’s job is to understand and evaluate the argument contained in the readings for your issue.

Understand
1. Figure out the argument in your assigned article, and summarize it in a clear premise/conclusion format.
NOTE: Try to keep the argument concise and easy to understand.

Evaluate
2. Evaluate the argument as a group. Check each premise, and check the argument’s support.
3. When evaluating, play the back & forth game. That is, consider as many responses to the argument and your criticisms of it as you can think of. Is the argument misguided? Mistaken? Can you revise the argument to overcome the criticisms you come up with?
4. Try to reach a group-wide consensus on your evaluation of the argument.
NOTE: It doesn’t matter which side you end up on! The goal isn’t to show there’s something wrong about the argument. Nor do I want you to defend the argument no matter what. The goal is to figure out whether it’s good or bad.

Your group must email me (1) your version of the argument and (2) your group's evaluation of it one week before you’re scheduled to lead a session. I will provide helpful feedback, and make sure you’re on the right track.

Running the Consensus Session
During your consensus session, your group’s job is to present your article’s argument to the rest of the class, and lead a class-wide consensus session on each argument. Each group member should present about the same amount.

Presenting the Argument
1. Explain the main point of the reading.
2. Explain the author’s argument in support of this main point. (Explain it slowly and clearly, like you’re teaching it to the class. Explain what each premise means in easy-to-understand language. Point out exactly where each premise came from in the reading. Explain why the author believes each premise is true.)
3. Hold a small question and answer round with the class to explain and clarify the argument before evaluating it.

Consensus Voting
4. Run a consensus session (a thumbs up/thumbs down vote) with the rest of class where you evaluate the first premise of the argument.
5. Call on students to explain their evaluation (especially those who voted thumbs down or in the middle).
6. Go back & forth with every dissenter with the goal of trying to reach a consensus (complete agreement for the whole class). At this point, you can briefly explain your group’s evaluation of the premise, along with why your group evaluated it the way you did.
7. Based on the class-wide discussion, revise, defend, or clarify the argument as needed. Revote on any revisions.
8. Repeat steps 4 through 7 to evaluate each remaining premise and the argument’s support.

Test You Once, Shame on Me

Just a reminder: Test #1 is Friday, October 14th. It's worth 15% of your overall grade, and will cover everything we've done in class so far:

• Doing Philosophy
• Understanding and Evaluating Arguments
• Utilitarianism
• Kant's Ethics
• W.D. Ross's Ethics
• Natural Law Theory
• Virtue Ethics
• Ethics of Care

You should be capable of briefly explaining each theory in your own words and briefly explaining one or two criticisms of each theory that we discussed in class.  You also should be able to explain how to use each theory in ethical decision making--that is, explain what each theory would say we should do in some specific ethical dilemma outlined on the test.

The test is a mix of short-answer questions, argument evaluations, and essays. You'll have all 50 minutes of class to take it. We'll be reviewing for it in class on Wednesday.

Group Presentations

Here are the groups for your consensus session presentations, along with the date of each presentation, the due date of your email, and the article your group is assigned to:

Embyronic Stem Cells
-Group 1 on October 26th (email due October 19th): Hyan article – pages 316-319: Christopher, Dana, Kendal, Megan
-Group 2 on October 28th (email due October 21st): Magill & Neaves article – pages 319-323: Brittney, Danny, Gabi, Phi

Genetic Control
-Group 3 on November 2nd (email due October 26th): Davis article – pages 285-294: Lakeisha, Melissa, Sangsu, Shanice

Cloning
-Group 4 on November 4th (email due October 28th): Kass article – pages 401-406: Alyssa, Avery, Eric, Potsy
-Group 5 on November 7th (email due October 31st): Strong article – pages 406-411: no one

Homosexual Parenthood
-Group 6 on November 9th (email due November 2nd): Hanscombe article – pages 406-409: Hannah, Leigh, Rhea, Robyn

Impaired Infants
-Group 7 on November 14th (email due November 7th): Engelhardt article – pages 543-548: no one

Euthanasia
-Group 8 on November 18th (email due November 11th): Callahan article – pages 596-600: Kelly, Marissa, Nick S., Tamara
-Group 9 on November 21st (email due November 14th): Rachels article – pages 585-589: Andrea, Ashley, Kim, Shana

Animal Research
-Group 10 on November 30th (email due November 23rd): Cohen article – pages 203-209: Greg, Joe, Lauren, Nick D., Tiffany

Race and Gender
-Group 11 on December 5th (email due November 28th): Dula article – pages 798-894: no one

The Economics of Health Care
-Group 12 on December 9th (email due December 2nd): Daniels article – pages 713-716: Becky, Lorraine, Mark, Pinky

If your name isn't on this list, please let me know as soon as possible so we can figure out what group you're in.

Evaluating Arguments

Here are the answers to the handout on evaluating arguments that we did as group work in class.

1) All bats are mammals.
All mamammals live on earth.
All bats live on earth.

P1- true
P2- true
support- good
overall- good

2) All email forwards are annoying.
Some email forwards are false.
Some annoying things are false.

P1- questionable ("annoying" is subjective)
P2- true
structure- good (the premises establish that some email forwards are both annoying and false; so some annoying things [those forwards] are false)
overall - bad (bad first premise)

3) All males in this class are humans.
All females in this class are humans.
All males in this class are females.

P1- true
P2- true
support- bad (the premises only tell us that males and females both belong to the humans group; we don't know enough about the relationship between males and females from this)
overall- bad (bad support)

4) No humans are amphibians.
All frogs are amphibians.
No frogs are humans.

P1- true
P2- true
structure-  good (the premises say that frogs belong to a group that humans can't belong to, so it follows that no frogs are humans)
overall- good

5) All bats are mammals.
All bats have wings.
All mammals have wings.

P1- true
P2- true (if interpreted to mean "All bats are the sorts of creatures who have wings.") or false (if interpreted to mean "Each and every living bat has wings," since some bats are born without wings)
support- bad (we don't know anything about the relationship between mammals and winged creatures just from the fact that bats belong to each group)
overall- bad (bad support)

6) Some dads have beards.
All bearded people are mean.
Some dads are mean.

P1- true
P2- questionable ("mean" is subjective)
support- good (if all the people with beards were mean, then the dads with beards would be mean, so some dads would be mean)
overall- bad (bad 2nd premise)

7) Oprah Winfrey is a person.
Some people ate tacos yesterday.
Oprah Winfrey ate tacos yesterday.

P1- true
P2- true (you might not have directly seen anyone eat tacos, but you have a lot of indirect evidence... with all the Taco Bells, Don Pablos, etc., surely lots of people ate tacos yesterday)
support- bad (the 2nd premise only says some ate tacos; Oprah could be one of the  people who didn't)
overall- bad (bad support)

8) All students in here are mammals.
All humans are mammals.
All students in here are humans.

P1- true
P2- true
structure- bad (the premises only tell us that students and humans both belong to the mammals group; we don't know enough about the relationship between students and humans from this; for instance, what if a dog were a student in our class?)
overall- bad (bad structure)

9) All hornets are wasps.
All wasps are insects.
All insects are scary.
All hornets are scary.

P1- true!
P2- true
P3- questionable ("scary" is subjective)
structure- good (same structure as in argument #1, just with an extra premise)
overall- bad (bad 3rd premise)

10) If Sean sings, then students cringe.
Sean is singing right now.
Students are cringing right now.

P1- questionable (since you haven't heard me sing, you don't know whether it's true or false)
P2- false
structure- good
overall- bad (bad premises)

11) If Sean sings, then students cringe.
Sean isn't singing right now.
Students aren't cringing right now.

P1- questionable (again, you don't know)
P2- true
structure- bad (from premise 1, we only know what happens when Sean is singing, not when he isn't singing; students could cringe for a different reason)
overall- bad (bad 1st premise and structure)

12) All students in here are humans.
Most humans are shorter than 7 feet tall.
Most students in here are shorter than 7 feet tall. 

P1- true
P2- true!
support- so-so (the premises state a strong statistical generalization over a large population, and the conclusion claims that this generalization holds for a much smaller portion of that population; while it could be true that the humans in here are a statistical anomaly, given the strength of the generalization, it's likely that most students in here are, in fact, shorter than 7 feet tall)
overall- so-so (not perfect, since the support isn't perfect, but pretty good)

13) (from Stephen Colbert)
Bush was either a great prez or the greatest prez.
Bush wasn’t the greatest prez.
Bush was a great prez.

P1- questionable ("great" is subjective)
P2- questionable ("great" is subjective)
support- good (it's either A or B; it's not A; so it's B)
overall- bad (bad premises)

14) If Sean sings, then students cringe.
Students are cringing right now.
Sean is singing right now.

P1- questionable (again, you don't know)
P2- false
structure- bad (from premise 1, we only know that Sean singing is one way to guarantee that students cringe; just because they're cringing doesn't mean Sean's the one who caused it; again, students could cringe for a different reason)
overall- bad (bad premises and structure)

15) If Sean sings, then students cringe.
Students aren't cringing right now.
Sean isn't singing right now. 

P1- questionable (again, you don't know)
P2- true
structure- good 
overall- bad (bad 1st premise)

16) If there is no God, then life is meaningless.
Life isn't meaningless.
There is a God.

P1- questionable (that's not an obvious claim to prove or disprove)
P2- questionable (again, that's not an obvious claim to prove or disprove)
support- good (the same structure as argument #13)
overall- bad (bad premises)

Quiz #1

Just a reminder that our first quiz will be held at the beginning of class on Wednesday, September 15th. It's worth 50 points (5% of your overall grade), and will be on understanding and evaluating arguments. The quiz will look a lot like the extra credit handout (on understanding arguments) from last week, and the group work handout (on evaluating arguments) from Monday.