Group One:
• Platonic/Socratic Ethics
• Moral Relativism and Objectivism
Here are some of the potential prompts for you to choose from for the essay on Plato's moral arguments--remember that this is one of three possible topics for submission to "group 1" of your required essays--you must write either on this topic or write on relativism. If you want to write on Plato, you need only meet the deadline for this paper (1/27). If you miss it, then you will have to write on relativism.
As stated before, the goal of a philosophy paper is in some way "argumentative" and as a result the prompts are looking for you to develop an argument to defend some claim about Plato's ethics.
If there is any topic at all that you are particularly interested in writing on that deals with Plato's ethics I am again quite open to letting you develop your own prompt. I only ask that you speak to me about it first. This will be due Wednesday, 1/27 and must be submitted via Canvas. Canvas seems to prefer either word or pdf formats--if you use other systems you might consider converting to a pdf. Remember that if you do not turn it in by that deadline then you cannot write on this topic. The sort of qualities I will be looking for when grading include (1) clarity of writing, (2) accuracy of your statements and thoroughness of the explanations and (3) the reasonableness of your arguments.
- Criticize that argument; or show that certain arguments for the thesis are
no good
- Defend the argument or thesis against someone else's criticism Offer reasons to believe the thesis Offer counter-examples to the thesis
- Contrast the strengths and weaknesses of two opposing views about the
thesis
- Give examples which help explain the thesis, or which help to make the
thesis more plausible
- Argue that certain philosophers are committed to the thesis by their other
- views, though they do not come out and explicitly endorse the thesis
- Discuss what consequences the thesis would have, if it were true