Overview
The following assignment is an exercise designed to help you write your Final Paper. In this exercise, you will do the following:
Identify a topic of interest from the list, and narrow it down to a particular, concrete ethical problem or question.
Provide an introduction in which you briefly explain the topic and the particular question on which you will focus your paper.
Explain three ethically significant issues pertaining to this question that would need to be considered when addressing it.
Use the Thesis Generator in the Ashford Writing Center to construct a thesis statement that articulates your position on the topic as you have defined it.
Topics and Questions
Just War/Military Ethics
• What are some circumstances that would make a war just or unjust?
• What are some controversial reasons nations have gone to war, contemplated going to war, or refrained from going to war? Were they justified?
• Are there ways of conducting a war that should be defended as just or opposed as unjust?
• Thinking of some specific technology such as drone weapons, nuclear weapons, or chemical and biological weapons, is its use justified? When would it not be justified?
• Consider various methods of war such as carpet bombing, targeting of civilians or intentionally killing non-combatants, using human shields, the use of blockades, sanctions, and other means of preventing basic good from reaching the enemy civilians. When would one of these be justified or unjustified?
• Are there forms of treatment of suspected enemy combatants, such as torture, imprisonment without trial, warrantless surveillance, etc., that should never be done? Why or why not?
• Is it justified to violate the normal rights of one's own citizens to ensure the safety of the country?
• What kinds of virtues do persons in the military need?
• What sorts of behavior might those virtues require?
• What sorts of behavior would be contrary to those virtues?
• Are there times when a soldier's virtues and/or duties may conflict?
• How should a soldier act in such circumstances?
• Should a soldier disobey an immoral or unjust command?
• What policies should the military have in place to respond to such conflicts?
Gender and Equality
• What does it mean to say that women and men are equal? What does it not mean?
• Are there ways in which women and men are treated differently that are unjust?
• Are there ways in which women and men are treated differently that are just?
• Are there social structures, cultural trends (such as in media or advertising), or other aspects of our society that convey and sustain gender inequality?
• What should our response to them be as individuals?
• What should our response to them be as a society?
• Are there certain religious or cultural beliefs or practices that convey and sustain gender inequalities?
• What should our response to them be as individuals?
• What should our response to them be as a society?
Relativism and Multiculturalism
• What should our response be to behavior in other cultures that are disturbing or seem morally wrong?
• What are examples of behaviors that might pose a strong challenge to cultural relativism?
• What are examples of behaviors that might pose a strong challenge to absolutism or universalism?
• Are there behaviors that should be regarded as obligatory or prohibited regardless of time, place, culture, or any other contingent circumstance?
• Should people be held responsible for immoral behavior when most of their community or culture also behaves that way?
Responsibility to Animals
• What does it mean to respect non-human animals in the way we as individuals live our lives?
• How should we weigh human needs and/or desires against those of non-human animals?
• What kinds of behaviors would that involve?
• What kinds of behaviors would that exclude?
• Is eating consuming meat and/or other animal products (dairy, eggs, leather, etc.) ethical?
• Is it ethical to harm or kill animals for purposes such as scientific research?
• Why do we treat some animals as pets, or even members of the family, and others simply as resources? Is there a moral justification for this distinction?
• Do we as individuals have moral obligations toward non-human animals when our own behavior has very little direct effect on the overall state of things?
• Does a government have an obligation to care for non-human animals as well as its human citizens?
• How should the answer to this question affect political policy?
Responsibility to the Environment
• What does it mean to respect the environment in the way we as individuals live our lives?
• What kinds of behaviors would that involve?
• What kinds of behaviors would that exclude?
• Do we as individuals have moral obligations toward the environment when our own behavior has very little direct effect on the overall state of things? (Consider the products we buy and use, the cars we drive, the energy we consume, etc.)
• How should we weigh human needs and/or desires against environmental impact?
• Does a government have an obligation to care for its natural resources as well as its human citizens?
• How should the answer to this question affect political policy?
End of Life Medical Issues
• Do people have a right to end their lives whenever they choose to?
• Can people be mistaken about whether their life has value and ought to be ended?
• Does the answer to this question affect the answer to the first question?
• Can we set polices that determine in each case what the value of a human life is and when it should or should not be ended?
• Does the answer to this question affect the answer to the first question?
• Does it make a difference whether a person's life is ended by an act of active killing, or whether it is simply allowed to expire?
• Does it make a difference whether the agent (i.e., the person causing the death), in either case, is the person himself or herself or someone else (such as a doctor)?
• Is there a limit to the amount of resources we should allocate toward the preservation of a life in the face of limited resources for other healthcare needs?
• Considering lives that are on the brink of death, under what circumstances (if any) would it be ethically wrong to prolong that life?
• Under what circumstances (if any) would it be ethically required to prolong that life?
• Under what circumstances (if any) would it be ethically required to end that life?