“Racism and Health Care: A Medical Ethics Issue,” Annette Dula, from A Companion to African-American Philosophy (Blackwell, 2003).http://aphilosopher.googlepages.com/dula.pdf

Current reading: Katie McShane, “Environmental Ethics: An Overview,” from Philosophy Compass: http://goo.gl/tZHil

New Email Group

All students, please sign up for this email group; please ignore the widget to the right about signing up for an email group: it will soon be removed!

http://groups.google.com/group/morehouse-bioethics-2011

 

Paper on Regan and Cohen (and potentially other authors) on whether any animals have (any) moral rights and/or whether animal experimentation is morally permissible.

Draft due Friday, Nov. 5: please bring 3 copies of your paper or email it by 9 AM so Professor Nobis can print it out for you.

Assignment: Regan argues that (some) animals have moral rights and that animal experimentation is morally wrong. Cohen (and others) argue that animals do not have moral rights and that animal experimentation is morally permissible.

Your task in this paper is to explain their arguments here and discern whose, if anyone’s, arguments are sound or more likely to be sound. This, of course, will involve explaining what the various thinkers mean when they make claims, such as those about rights.

Your paper must, of course, have an introduction. The introduction should explain what the paper will do. The introduction must culminate in a thesis.

Your paper should be well organized. Sections should have headings.

It should be clear and understandable, written for someone who has not read Regan or Cohen.

Your paper should have a conclusion.

Concerns about your paper that is due Monday in class; we will then finish up discussion of Warren. Friday a complete introduction and outline for a body and conclusion on a paper about her article is due.

1.       Does your paper have an introductory paragraph?

2.       Does you introduction explain what you are going to do in the paper?

3.       Does your introductory paragraph culminate in a clear thesis, the conclusion that you will argue for?

4.       Do you explain all relevant arguments by Beckwith, in adequate detail?

a.       Arguments are always arguments for some conclusion, i.e., reasons given for some conclusion. So, do you explain:

                                                               i.      His argument that abortion is wrong?

                                                             ii.      His argument that Boonin’s argument is unsound, or Boonin’s position is false.?

                                                            iii.      Any other relevant arguments?

5.       Do you explain whether these various arguments are sound or not, i.e., whether Beckwith gives good reason to believe what he thinks we should believe?

6.       Is your paper well organized?

a.       Does each paragraph focus on only one topic?

b.      Could your paper be outlined to exhibit its structure?

c.       Does your paper have section headings to make the structure clear?

7.       Is your paper clearly written?

a.       Do you make your claims in the simplest, most concise manners possible?

b.      Are your sentences grammatically correct?

c.       Are there spelling errors?

8.       Would someone who was not familiar with the Beckwith article be able to understand your paper?

a.       Do you assume things that this reader would not understand?

9.       Does your paper have a concluding paragraph, that sums up what you have done in your paper?

10.   Did your paper go through multiple drafts and revisions, to improve it? Did you take advantage of reviewers’ comments?

 

http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/reading.html

Guidelines on Reading Philosophy

---

It will be difficult for you to make sense of some of the articles we'll be reading. This is partly because they discuss abstract ideas that you're not accustomed to thinking about. They may also use technical vocabulary which is new to you. Sometimes it won't be obvious what the overall argument of the paper is supposed to be. The prose may be complicated, and you may need to pick the article apart sentence by sentence. Here are some tips to make the process easier and more effective.

Contents

• Skim the Article to Find its Conclusion and Get a Sense of its Structure
• Go Back and Read the Article Carefully
• Evaluate the Author's Arguments

Things to do for Bioethics:

1. Email Dr. Nobis the most recent draft of your Beckwith paper by 5 PM Sunday: nathan.nobis@gmail.com

2. Monday will be writing consult with Dr. Nobis and peer review day.

3. For Monday, also bring a list of characteristics of a good philosophy paper, developed from the Pryor article, Nobis's tips and any other guidelines on how to write a philosophy paper found online (or anywhere else): http://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+write+a+philosophy+paper&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a The purpose of this list is to evaluate your own paper in terms of whether it meets the requirements for a philosophy paper.

4. Wednesday, we will move onto the Mary Anne Warren article, "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion." Copies of this were handout out Friday but it can also be found online via Google:
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/warren_article.html  
Your writing assignment is to write something where you (a) identify the parts of her article, i.e., the overall structure and (b) identify the arguments of her article.