Michael Green   Manuel Vargas   phone, office information Additional Reading on Abortion Additional Reading on Euthanasia Additional Reading on Rationing Euthanasia   Assisted suicide in general   Oregon guide for physician-assisted suicide   Physician-assisted suicide in Oregon   Physician-assisted suicide survey, NYT, April 1998   Physician-assisted suicide survey, WP, April 1998   Timothy Quill Rationing   Criteria for rationing organs   Prisoners' organs for sale		Medical Ethics: Additional information on moral philosophy What distinguishes philosophy from other disciplines? Philosophers analyze arguments. That's the great secret to writing a philosophy paper: you should take it primarily as an exercise in evaluating arguments. So, for example, you should pay special attention the relationship between a conclusion and its premises. This doesn't mean that philosophers are indifferent to such matters as the truth of the premises (or the conclusion, for that matter). A logically valid argument based on wildly false premises isn't very interesting. But it does mean that philosophers will pay a great deal of attention to the internal workings of an argument. Good philosophy does at least one of these two things: 1. Show that a complicated issue can be broken into simple parts. 2. Show that an issue that seems simple is actually complicated. Moral philosophy Moral philosophy concerns the consistency and defensibility of our moral beliefs, that is, beliefs about what is morally right and wrong. Standard, commonsense, moral beliefs are the raw material of moral philsophy. Typically, we find that things we're inclined to believe about morality are confused or require refinement. If you asked me if I believed that killing was wrong, I'd say yes. What about killing in self-defense? Well, that's OK, so killing can't be wrong per se ... and so on. Moral philosophy analyzes arguments about morality for the purpose of understanding morality better. How do I do it? Practice. Compare class materials with the original texts. Listen intently to class discussions. Make arguments in class. Force yourself to have an opinion before coming to class. Try to imagine what someone who disagrees with you might say. Every now and then, give up your opinion when you face a good objection. For the purposes of practicing, what the opinion is isn't as important as working through the arguments. In your papers, do the following, when appropriate: 1. Answer the question, the exact question. Be creative in answering the question, not in coming up with a new one on your own. Why? Well, that's the question I asked. It would be strange to answer a different one. "I'll have a ham on rye" is not an appropriate answer to "How was your weekend?" Seriously, though, remember that a philosopher's first love is argument. Answering exactly the question asked shows that you understand the importance of working through precisely what follows from a question worded like the one you were given. 2. Warning: not all questions are created equal. Compare: "what does author A say about point P?" with "what, in your opinion, is the correct answer?" Which one offers you the greater opportunity to say something creative and impress the person reading the paper? Allocate your attention accordingly. 3. Break the problem down. What are the steps you have to take to complete the assignment? (Hint: look at the questions). When you take them, how will each be related to the others? Ask yourself this before you start and after you've finished (many papers change in the middle of the writing process -- make sure that all the changes you made are consistent with one another). 4. Pay special attention to the relationship between premises and conclusions. Does the conclusion follow from the premises? What if it doesn't? Could anything be changed so the conclusion would follow? Would the conclusion follow if we added new premises? Dropped old ones? Added false premises? 5. Show an appreciation of what an opponent might say. Raise objections to your own position. Imagine ways for your opponent to evade your objections. Answer them. This shows that you see the strength of the other side's position, but can still defend your own. 6. Don't be afraid of a subtle conclusion. We have a natural tendency to try to see all considerations as favoring one side in a dispute as opposed to the other. But sometimes one side is right about one thing and the other side is right about something else. 7. Take a position. Would someone know where you stand on anything after reading your paper? 8. Give an argument for it. We can't always give conclusive proofs for our conclusions. But it's always better to explain why you reached the conclusion that you did than just stating that it's your conclusion, even if you don't have a killer proof in its favor. 9. Enjoy your safety within the paper's confines. Don't worry that you can't address the whole tradition of western thought on the matter of X. We're analyzing arguments here. On matter X, does conclusion C follow from premises A and B? 10. Ask questions. Feeling confused? Don't fully understand how the arguments work, what the readings say? You've already paid two highly qualified teachers to address just these concerns. You'd ask your piano teacher how to play a scale, right? 11. Have fun. I mean that. Everyone likes arguing about something, so, you must enjoy arguments. Try to enjoy these too. This page was originally posted on 5/12/98; 11:46:27 AM and was last built on 5/12/98; 11:46:32 AM with BBEdit and Frontier 5 on a Macintosh running System 8.0.