Contemporary Ethics/philosophy

Choose a topic of your preference for your final paper. While you may write your paper on any topic related to our world (a philosophical or non-philosophical topic, for instance), you must utilize (and/or cite) the material addressed and discussed in our classes throughout the semester. For example, if you choose to talk about social injustice and discrimination (sexism, racism, white privilege) or about Moral Relativism, there is a lot of material concerning these topics among our readings (McIntosh, Du Bois, Nussbaum, de Beauvoir, Midgley). Therefore, you will have to use at least one of our class readings (Course Content) to write your paper whatever your position may be.

Your paper should be 3-5 pages long (1,250 1,500 words, double-spaced) in .pdf format and it will be evaluated on structure (especially clarity of thesis and path statements), and appropriate, critical, informative use of independent research. If you want, you can submit a draft of your paper to me so that I can evaluate it and suggest points for improvement. The paper must include references and a bibliography formatted using a professional style (MLA, Chicago, APA). The deadline to turn in your paper is August 13th by 11:59 PM and you can send it to me via email or Brightspace.

Your paper should also incorporate research that extends beyond the boundaries of the material in our syllabus and you should utilize at least one outside source to write your paper. It could be a website, a book, a blog, a magazine, a news source, etc. Last but not least, you must construct an argument providing good and solid reasons to back it up constructing an argument and offering a critique of assumptions surrounding your argument.

This is a research paper, and it will be graded according to standards of college-level humanities writing. Your paper must be double-spaced and thoroughly edited for spelling and grammar. Composition counts! For compositional guidelines, you might consult a guide for writing research papers in MLA style (but Chicago and APA will also be accepted). For more information about citation, format, and style guides (MLA), please check our Course Content/Assignments/Final Paper Assignment.