University of Pittsburgh, Summer 1999

Philosophy 1380: Business Ethics

C.L. G13—Mondays, 6 p.m. to 8:55 p.m.

Ben Eggleston—egglestn@pitt.edu

Term paper assignment

Choose any one of the following issues—drug testing, affirmative action, sexual harassment, or ethics in international business—to address in a paper of 6–8 pages. Within each of these issues, there is a cluster of contentious questions that reasonable people persistently disagree about; identify and state the question that interests you the most. Formulate as precise an answer to it is as you can, and defend your answer by drawing on the readings we have done. (Be sure that the question you choose to discuss is a controversial one; otherwise, answering it and defending it will not be much of an achievement.) To the extent that space permits, anticipate objections to the position you are defending, and answer these objections.

(If this topic does not suit you, you may propose another one. But do not write on some other topic without first getting my approval of it.)