Washington and Lee University, Winter 2002

Philosophy 395: Advanced Seminar/

University Scholars 201A: Humanities Seminar

Thursdays, GHI (Newcomb 8)

Ben Eggleston—home.wlu.edu/~EgglestonB

office hours: M&F, 2–4, and T&Th, 9–11 (Newcomb 25)

Paper Assignment no. 2

Your assignment is to write a paper, about seven pages long (double-spaced), on one of the following topics. (Pick just one—do not try to address more than one.) Your paper will be due at my office or my mailbox at 4 p.m. on Monday, March 18.

1. A hope dashed: On p. 96 of Economic Analysis and Moral Philosophy, Hausman and McPherson claim that the “hope of separating questions of efficiency from questions concerning distribution was dashed.” (1) What is this hoped-for separation? (Explain what is meant by ‘efficiency’ and ‘distribution’ and what a ‘separation’ of these would be.) (2) Why might this separation be hoped for? (Explain why one might desire this separation.) (3) Why (according to Hausman and McPherson) is this separation impossible? (You may answer this last question by explaining the example that Hausman and McPherson use, if you want.)
2. So it’s more efficient, but . . . In his paper “The Problem of Social Cost,” Coase argues that the traditional solution to the problem of social cost ought to be rejected in favor of a different solution, which he proposes. The criterion in terms of which Coase argues for the superiority of his solution to the traditional one is apparently a criterion of efficiency. Granting Coase’s claim that the solution he proposes may score better than the traditional solution as far as efficiency is concerned, what are two other criteria that might be used to compare the two solutions? How do the solutions compare according to these other criteria?
3. Live by the sword . . . In his paper “Rights and Agency,” Sen argues that a goal-rights system yields verdicts in regard to particular cases that accord with our intuitions about those cases better than both the verdicts yielded by welfarist-consequentialist views and the verdicts yielded by constraint-based deontological views. Can Sen’s strategy of criticizing the views he rejects be used, in turn, against his own view? To answer this question, either (1) construct a case such that the verdict of a goal-rights system would diverge from the intuitions that we would have about that case or (2) show why constructing such a case would be impossible.
4. Is Berlin still relevant? In his paper “Two Concepts of Liberty,” Berlin distinguishes two forms that the ideal of positive freedom may take—“the retreat to the inner citadel” and self-realization—as well as a related idea (which he is not as sure is a kind of positive freedom, not to mention a kind of negative freedom), “the search for status.” He seems to regard each of these as a source of danger for lovers of true liberty everywhere. Are there any examples, either in U.S. politics or elsewhere in the world, of any of these three tendencies? Or has the world changed so that Berlin’s worry is now of merely historical interest?

So that’s the assignment; now here’s a word of advice for completing it. Unless you’ve chosen the first topic (in which case your grade will be limited accordingly—see below), your essay will have both an explanatory part, in which you describe an author’s view, and also an exploratory or argumentative part, in which you develop thoughts of your own that are not repetitive of material in the book. Don’t spend too much space explaining whatever you may need to explain, or else you won’t have enough space in which to develop the more-original part of your paper sufficiently. To avoid spending too much space on the explanatory part of your paper, you might want to write that extremely briefly at first, then write the latter part of your paper, and then go back and fill in some of the earlier part. Of course, how much space is sufficient for developing the latter part of your paper will depend on your own ideas and writing style, but a fairly safe rule of thumb to follow would be to spend no more than three pages on the explanatory part of your paper, and at least four pages on the more-original part of your paper.

Following is a detailed account of the criteria according to which I will grade.

requirements:	points possible:	points earned:
1. Your paper accurately explains the material relevant to the topic you elect to address:	20
2. Your paper ably develops its exploratory or argumentative part: (Note: papers on topic no. 1 will receive a maximum of 45 points here.)	55
3. Your paper is well organized and clearly written, with good spelling and grammar:	20
4. Your paper is not longer than approximately seven pages and is double-spaced, this sheet (with this side up) is stapled or paper-clipped to the front of your paper, and your name and the question you are answering are provided below:	5
5. lateness penalty (if applicable): (3 points off per unexcused day late, excluding weekends)
total score	100

Your name: __________________________________ The question you’re answering: 1 2 3 4

Finally, a word about the honor system. As you know, all work turned in for credit at Washington and Lee is presumed to have been done without the giving or receiving of unacknowledged aid. This paper shall be no exception. But this does not mean that you cannot get help on this paper; on the contrary, you can get all sorts of help, but you must acknowledge it. That is, you must indicate—with footnotes, ideally—all of the ways in which you have gotten help. Where possible, help that you have received should be noted in connection with the part of your paper to which it pertains. (For example, if someone helps you find a more persuasive way of expressing some thought of yours, then that should be noted with a footnote in that part of your paper.) But help whose effects extend throughout the paper can be noted as such in a single footnote at the beginning or end. In acknowledging aid, there is a balance to be struck between thoroughness and manageability; the key is to be as thorough as you need to be in order for the reader not to mistakenly attribute to you anything that you owe to someone or something else. So when in doubt, err on the side of thoroughness in acknowledging aid.