Essay Assignment Specifications

(Minimum length 1500 words, Suggested Maximum length 3000 words)

This essay is mandatory. You cannot pass the course without doing both a draft and a revision of this essay.

In this essay, you will consider the moral approaches of Kant, Mill, Aristotle, and Held, and decide which of these (or which other approach) is best suited for resolving ethical problems or dilemmas. You will then argue for the effectiveness of your approach.

In your essay, you should do the following:

1.Explain the moral approaches of Kant, Mill, Aristotle, and Held.

2.Present the most important similarities and differences among the four approaches.

3.Your thesis, which takes the form of choosing which of these approaches you think should be used. You may choose a combination of these approaches, or even a different approach, but if you do this, be very sure that you explain in detail why you find a combined/different approach more useful than any of the four approaches by itself. I strongly recommend choosing just one of the approaches as the essay is much easier to write well with a simpler thesis.

4.Explain why you think the approach you have chosen is likely to be helpful at solving ethical problems or dilemmas. These can be original reasons or you can use ideas from the textbook, provided that you cite them properly. You may use ideas from other sources if you wish (though there is no need to do this), provided that the ideas are properly documented and the source is included in a bibliography. If your only source is our textbook, you may simply use page numbers and omit the bibliography.

5.Explain why some people might disagree with your approach. Make use of the views of any of the four authors whose views are different from yours, as well as any other objections to your approach that you can think of.

6.An explanation of why each of the opposing arguments does not actually undermine your thesis.

7.Show how your personal ethical approach could be used on the ethical problem or dilemma that you described and posted about during the orientation.

8.Include at least one reference to one of the readings from Unit I. Be sure that you incorporate this effectively into the flow of your essay.

9.Include a conclusion in which you summarize your results.

The order of your essay does not need to follow the order presented here. You should choose the way of putting everything together that you think is most appropriate and effective. Please don’t hesitate to correspond with me by e-mail about your paper at any stage of the writing/rewriting process.