Option #1

RELATIVISM IN HABITS OF THE HEART

In commenting globally on what they make of the "Brian Palmer" case study, the authors of Habits of the Heart say the following:

''Despite the combination of tenderness and admiration he expresses for his wife, the genuine devotion he seems to feel for his children, and his own resilient self-confidence, Brian's justification of his life thus rests on a fragile foundation. Morally, his life appears much more coherent than when he was dominated by careerism, but, to hear him talk, even his deepest impulses of attachment to others are without any more solid foundation than his momentary desires. He lacks a language to explain what seem to be the real commitments that define his life, and to that extent the commitments themselves are precarious.''

So Brian is cast as a certain kind of relativist. Interestingly, Margaret, Joe, and Wayne are also supposed to be somehow caught up in relativism. Well, Margaret certainly. But Joe and Wayne?

Option #2

SEXUAL HARASSMENT?

Peter Wenz briefly describes a case in which two graduate students complained that another student's desktop picture of his bikini-clad wife created a ‘hostile work environment". What would lead the department head to agree with that complaint, as Wenz reports? Put another way, how would someone have to be thinking about pictures of wives and hostile work environments and co-workers and whatnot in order to make the complaint credible?

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