paper topic [three dialogues by plato]

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The Paper Topic Congratulations! You are a world-famous Advice Columnist. (Your real name is X, but everyone knows you as ‘Dear So-And- So’.) For years, strangers have sent you letters from afar, telling you of their personal problems, asking what they should do. You always provide answers (not like your competitor, Dear Socrates, who never provides answers. But no one likes that guy.) You’ve made pretty good money doing this, allowing you to buy the golden palace in which you now dwell. And your terraces are, as the poet writes, “the colour of stars.” So probably you are pretty good at this gig! But now you are old and—maybe because you feel death approaching?—you are contemplating something new. Maybe one final answer? The Answer of Answers! The answer that will apply to, and give the correct solution to … all the sorts of problems that people keep sending letters to people like you about, asking what they should do! What kind of problems are those? That’s a problem unto itself! But let’s say: mostly Euthyphro-type problems. (See: Plato’s Euthyphro.) People are confused because personal ties are tugging against some sense of impersonal duty, of abstract right and wrong. Usually it’s not as bad as Euthyphro’s problem, thinking dad is a murderer. Usually it’s more like: ‘my friend is cheating on his girlfriend. Should I tell her?’ (Such imponderables fill your days, as you gaze over your terraces, the colour of stars!) Often these right- and-wrong questions get tangled up with questions about purity. People ask about poop more often than you might

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The Paper Topic Congratulations! You are a world-famous Advice Columnist. (Your real name is X, but everyone knows you as Dear So-And-So.) For years, strangers have sent you letters from afar, telling you of their personal problems, asking what they should do.You always provide answers (not like your competitor, Dear Socrates, who never provides answers. But no one likes that guy.) Youve made pretty good money doing this, allowing you to buy the golden palace in which you now dwell. And your terraces are, as the poet writes, the colour of stars. So probably you are pretty good at this gig!But now you are old andmaybe because you feel death approaching?you are contemplating something new.Maybe one final answer?The Answer of Answers!The answer that will apply to, and give the correct solution to all the sorts of problems that people keep sending letters to people like you about, asking what they should do!What kind of problems are those?Thats a problem unto itself!But lets say: mostly Euthyphro-type problems. (See: PlatosEuthyphro.) People are confused because personal ties are tugging against some sense of impersonal duty, of abstract right and wrong. Usually its not as bad as Euthyphros problem, thinking dad is a murderer. Usually its more like: my friend is cheating on his girlfriend. Should I tell her? (Such imponderables fill your days, as you gaze over your terraces, the colour of stars!) Often these right-and-wrong questions get tangled up with questions about purity. People ask about poop more often than you might think! At least they wonder whether its ok to forbid someone to come to the wedding.Sometimes people have Meno-type concerns. (See: PlatosMeno.) In asking what to do about their personal problems, these people are basically asking how to get ahead in life. (But honestly, mostly people with these concerns just buy something off the self-help shelf, rather than reading an advice column.)Sometimes the letter writers are like Cephalus (see: Platos Republic, Book I). They want reassurance they are doing thedonething. Sometimes they are like Polemarchus (see: Platos Republic, Book I). They are in a fight, and its confusing them about whats right. (See also: Euthyphro.) Very often they havea littlebit of Thrasymachus in them (see: PlatosRepublic, Book I.) Oh, they dont ask questions like Dear So-And-So, Im thinking about overthrowing the government and setting myself up as tyrant. Is that ok? But they do wonder how far they can push their self-interest, without being a bad person. Often they are worried that, right now, they are being doormats (thats the opposite of a tyrant!) They want help thinking about what the ideal level of self-assertiveness is.Lets sum up: people ask about their interpersonal problems. How should I live my life in relation to other people?Now, the Answer of Answers!What rulewhat principleprovides the best solution to all the sorts of interpersonal problems that people ask advice columnists about? It must apply to as many of them as possible. It must provide as good an answer as possible.This Answer of Answers will be engraved on your tomb, a monument to your career as Dear So-And-So.Or maybe you are hoping your answer will be so good, people will call youGreatSo-And-So.Or maybe you are trying to make a fast buck, selling your algorithm to some kid who is going to program it into the next killer app. Peoples iPhones will be able to solve all their life problems.Or maybe you are just getting philosophical in your old age. You are kind of curious to figure out what youve been up to all these years!At any rate, the stonecutter tells you there is only room for 800-1000 words on your monument. Youve already picked out the stone. So thats your word limit. (The stonecutter has threatened to quit if you write more than 1000 words. Seriously.)

How To Write A Good Paper/How The Paper Will Be Marked A word about style. I wrotethe questionin a whimsical style. But it is a serious question. So you should feel free to write a formal, academic essay-style answer. Or you can write more informally. Heres something to keep in mind. Its easier to write informally, probably; but informality sometimes makes people forget to do everything they are supposed to, in a case like this.Which brings us to substance.The question is unanswerable! The Answer of Answers does not exist!You couldnt answer it in 800-pages, let alone 800-words!Yes, but that doesnt mean you cant fail better than the next student, thus getting a better mark.More seriously: 800 words is the length of an op-ed. An opinion column in the newspaper. Mostly op-eds are about subjects that are, frankly, too complex and difficult to be settled in 800-words. As a result, a lot of these columns are pretty useless. But they can be insightful and informativethought-provoking. They can be sharp and even rigorous, in their way.So the assignment is to write an op-ed?Not exactly (but if it makes you more comfortable to think of it that way, fine.) The point is to practice writing well about something too big to fit into a small space, in a small space.Let me be very practical about it. Ill just tell you how its going to be marked. So what follows is both writing advice and marking advice (since, if you write, you are required to be a peer-assessor as well.)There will be five marking criteria. That is,each paper will be scored 0 2, for five different things.0 = unsatisfactory1 = satisfactory2 = goodAdd up the scores. 5 points, overall, means the paper is basically satisfactory, overall. (If you are aiming to get a Statement of Accomplishment, readthis.)Here are the five criteria:

1. ANSWER THE QUESTION2. DEFEND YOUR ANSWER3. ATTACK YOUR ANSWER4. FOCUS5. SAY WHAT YOU DO, DO WHAT YOU SAY

That's rather unclear, so let me explain what it comes to.1) DID YOU REMEMBER TO ANSWER THE QUESTION?The question demands that you put forth a candidate principle or rule. Do it!There is room for debate about what counts as a principle, but, if you want credit, best to pick something that looks like a principle (rather than something that really doesnt look like a principle.) What you propose should be like a recipea substantive guidelinesomeone else could follow to construct answers to the sorts of questions people ask advice columnists.A rule ought to be the sort of thing someone couldfollow.Since (who are we kidding?) no principle will be fully satisfactory, you may be tempted to dance around the question in some clever way, without answering. I dont want to deny that appearing to answer a question while avoiding answering is a useful skill. (You may want to pursue a career as a diplomat, press secretary or flak of some sort. Thats fine.) But we arent looking for that right now.What if you dont believe any principle is at all satisfactory?If that is your view, then you should propose the least bad principle you can think of. And you will probably have something good and hot to say under item three [see below.]In picking your principle, do keep in mind that quite simple answers have at least some plausibility.Maximize the greatest good for the greatest number!Do unto others as you would have them do to you!Start simple; add additional ingredients as needed (and to suit taste.) Does that mean the simple principle gets complex? Maybe.Suppose you just start answering Dear-So-And-So-type questions, following some really simple, but plausible rule. (You can really do this. Just go collect some sample questions and try it.) What would the results look like? What problems would you encounter? How could you deal with those problems? Maybe you modify the principle? But there are other possibilities as well. (Thats your job, not mine.)What makes for areallygood principle one that gets 2 points, rather than just 1 point?Its hard to be definite. Proposing something original is a good way to impress your reader. Being especially clear about what you are proposing is good. Your answer should be plausible. But it also needs to beinteresting. Defending an odd or counter-intuitive answer, because it shows something interesting, might be a good approach. (But the most interesting principle isnt necessarily the best, is it? Hold that thought.)Some principles might work well for some cases, badly for others. Some might sound good overall but be hard to apply. Be aware that, in deciding what principle is best, you are going to have to think about trade-offs.If you arent explicit about this, the reader may feel that your principle isnt clear. Furthermore, you wont be able to argue for it. Which brings us to 2) DID YOU REMEMBER TO DEFEND YOUR ANSWER?You need to offer an argument. You need to provide evidence and reasons why your principle is a good and plausible onean interesting one.Partly this justisbeing clear about the trade-offs [per item 1, above.] This is important to realize: a clearly articulated principleits advantages and disadvantages laid outis already a standing argument for itself. By contrast, an unclear principle is hard to argue for. Its hard for the reader to be sure an argument for X is agood argument if its not clear what Xis.So, for writing and marking purposes, its important to appreciate how a good score in one area makes a good score in another area more likely, and a bad score in one area makes more bad scores likely. Fail to answer the question and you can't defend your answer. Fail to defend your answer and you can't attack your answer [see item 3]. And so forth.How do you argue for a principle?The most obvious strategy is to discuss cases.Imagine you are in the following situation Those are good words to start your paper. Feel free to use them, or some variation on the theme. (Much better than since the dawn of time, mankind has wondered You shouldneverstart a short paper with that one!)You should pick a case that your principle handles well. Conclusion: your principle is good!The tricky part of this approach is that, ideally, you would consider lots and lots of cases: a whole test suite. But in a short paper, you dont have room. What to do?You should pick a case that 1) showcases the virtues of your principle; 2) is atypicalcase. You need to be able to indicate to the reader how the pattern of success is likely to repeat.Can you prove much, considering just one case? Probably not. Probably you should find a way to squeezementionof more cases. But, be aware: you dont have time to discuss lots of cases in depth. Youve got at most a fewgoodshots, case-wise. Make every shot count.But what if I fail? Good for you! (You would have had a hell of a time with items 3-5, if you hadn't failed. So really this is a lucky break!)One last point before we move on to failure management.It might seem that the easiest way to write the paper is to pick an obvious candidate like do unto others as you would have them do to you and just coast to moderate non-failure victory.Who hates the Golden Rule, after all?This isnt wrong, but theres a bump in the road.What non-obvious thing about the goodness of the Golden Rule do you really have to say? Defending the obviousarguingfor the obviousis actually pretty hard, if you think about it.Where is the action likely to be, regarding something like the Golden Rule?Maybe it's not so obvious how it applies, in practice, in some cases. Also, its not obvious how toattackit,so theres room to distinguish yourself there. Which brings us to 3) DID YOU REMEMBER TO ATTACK YOUR ANSWER?Thats a thing these days, is it?

A requirement, actually. I'm making it one. For your own health and safety.Students dont like this one, in my experience. Isnt the point of an essay to defend a point of view? Attacking your own point of view seems counter-productive.This is completely wrong.I have asked you to do the impossible: come up with a principle to cover more cases than any one principle is likely to cover. Its never going to work. Whatever you say, there are going to be objections.The solution is simple. State the objections yourself. Given how hard this question is, pointing out how you are failing should beeasy.Propose your principle. Defend it.Attack it.Your job isnt to win converts. Your job is to be smart. Show the reader whats at stake. Show the reader you see both sides of a complicated question.

Does that mean I have to lose? No. Defend. Attack. Respond or retrench. Explain how what you propose still has merit, or why you still accept it, although you see there will be objections. Possibly you will want to briefly indicate how you would try to deal with objections, at greater length, if you were to write a longer paper. (See item 4 and 5, below.)How do you attack your own principle? Here again the most obvious strategy is to argue by cases. You need to be aware of the case (the sort of case) your principle handlesworst. You need to get that out there.This part of your paper, in which you attack your own proposal, is quite likely to be the most interesting part of your discussionand also the easiest to write.Make things easy on yourself by being hard on yourself.4) DID YOU FIND A POINT OF FOCUS?The topic isnt just impossible. Its too big. You should cut it down to size. I hereby not only give you permission. Iorderyou to do so.Let me illustrate what I mean. The topic is ambiguous. Are you being asked to come up with the best, i.e. most empirically accurate, generalization about what principle peopledofollow, or are you being asked to say what principle peopleshouldfollow. Or both?Take your pick.So maybe your paper should contain a few sentences like this. For purposes of this paper I am going to focus on moral psychology, since I think no sensible answer to the question of how weshouldthink about these problems is possible until we first have a better understanding of how wedothink about them.Notice how this narrows the scope of the topic while explainingwhyyou are narrowing it. The reader now understands what you are going to be talking about, what you arenotgoing to be talking about, and why.Remember what I mentioned above about picking an interesting principle, rather than the best principle? Why would you do that? Maybe because you dontknowwhat the best one is, but you know what an interesting one is. Thats a reasonable way to limit the scope of the topic. I dont know how to answer this question, but I think I know how to shed some light on it

Or maybe you have a principle that you think is really good, but only in some cases?Heres another way to focus. You have to argue for your principle. But, in order to get quickly to the point of argument, you may have toassumesomethingpossibly something highly controversialfor argument purposes.Let me give you a few examples of how that might go.As a Christian, I believe that, ultimately, ethical principles are religious truths. The question then becomes: how does the Bible provide answers to the sorts of questions Dear So-And-So has to answer, every day?As a utilitarian, I believe that the proper course of action is always the one that maximizes the greatest good for the greatest number. But how does this principle really provide specific answers to the sort of personal problems that people ask Dear So-And-So? I believe that human ethics is best regarded as a biological adaptation of our species. All the same, it is very unclear how truths about biology provide guidance as to what principles people dolet alone shouldfollow, in Dear So-And-So type cases Note what is going on here. It might seem unreasonable just toassumeChristianity, or utilitarianism, or some strong thesis about biological adaptation. What if your reader doesnt buy it? But thats the wrong way to think about it. All three of these papers could be quite interesting to readers who dont buy their strong assumptions. (Especially if the writers of these papers are good self-critics, per item 3, above.)Turn the point around: if these writersfailto make their personal commitments explicit, they are quite likely to smuggle them in, inadvertently, in non-explicit ways. That would be very bad.Wait, does this mean I need to assume some major moral theory or scientific theory or world religion to get the job done?No. You should start where you are. Youve got lots of beliefs about right and wrong (dont pretend you dont!)Assumea lot, so you can argue forsomething.You have a lot of ground to cover in only 800-words.Assumeyour way part of the way.Arguethe rest. Be aware of when you are doing the one, when you are doing the other.

But wait. Even assuming a lot, and arguing something, you didn't get done, did you? Alright, here's what you do. You need to indicate to the reader that you are aware of what still needs to be done. Maybe your paper should contain a few sentences like this. 'This objection to my principle is a very serious one. My strategy, in response, would be to concede X but still defend Y. In order to defend Y I will need to show Z. For purposes of this paper, I can only sketch how this will go, like so ...'

You see how that goes? Good! Now do it. Like I said, this is not just an exercise in arguing. It's an exercise in fitting big things into small spaces. That's not magic. Substitute a small road map for that huge chunk of intellectual geography you can't possibly squeeze in.

5) DID YOU DO WHAT YOU SAID YOU WOULD DO?

The topic tells you what you to do. But you are going to fail. But you arent going to failcompletely. That means the topic itself doesnt say what you arereallydoing. That meansyouhave to say.You should convey to your reader a sense of what you think you have accomplishedbe it a lot, or a little. That sense should match the readers sense of what you have actually done.