PHIL1032 Happiness Goodness and Justice
Questions:
• If your essay exceeds the word count, it will be penalized.
• If you breach the University’s policy on academic integrity, you may be reported to the Faculty’s Disciplinary Committee.
• Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, (a) a penalty for lateness will apply – ten (10) marks out of 100 will be deducted per day for assignments submitted after the due date – and (b) no assignment will be accepted more than seven (7) days (incl. weekends) after the original submission deadline.
Extension requests: All extension requests should be submitted as requests for Special Consideration via ask.mq.edu.au, prior to the submission deadline. You will need to show that you have legitimate grounds for seeking an extension (see the Special Considerations policy link in the Unit Guide), and may be required to provide supporting documentation.
Questions and Queries: please post your questions or queries in the Assessments Forum on iLearn One of the teaching team will respond as soon as they can.
General Instructions:
1. DO NOT WRITE YOUR NAME on your assessment, as either your file name or on your essay Only include your student number as an identifier. This is because the essays will be anonymously marked.
2. Please use your student number and question number as the file name (e.g. 48654123_Q4).
3. Do not include a cover page. Simply put your student number at the top of the first page, put your title, and proceed with your essay.
4. All assignments must be submitted online via Turnitin. You can only submit once.
5. Research: in addition to relevant texts from the course readings, in your essay you should use and refer to roughly 2 to 3 further pieces of research.
6. Referencing: You can use any Arts/Humanities style, such as the Harvard, Chicago, or APA styles, and you should be consistent. Your in-text citations should include page numbers.Please do not use a numerical referencing style (such as the Vancouver style) that is used in the Sciences.
7. Include a word count at the end. A qualitative marking rubric is included below. Your essay will be graded against this rubric.
8. Please use size 12 font with 1.5 or double line spacing.
9. Finally, make sure you remain available via email after submission, in case there are technical difficulties with your submission. If we cannot access your submission, we will be unable to give you a grade.
Writing Instructions:
The aim of this assignment is to critically reflect on what you have learned in parts 2 and 3 of the unit on the nature of morality and justice. Follow the 4 steps below in planning and composing your essay.
1. You need to write a short introduction in which you identify the issue at hand and you briefly summarise in a sentence or two what you will be arguing. You should tell your reader what your position will be and give an outline of how you will argue for your position.
2. The body of your essay should provide a discussion of what you take to be the most important reasons that can be given in favour of the claim you are arguing for, as well as a consideration of some of the main objections that can be made to your claim. Your discussion should make explicit reference to the theory that the claim relates to and to the relevant readings from the course.
3. You should also undertake and integrate into your essay some further relevant research. You should use this research to help you to: understand the relevant issues and claims, highlight relevant points in previous discussions of these issues, develop arguments in favour of your view, develop objections to your view, or develop responses to objections to your view. You should use appropriate academic peer-reviewed sources.
As a guide, in addition to relevant texts from the course readings, in your essay you should use and refer to roughly 2 to 3 further pieces of research. You can use more sources if you wish. To get started, have a look at the supplementary readings on Leganto and at the extra readings list. We have also provided a lecture in Echo by librarian Alana Hadfield, who shows you how to conduct
your own research.
4. You need to write a brief conclusion in which you recapitulate what you have discussed in the essay, and most importantly, what conclusion you came to. You need to reiterate strongly, in simple words, whether you agree with the claim or not.
• There is a video on Echo that goes through the basics for writing a philosophy essay.
• In the Assessments section on iLearn, there are multiple writing and referencing guides.
In a 1500-word essay, respond to ONE of the following:
1. “Divine Command Theory is a religiously grounded moral philosophy that undermines some of the core tenets of religious belief.” Critically discuss and evaluate this statement.
2. The paradox of tolerance is that we must tolerate the intolerant. If we think that morality is relative to our culture, can we judge the morality of other cultures? On what grounds can we do so?
3. Choose two of the three theories of morality that are grounded in rationality (i.e. Social Contract Theory, Utilitarianism, and Kantianism). In what way is each theory based on what is rational, and what makes one theory more compelling than the other for determining what is morally right?
4. Select a specific example of social injustice. Apply Rawls’ theory of justice to the example and show the implications of your analysis for your chosen problem.
5. What do you think would be the most just approach for Australia to take with respect to fixing or mitigating the problems caused by climate change – is it to adopt a historical approach for determining what is just, or a forward-looking approach? Explain and give reasons to support your view.
