Morality and Justice

Second Paper Topics

Please write a 4-5 page paper (typed, double-spaced) on one of the following topics. The paper is due at the beginning of recitation section on Friday, November 13.

Please note: It is a violation of the university's honor code to use written material from any source in your paper without proper attribution and use of quotation marks where relevant. This applies especially to copying and pasting material from websites, which is plagiarism and is easily caught. Even if a source is only paraphrased, it must be cited in your paper: if you use a source and paraphrase it, changing some words, and do not cite it, that counts as plagiarism and will be handled accordingly (i.e., sent directly to the Honor Court). And even if you do cite it, you should still avoid mere paraphrasing of sources: the point is to explain the relevant points yourself, and for the most part it is best just to avoid outside sources and do your own analysis. You should definitely not be consulting sources such as Wikipedia or the Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy in order to understand the philosophical material, though outside sources may sometimes be useful in connection with background issues that come into the discussion. None of the questions below should require any outside sources to answer well. Please see the paper writing guidelines linked to the syllabus for more.

1. In chapter two of Utilitarianism (336), Mill writes: "...the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct is not the agent's own happiness but that of all concerned. As between [a person's] own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. In the Golden Rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. 'To do as you would be done by' and 'to love your neighbor as yourself' constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality."

(A) What does Mill mean in this passage comparing utilitarianism to the Golden Rule? (B) Is he right? That is, is the Golden Rule really equivalent to utilitarianism, i.e., the Principle of Utility, or is it similar in some ways but different in others? Explain. (Think carefully about whether or not the implications of the Golden Rule are really the same as the implications of the Principle of Utility, with regard to how we should behave. Are there examples you can come up with where the Golden Rule and the Principle of Utility might seem to diverge? Is loving your neighbor the same thing as impartially taking his happiness into consideration while making utilitarian calculations? Another thing you should think about is whether the two formulations Mill gives of the Golden Rule, in the quote above, are even equivalent to each other. You might think they are actually importantly different principles--two different Golden Rules, which might have to be treated separately in your analysis. There's room for some interesting discussion of this in part B.)

2. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the eighth largest city in Japan, with a population of 245,000. The bomb immediately killed 100,000 people and critically injured another 100,000, who died later--mostly civilians, including children and the elderly. The goal was to demoralize and break the Japanese resistance in order to avoid the necessity of an Allied invasion of the main islands, which it was estimated would involve up to a million Allied casualties, and perhaps more than ten million Japanese casualties (i.e., combatants plus unintended civilian casualties). The civilians of Hiroshima were not of any direct military significance (just as your little brothers and sisters, for example, were of no military significance during the war in Iraq, for example), but their destruction was strategically used by the U.S. as an indirect way of pressuring the Japanese government to surrender, to avoid the need for a costly Allied invasion.

Carefully discuss and critically evaluate what both Mill and Kant might say about this example, being sure to explain carefully the reasoning behind Mill's and Kant's answers. (For Kant's view, focus on the formula of the end in itself, which will be discussed in lecture. Do not try to deal with the formula of universal law.) Do you agree with either of their responses, and why or why not? Assume for the sake of argument that an Allied land invasion would indeed have been necessary if the U.S. had not so used the bomb, and that the invasion would have been as costly as predicted.

Note: A thorough answer should dig beneath the surface, as always. For example, when discussing Mill, be sure to take into account all relevant consequences, long and short term, as he himself insists upon in his discussion of the lying example. (This will obviously be somewhat speculative. Just be clear about how the possible consequences you're considering would bear on Mill's answer and why.) Also, when discussing Kant, think not only about what Kant would say about the bombing of civilians, but also what he would say about the alternative (i.e., the continuing war against the Japanese military). If the bombing of civilians was wrong, would the alternative of continuing fighting against the military equally have been wrong according to Kant's theory, leaving us no morally acceptable course of action? Or can Kant explain why the continuing war against the military (without targeting civilians) would not have violated his central moral principle?

Optional: for those of you whose ethical views are shaped by religious commitments, you might briefly supplement your above discussion of Mill and Kant with a short discussion of what your religion would say about the moral permissibility or impermissibility of deliberately targeting innocent civilians, and how this relates to the issue of terrorism--which is usually defined as the intentional use of violence against innocent people as a means of furthering political, religious, military or personal goals.

3. Thomson argues that a fetus has no right to the use of the woman's body. On 770-71, however, she imagines someone objecting to her view by arguing instead that a fetus does have a right to the use of the woman's body (at least in pregnancies resulting from voluntary intercourse) because of the woman's responsibility for the fetus's existence and presence in her. Thomson then replies to that argument (on 771), using analogies involving a burglar and a science fiction example about "people-seeds". (A) First carefully explain Thomson's replies using those two analogies, making clear how she thinks they answer the above objection. (Don't just summarize what she says! Explain the arguments.) (B) Then critique her replies. Are her examples apt, or are there important disanalogies (i.e., relevant differences between the burglar example and the pregnancy case, or between the people-seeds example and the pregnancy case) that undermine her arguments? If you think her examples fail to establish her point about pregnancy and the fetus, be sure to say why exactly this is: in what particular ways do her examples fail to be parallel to the case of pregnancy and the fetus, and why does this undermine her reply to the original objection? (Be sure you don't simply miss her point by focusing on obvious differences that are irrelevant to her purposes in drawing the analogy in question.)

4. Write on a topic of your choice that you get pre-approved by your T.A. or by me within the coming week, pertaining to one or more of the issues and articles dealt with in the course. The topic will have to be carefully thought out, focused, and substantively engaged with the material we've discussed. Please see one of us early on (!) with a short written formulation of the proposed topic. [Note: It is not acceptable simply to write on another one of the topics from the first paper topics sheet, and papers on unapproved topics will not be accepted.]