Essay One - Due Feb. 6th by 5 PM via email.

Requirements

Each student will write a rougly three page essay.  This essay is due via email attachment by 5 PM on Friday, Feb. 6th.  The essay must in MS Word 2007 or below or WordPerfect 12 or below or pdf.  I often cannot open Microsoft Works or other files. You should send with a return receipt or ask me to reply to make sure I have received the attachment.  If you copy yourself, you should also be able to see if the attachment worked.  Note the policy on late papers in the policy section at the end of the syllabus. If your paper will be late, please send via email so there is a time and date  it was sent.

1. Your essay should be word-processed, double-spaced, one-inch to one and one-half inch margins. It should be spell-checked and grammar-checked. Pages Numbered. Font no smaller than 12 point.

2. You should have a cover page with title, date, prompt, class and section, and your name. 

3.    Number each paragraph.    Bold your thesis.  After the end of the essay, attach an OUTLINE of the essay with the thesis clearly stated and at minimum a line for each paragraph.

4. Each essay should be approximately three pages long (not including the title page or Works Consulted page).

5. You must include a Works Consulted/Cited Page and/or Complete Footnotes/Endnotes.  You may use MLA, Turabian, Harvard, or University of Chicago in-text, footnote, or endnote styles. APA is OK, provided you add page numbers to it. CAREFUL AND CORRECT CITATION IS REQUIRED. WHEN IN DOUBT, CITE. Remember that simply paraphrasing or changing every third word is not OK. Quote and cite or radically summarize and cite. Use quotation marks when quoting or indent if quote is five lines or longer. Guessing at where your information comes from is not OK. Use page numbers in your in-text citations, footnotes or endnotes. Book or journal titles are italicized or underlined.  You need not consult any other sources than what we have read for class.  Those sources and any other sources you consult must be included in your Works Consulted/Cited and cited in-text or in footnotes/endnotes.

6. Your essay should define any key terms used, use examples to illustrate and support your thesis where appropriate, and discuss likely alternatives or respond to possible objections.

Please consult the Essay Grading/Proofreading Rubric for further details.

Choose One of the following prompts (questions/topics) to write about:

1.   Callicott suggests that Leopold's Land Ethic is beloved of conservationists and mystifying to professional philosophers.  Do you think that is true?  Why?   (Based either on his points and/or your own.)   Be sure to make specific references to the text of "The Land Ethic."

2.   Try to make some sense of Rolston's discussion of instrumental, intrinsic, and systemic value.  I know you all found it tough going.

3.   Discuss one key strength and one key weakness of Norton's weak anthropocentrism.   Note:  You'll have to identify from whose perspective OR in what context OR based on what presuppositions these are strong or weak.

4.   In the individualist versus holist readings Singer, Regan, and Callicott each touch on the foundational nature of the questions they address for ethics.  Why should we consider one or more of the questions they address "foundational"?

5.   Pick some argument or issue in the assigned readings on Introduction (Leopold), Value (Rolston and Norton), and Individualist ethics versus holism - the Animal Welfare/Rights and Holist Debate (Singer, Regan, and Callicott).  As per O'Rourke, "you should devote the first half of the essay to reconstruction of the argument or issue you focus on and the second half to your comment. This comment can be critical in nature, but it need not be. For example, if you focus on an argument that you find compelling, you could devote the comment to consideration of the argument’s implications. "  The reading questions for each assigned reading may peak your curiosity, get your dander up, or simply point you to some interesting arguments and issues.

6.   Regan charges holist environmental ethics with ecofascism.  What does he mean?   To what extent is his charge persuasive?  OR, you could write about whether Callicott has successfully responded to the charge of ecofascism.

7.   In his conclusion (75-76) Callicott asserts that the Land Ethic with the addition of his second order principles in neither ecofascist nor a “paper tiger” (Nelson).  Why are these the alternatives Callicott is worried about?     Has he successfully avoided both of them?  Would Regan or Singer be satisfied?

8.   ***Wild Card.  Topic of your choice.  Get instructor's approval in person or via email.