Philosophy 235
Second paper assignment

Pre-approved Topics:

You may not change any aspect of these theses (except to fill in the brackets in each) without my written approval. These theses contain two conditionals; you must argue for both, but only have to give a counterexample to one. For each of the following, everything in italics should be considered the thesis. "Wrong" and "permissible" mean "morally wrong" and "morally permissible."


* If [conditions] then it is morally wrong for a person to be part of a group that causes harm. If [those conditions are not met], then it is morally permissible to to be part of a group that together causes harm.

* If [conditions] then it is morally permissible to [break the law / violate property rights (pick one)] to engage in environmental direct action; if [those conditions are not met], then it is wrong.

* If [conditions] then it is morally wrong to not [break the law / violate property rights (pick one)] to engage in environmental direct action; if [those conditions are not met], then it is permissible.

* All [breaking the law / violating property rights (pick one)] to commit environmental direct action is morally wrong.

* If [conditions] then it is wrong for a nation to not do more than its fair share to fight climate change; if [those conditions are not met], then it is permissible.

* Whenever a nation does just its fair share and no more to fight climate change, this is morally permissible.

Possible non-pre-approved Topics:
Theses on these topics must be approved by me; that is, if you write on one of these, I have to have approved, in writing, the exact thesis your paper is about. Your proposed thesis should have the same structure as those above; that is, it should tell me "If [conditions] then such and such is wrong; if not, then it is permissible."

* What are our obligations to future generations of people?

* What are our obligations to future animals (or plants, species, or ecosystems) [note: obligations to future species and ecosystems might be really interesting]?

* What makes a siting discriminatory or unjust? It might also be interesting to think about how issues of discriminatory siting interact with animal/plant/species/ecosystem rights.

* How should the law fix discriminatory siting? You might write about what laws are permissible/wrong/obligatory to make, or what would be just/unjust.

* How should environmental groups, or governmental agencies, deal with situations in which they don't have sufficient resources to solve all relevant problems? How should their resources be allocated? I made this non-pre-approved because you may want to write on a relatively specific type of group (e.g. NGOs, or charity groups, or government agencies, etc), or might want to approach this very broadly.

* I'm open to you writing on other topics, but you must get your topic approved by me in writing.

One easy way to go wrong on this paper is to choose a thesis that is trivially true. What does this mean? Imagine that someone's thesis is "If direct action is too demanding, then it is not obligatory." This thesis is trivially true - it is true but that's just because the antecedent and consequent mean the same thing. So the thesis says nothing, really. Don't do that. It's really easy to do this by putting "unfair" or "overly demanding" into your antecedent. If you want to talk about these issues, your antecedent should say what makes something unfair or overly demanding.

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Outline due: Apr 13, 8pm. Subject line 235 OUTLINE PAPER 2.
Draft due: Apr 23, email to your partner and cc your TA, subject line 235 DRAFT PAPER 2
Comments due: Apr 25, 8pm, email to your partner and cc your TA, subject line 235 COMMENTS PAPER 2
Paper Due: Apr 29, 8pm, subject line 235 PAPER 2 FINAL.