Philosophical Service Project
For this assignment, you will perform some “philosophical community service.” The service you will provide is demonstrating to some members of your community how to think critically about moral issues using the logical methods we’ve practiced in this class. So, you will model thinking in systematic ways about moral issues, engage some arguments from your audience, and help them evaluate these arguments.
Here’s what to do:
1. Pick a “practical” or “applied” topic: Polyamory and Monogamy
2. Develop at least 5 arguments in logically valid form on this topic.
Recall that the pattern here is:
A is an X.
All things that are X are Y.
Therefore, A is a Y.
or
A is an X.
If something is an X, then that something is a Y.
Therefore, A is a Y.
3. Find an audience of at least 3 people, not from this class. This can be three people from “real, in-person” life, or people online, say via Zoom or Skype or the like.
4. Present your arguments to this audience. Given them an introduction to what you will do in your presentation. Explain to them what you will do and how you will do it: tell them what arguments are and what makes arguments good and bad and how you can tell (explain – with examples – the concepts of arguments logical validity, soundness, counterexamples). State and explain your five arguments in logically valid form and fully evaluate them as sound or not: explain whether each and every premise is true or false and why. Do not present any “question-begging” arguments, where the premises assume the conclusion; if your audience offers any question-begging arguments, you will need to identify those as question-begging and explain why they are inadequate.
5. Get at least 3 (ideally, at least 5) new arguments, or premises, on the same topic from the audience.
6. With the audience, formulate these arguments in logically valid form and determine whether they are sound or not: address each and every premise.
7. Formulate any conclusions from your discussion and conclude your discussion, reviewing what you did.
8. Write up a report on what happened, using the headings below: cut and paste the text below into a document to use. Your final report here should be organized, clear, and easy to read.
Philosophical “Community Service” Project:
Report Form
Your Class: Philosophical Ethics
This assignment results in students going all sorts of interesting places (bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, etc.) to talk with interesting people (sometimes people they know, other times new people), to discuss all sorts of interesting topics. Typically, students appreciate the opportunity to “be the teacher” and confirm that they really learned something in the class, and they find their audiences appreciate learning some new, systematic ways of thinking about moral issues.
Here’s a recent final reflection from a student (used with permission) that is representative of a common reflection on the experience:
The whole activity went well. I believe that I explained moral arguments very well because the audience was able to understand the basic concepts of moral arguments. It was interesting to hear what arguments the audience would make. I thought it would be challenging for the audience to get the hang of making moral arguments, but it wasn’t hard for them at all. This was a great experience, I really enjoyed it and the audience enjoyed it as well. I really enjoyed being able to show what I have learned in this class. I also like the fact that I was able to benefit others with my knowledge.