Third Paper Assignment
Select one of the following topics on which to write a paper approximately five pages long. Papers must be submitted via turnitin.com by 1159 pm, Monday, May 10th. Each of the teaching assistants will have a specific policy about whether and if so how to turn in a hard copy beyond turnitin.com (which is mandatory). Your TA will announce this policy in section during the last week of classes and by email to your GU Mail email address. It is your responsiblity to make sure that you know what this policy is and to conform to it. Please remember that we do not accept late papers for this assignment. The only exception is if you receive permission from your dean for an incomplete. (I will accept any excuse your dean will.)
Because we must grade the papers and submit final course grades very quickly, we will not be able to put much commentary on these final papers.
Bear in mind that you are responsible for the announced methodology for writing papers in this course. Be sure to take into consideration your teaching assistant's response to your first two papers, as well as the following documents:
Tips on Writing Philosophy Papers
Guidelines for Submitting Papers for Philosophy 20
Grading and Academic Integrity Policies
- Evaluate the following objection to James:
The advantage of the pragmatic method is that it decides the question of the truth of the existence of God by purely mundane arguments, namely, by the effects of belief in His existence upon our life in this world. But unfortunately this gives a merely mundane conclusion, namely, that belief in God is true, i.e. useful, whereas what religion desires is the conclusion that God exists, which pragmatism never even approaches. (Bertrand Russell)
This question requires you to spell this objection out on behalf of Russell (as you understand it and in your own words), then to take a stand on whether the objection refutes James's position, and to argue for your stand. The objection you consider must be an objection to your argument, and your response a defense of your argument against the objection.
- James argues that Psychological Determinism renders the emotion of regret pragmatically pointless. So for example, if you do something morally wrong (say, betray a friend) and subsequently regret it, if PD is true then your regret cannot make any difference to your future choices and actions. As James puts it,
The future has no ambiguous possibilities hidden in its womb; the part we call the present is compatible with only one totality. Any other future complement than the one fixed from eternity is impossible. The whole is in each and every part, and welds it with the rest into an absolute unity, an iron block, in which there can be no equivocation or shadow of turning. ("The Dilemma of Determinism," p. 3)
Is James's argument sound?
- Aquinas argues that freedom is achieved when one gains reflective control over one's natural impulses by means of rational deliberation guided by moral considerations, thereby raising oneself above the level of a mere animal. Nietzsche counters that in doing so one is subjecting oneself to an external authority, ascetically denying oneself in the name of something supposedly higher. Who's right, and why?