Essay 2

Please write a 1000-word essay on one of the topics below. Your essay should be double-spaced with 1″ margins.

Due Saturday, October 29 (any time): please submit as a Google Docs document and upload here.

Formatting instructions

Please include your full name in the title for your file, together with your section number – e.g., “Pat Smith Section 1”.

Topics

Write an essay on one of the following three topics. Your essay should make good use of the texts we have studied so far this semester by providing clear citations when you present or summarize the ideas of an author. Please use standardized citations whenever you quote or refer to a text (e.g., “Mengzi 6A15″ or “Aristotle, NE II.3″) and review the advice in the handout “Presenting and Assessing the Views of Others.”

Topic 1

Mengzi argues that we humans are born with promptings toward full-fledged virtue built-in to us: the moral sprouts. We are not fully good by nature — and we also have physical desires from birth which are morally neutral — but there is a sense in which our nature is good. Xunzi of course disagrees, arguing that our initial natures are “bad” in the sense that if we are left to follow our natural promptings, struggle and suffering will ensue, so we must craft ourselves using rituals. For his part, Aristotle thinks we have a three-fold nature, divided into vegetative, appetitive, and rational parts, but that our distinctive “function” is to use our reason. On this basis, he argues that we are naturally receptive to virtue: our reason can readily lead us to make ourselves into ever-more virtuous people through habitual action.

Choose one of these views that you think is most plausible and explain it in a paragraph or two. Then raise an objection to your preferred view — an objection that one of the other thinkers might raise, or else something you’ve thought of independently — and then defend your favored position. If there are shortcomings of your preferred view, or ways in which it could be improved, feel free to acknowledge these!

Topic 2

At this point in our course we have covered two philosophical approaches to the good life. As we’ve seen, all philosophers in the Confucian tradition along with Aristotle place an emphasis on the cultivation of virtue in living a good human life. But apart from these thinkers’ views on what constitutes a good life, they also have much to say about how we should go about cultivating our character. Based on the ideas these philosophers develop in their texts in answering this “how” question, as well as the exercises you’ve carried out that are inspired by their ideas, write an essay on the way in which the practical guidance we find in these philosophical views augments or enhances your understanding of the role of virtue in a good human life. How successfully can these ancient theories be put into practice in our modern world, and what does this suggest to you about the significance of virtue in living well?

Choose one or two practices that you find are central to the Confucians’ and/or Aristotle’s understanding of how to go about cultivating a good character, and explain the relevance of these practices to the project of living well for these philosophers. You can focus on the views of one philosopher for this topic if you choose. Raise a challenge — either in terms of the feasibility of implementing these practices (perhaps drawing on your experiences in carrying them out) or a theoretical criticism — and then provide an assessment of your own about the significance of these philosophers’ ideas on the connection between virtue and the good life.

Topic 3

One of the topics we have discussed in the first half of this course is moral psychology — how assumptions in the three areas of psychology, moral theory, and therapeutic practices intersect and influence each other. Pick one of the philosophers in Units 1 and 2: Mengzi, Xunzi, or Aristotle. Describe his claims about each of these three areas, and provide your own analysis of how his assumptions about one or more areas might lead to his conclusions about others. (For example, if we did this with Socrates — not an option for this paper — you might trace out how his assumptions about how we decide to act seem to lead to conclusions about what virtue is and to the open-ended project of seeking knowledge of what is really good.)  A barely-acceptable paper would simply list the views in each of the three areas. A really good paper would make a convincing case about how they fit together, perhaps with a progression between them (i.e., from one area to the other two).