Essay Assignment

Philosophical Ethics

Summer Session II, 2000

Due July 25

Pick one of the following topics and write a 6-7 page response in your best prose (edit carefully!). See the handout on writing Philosophy papers in the course packet. Also look at the examples of footnote and parenthetical citation forms. If you paraphrase a passage from Aristotle or Lear, for example, then give the author and page reference in parentheses () at the end of the paraphrase (or use a footnote).

Make sure to answer all parts of the question. Keep your analysis tied to the text: use some quotes in appropriate places to help illustrate important points in your argument, but do not just string quotes together willy-nilly. If you use any secondary sources, such as the Encyclopedia of Philosophy (or anything on reserve), make sure to give full citations for paraphrases from these sources. The same with webpages. But you should not have many references to such outside sources for this paper. I want to see mainly your own thought about the issues raised by these texts.

(1) Explain Aristotle's arguments that a life spent pursuing only pleasures (the satisfaction of such self-interested natural appetites as the desires for food, sex, entertainment) and material advantages (such as wealth, security, power and fame) would not be fully rewarding, or creative of the highest kind of happiness we can attain. [Jonathan Lear's chapter on Aristotle in the course packet may help with this]. Compare and contrast this with Joel Feinberg's critique of hedonism and his arguments that we can derive satisfaction from actions motivated by desires that are not self-interested, but that instead aim at other goals, including beneficent ones. Does Feinberg help Aristotle's case at all? Finally give your own reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with their views.

(2) Aristotle, MacIntyre, and Feinberg each seem to think that true friendship requires virtue, or at least a non-egoistic concern for our friends. Explain Aristotle's analysis of the highest form of friendship and why he thinks of it as a virtue. Why does MacIntyre think that all genuine arts, vocations, or "practices" also require devotion to non-egoistic goals, and also virtuous cooperation among practitioners? Would cultivating close relationships count as a kind of "practice" in MacIntyre's sense? In your own opinion, are friendships and "practices" in MacIntyre's sense essential to a happy life, and does this show that egoism will prevent the attainment of happiness?