| Date | What? | Length | Late Penalty | % of paper grade |
| 4 p.m. Tuesday April 27, 1999 | Draft Due | 1000 words | 1% per day | 20 |
| 2 p.m. Monday May 17, 1999 | Final Due (with the draft) | 1200 words | 5% per day | 80 |
There are detailed instructions about writing your paper https://www.angelfire.com/ms/perring/ phl002papinst.html
Answer ONE of the following questions.
In order to write your paper, you will need to do research. This will involve reading work of philosophers that we did not go over in class. You may even need to go beyond the selections from the philosopher’s work that are included in the course book Social and Political Theory, and delve into their other writings.
1. Using the philosophical ideas of John Stuart Mill, discuss whether it would be ethically right to broadcast the execution of murderers on prime time television. You should spend at least half your paper explaining how the ideas of Mill are relevant to this topic.
2. Using the ideas of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or John Stuart Mill, discuss whether criminals in prison have a right to basic health care. You should spend at least half your paper explaining how the ideas of the philosopher you have chosen are relevant to this topic.
3. Explain why Mary Wollstonecraft thought that the compliments that women were paid in the 18th century were in fact demeaning to women. Discuss whether the sexist attitudes discussed by Wollstonecraft towards women then still are common today, or whether they have now disappeared. You should make sure that at least half your paper explains the details of Mary Wollstonecraft’s arguments.
4. Explain the attitudes of Locke and Mill toward censorship. Is there any reason to think that either Locke or Mill would have any objection to the censorship of pornographic magazines like Hustler and the censorship of sexually explicit pictures that are available on the Internet? (The basic issue here is that Locke and Mill were against censorship of religious and political ideas. But the content of most pornography has nothing directly to do with religion or politics, and so it would seem that there is no reason to think that people should have a right to enjoy what most people disapprove of.)
5. Explain why Karl Marx thought that the workers have nothing to lose but their chains. Are any of Marx’s criticisms of capitalism relevant to modern society, or has modern America basically ended all exploitation of workers? At least half your paper would be spent explaining Marx’s concept of exploitation and his criticism of capitalism.