Philosophy Final Essay Worksheet

This worksheet helps you prepare for your final essay in philosophy. Answer questions to create an outline for your essay. Get assistance with your philosophy assignment at Desklib.

Philosophy 1110
Spring 2019
Philosophy Final EssayWorksheet
The primary goal of this worksheet is to help you prepare for your final essay. By answering the
questions below, you will, in effect, be producing an outline of your essay. Please type your
answers. And please submit only the questions and your answers. (I don’t want your worksheet
to include the various instructions and notes provided here. It should just be a list of questions
and answers.)
This assignment is worth 15% of your overall mark.Please keep your answers brief. Save the
detailed explanations for the essay.
This is not a group project. You must complete this assignment on your own. You may, however,
draw arguments, objections, etc., from the readings,class discussions, lecture notes, or from on-
line sources, provided that you put them in your own words. You must also cite your
sources.Failure to do that constitutes plagiarism – a very serious academic offence. Citations
should be in-text (so not just a list of sources at the end of the document).
Here are the essay topics:
Do we – those of us who have choices about what we eat – have a moral obligation to
become vegetarian?In other words, is it morally wrong for us to eat meat?

Was it morally wrong for Dignitas to help Dan James commit suicide?
You are also welcome to come up with your own topic. However, it must be related to the
material we have covered this term and you MUST get my approval before you begin work on
your topic.
I know you have all submitted debate worksheets on the first question. If you choose to write
your final essay on this topic, you cannot simply cut and paste the answers from the debate
worksheet into the essay worksheet. The answers in your essay worksheet should be substantial
revisions of the answers provided in the debate worksheet.
Here are the worksheet questions:
1. What is your topic?
The topic for debate is the abolishment of capital punishment. The major question
raised under this debate is whether the act of death penalty is suitable for some countries and
abominable for the other countries, or is the practice, universally despicable?
2. Why is this topic important?
The practice of capital punishment is questioned on humanitarian grounds by many agencies.
The importance of capital punishment lies in the fact that it serves as an instrument of fear for
the culprits and the people who are involved in such serious crimes. Capital punishment

instills a fear within the minds of the culprits and can prevent such heinous crimes in the
future.
3. What is the position you will defend in your essay? (Please keep your thesis simple and
direct. E.g., “I will argue that God exists.”)
It is not objectively wrong, since certain crimes of the most serious nature require capital
punishment. Capital punishment is therefore not objectively wrong.
Your answers to questions 1 – 3 will constitute the introductory paragraph of your essay.
4. What do you regard as the strongest argument in support of your view? (The argument
should be stated in standard form.)
The nature of punishment depends on the seriousness of the crime. Capital punishment is offered
only when the nature of the crime is unpardonable and involves death or killing of individuals
without any sensible justification of the same. Therefore it is not objectively wrong.
5. For each premise in your argument, briefly explain why we should think it is true.
(Some premises may require very little explanation and support. Others – those which are
controversial – may require more explanation and support. You need to use your
judgement to determine how much explanation and support is necessary. If in doubt, err
on the side of caution and provide more explanation and support rather than less.)
The first premise stands true since the nature of punishment depends on the seriousness of the
crime.
For the second premise, it can be reflected that the death penalty takes away the life of a culprit
who has inflicted deadly harm to either individuals or to a group of people that is unpardonable
and distinguishes the nature of the crime as a rare event.

Your answers to questions 4 and 5 will be the basis of the argument you present in the second
paragraph of your essay.
6. What do you regard as the strongest objection to your argument? (The objection should
also be in standard form. And the conclusion of the objection should either be: (i) that
premise x of your argument is false; or (ii) that your argument is invalid. Remember,
those are the only things that can be wrong with an argument.)
Capital punishment is offered only when the nature of the crime is unpardonable and involves
death or killing of individuals without any sensible justification of the same. Therefore it is not
objectively wrong. This is the invocation of the fist premise. However, the most influential
argument against the first premise is that the crime committed by any individual is not out of will
but due to some influencing factor that motivates the culprit to commit an act of killing or serious
crimes. The convict must be given a chance to reflect and rectify the faults that has been made by
him. “To err is human to forgive divine” and therefore it is common of humans to make a
mistakes, but all convicts must be given a chance to reflect on their deeds and rectify their
mistakes.
Your answer to question 6 will be the basis of the objection to your argument that you explain in
the third paragraph of your essay. (Remember what you are doing at this stage of the discussion.
You are not objecting to your own argument. Why would you object to your view? That would be
silly! What you are doing is considering why someone else might object to your argument.)

7. What do you regard as the best reply to the objection? (Your reply should also be in
standard form. And the conclusion of your reply should either be: (i) that premise x of the
objection is false; or (ii) that the objection is invalid.)
The convicted person is awarded a death penalty owing to the nature of the crime which is
unpardonable. Along with it is imperative for the culprit to reflect before performing an act of
crime that can lead to the awarding of death penalty for the people. Therefore the objection is
false, since death penalty is not awarded for petty cases, but for the serious crimes.
Your answer to question 7 will be the basis of the reply to the objection that you present in the
fourth paragraph of your essay.
You essay will have a fifth and concluding paragraph in which you briefly summarize the main
steps in the defence of your thesis. (Something along the lines of: “In this essay I argued _____.
My argument was _____. I then considered an objection which argued that _____. However, I
showed that this objection fails, because _____.”).