ARTICLE THAT IS BEING CRITIQUED IS “FAMILY COERCION AND VALID CONSENT” by Stephen D. Mallary, Bernard Gert, and Charles M. Culver
paper topics: Any paper you write for this course will have two primary goals: to explain and critique a particular argument for a particular conclusion. So any paper topic you choose for this course should have the following form:
“Explain and critique [name of philosopher]’s argument in defense of [the philosopher’s substantive conclusion]”
For example:
“Explain and critique Marquis’s argument in defense of the claim that abortion is seriously immoral”
“Explain and critique Thomson’s argument in defense of the claim that abortion is morally permissible”
You are free to write each paper on any reading that is covered in the course. In writing your paper on a particular reading from the course, you are also welcome to make use of additional readings that were not covered in the course, but you need not do so (for example, if you want to, you may look up articles that other philosophers have written in response to the reading you are writing your paper about and use them as a source of objections to discuss in your paper). Again, this is completely optional.
If you do use any outside sources, however, you must make this fact clear in the paper and cite the sources. Note that the suggested page length for these papers (2,500 – 3,000 words) is intended as a guideline, not as an absolute requirement. It is possible for a concise and cogent paper to be fully satisfactory and fall below these limits.
Such a paper will not be penalized for being short. However, a paper that is shorter than the suggested length and that does not go into sufficient detail will be penalized for such failure. Similarly, a paper that goes over the page limits because it contains more or more complex ideas than can be clearly presented within the page limits will not be penalized simply for being long. If the extra pages are of high quality, the paper will receive whatever grade corresponds to that quality.
However, a paper that goes over the page limits simply because it is too wordy or redundant will be penalized for those qualities. In general, it should be possible to write a fully successful paper within these page limits, and most good papers will fall roughly into this range, but you should not attempt to force a paper to fit the limits if doing so will make it worse
