First Term Paper

Here's a link to your first term paper assignment: Term Paper One - Research

Get started right away so that I can help you if you run into difficulties while you're working on your paper. Remember that your group depends on you being prepared for discussions!

Your first term paper is due Thursday, October 7. Contact me right away if you're having trouble with anything.

Photo (c) DanTadd under Creative Commons attribution/generic license

Tuesday 9/28

Hi all,

apparently some people didn't get the email I sent over the school email system. Meet in the library smart classroom tomorrow: it's behind the check-out desk to the left.

Please try to sit in your groups as much as possible - that is, try to have groups more or less bunch together.

See you tomorrow!

Group Project

Group Project Questions under Consideration

Choose your top 3 questions, and number them from 1 to 3; 1 being the question you're most interested in working on. Bring in your list for Thursday.

1. How can we best address environmental sustainability?

2. Should families on government assistance be drug tested?

3. Should a woman be able to undergo multiple in vitro fertilization efforts after she's had a successful pregnancy?

4. Is globalization a positive or negative occurrence?

5. Were the bombings of Japan during WWII ethically justified?

6. Should marijuana be legalized?

7. Are the Obama Admin. economic policies the best response to the current economic situation?

8. Should college athletes be paid a salary?

9. What are the best approaches to reducing rates of child abuse?

10. Should Don't Ask Don't Tell be repealed?

11. What should the U.S. response be to Iran's nuclear ambitions?

12. Should euthanasia be allowed for the terminally ill?

13. Should the K-12 school day/school year be lengthened?

14. How does affirmative action affect university campuses?

15. Should the age limit for driving be changed?

16. Should a same sex couple be allowed to adopt children?

17. Should we pass a "sin tax" on alcohol?

18. Do children have rights to bodily integrity against their own parents?

Homework Guide

Identifying Claims and Types of Claims

This is a guide to the homework that was due this past Thursday, so that you can check your answers against it.

Step 1:

Remember to make a distinction between claims that are part of the narrative, and claims that are part of the argument. Don’t get distracted by the narrative – focus on the argument at issue and concentrate on the claims that are important for that.

So – what is the major question at issue in the argument?

• · Was the incident described in Case 4 a rape?

Step 2:

Remember that it’s often very important to break questions down, so that we have a good handle on what’s involved in the issue and can focus our inquiry.

So – what questions do we have to answer, in order to address that big question? In this case, how do we distinguish between sex and rape? So we need to ask…?

• Would a reasonable person have understood Angelica to have been consenting to sex? Some subsidiary questions you might ask:

o How does one give and ask for consent generally?

o Are the rules for consent different when it comes to sex?

o How does implicit consent differ from explicit consent?

Step 3:

Now we go to the central claims that are involved in figuring out that question.

Here’s what I would have put for each part. You certainly wouldn’t have had to word things exactly as I did, and one might split up the claims differently. This is to give you a general idea of what you’d want to be getting at.

Claims

Consented

· Drank with boys – empirical

· Consented to light petting – empirical

· Went upstairs willingly – interpretive

· Had consensual sex with other people in the past – empirical/interpretive

· If someone consents to light petting, they implicitly consent to intercourse – interpretive or normative, AND – below is the implicit claim:

· Consenting to light petting is so strong an implicit consent to intercourse that any later evidence, even explicit refusal or withdrawal of consent - that seems to contradict that consent can be ignored – interpretive OR

· Consenting to light petting morally obligates you to have sex with the person/s with whom you’re engaging in petting, to such a strong extent that you’re locked in to an unbreakable contract, and absolutely cannot later refuse the intercourse – normative

Did Not Consent

Th crime of rape (or "first-degree sexual assault" in some states) generally refers to non-consensual sexual intercourse that is committed by physical force, threat of injury, or other duress. A lack of consent can include the victim's inability to say "no" to intercourse, due to the effects of drugs or alcohol.

Angelica repeatedly yelled “no,” and “stop.” – empirical, stipulated by young men

· The yelling was loud enough to be heard through the storage room door – empirical

· Was too drunk to walk on her own – guided upstairs by 3 men – empirical/interpretive

Step 4:

This is what we’d do next:

Say

1. what evidence or argument we have for each claim

2. how strong the evidence or argument is

3. what more we need to see before we can make a judgment

Group Project Questions

Interesting Questions Requiring Critical Thinking
Next week, we'll be starting our semester-long group projects. We're going to think of interesting contemporary questions that require good critical thinking skills to answer well, and form groups based on interest in those questions.

So, for next Tuesday, think about what questions you think are most interesting. It can be an ethical question, like "Should we have Capital Punishment?" an historical question, like "How important was French support for the American victory in the war of Independence?" a policy question like "what's the best way to develop our energy policy?" - anything that requires you to synthesize complex ideas, incorporate research, break large questions into smaller question, and evaluate multiple claims.

Type your questions and bring them with you on Tuesday. Think of any many questions as you genuinely think are interesting. Remember, you'll be working on these for the rest of the semester, so try to come up with something that really interests you!

Photo (c) Creative Commons attribution/share alike by BrockS5

Homework: Implicit Claims

Update

New hint: it has to do with the fact that sex is not a single, instantaneous act.

Background
By the time we'd finished up in class today, all of the groups had gone through the major explicit claims that the three men were making, to support their position that a reasonable person would have thought that Angelica was consenting.

Instructions
I'm going to reproduce that argument below. There's a key step in their argument that's missing, though. This is an implicit claim. It's one that their argument relies on, but it's never stated.

In the comments, try to identify which claim is missing from the argument.

Remember: this will be a claim that is required for their argument to work, but which they never state out loud.

The Mens' Argument:
A Reasonable Person Would Have Thought that Angelica Was Consenting

1. Angelica attended a party at BOZ, which has a reputation for being wild;
2. Angelica drank alcohol at that party, specifically alcohol supplied to her by the three men;
3. Angelica flirted with the men;
4. She allowed them to kiss her and to touch her thigh;
5. She went upstairs with them (they claim willingly).
6. All of the above actions imply that Angelica was consenting to intercourse with the three men.
7. They all heard Angelica say "no," "stop," "I don't want to do this," and "don't touch me."
8. They continued anyway.
9. Conclusion: their actions didn't constitute rape

Identify the implicit assumption in the argument above. Hint: it's not their claim that Angelica eventually stopped fighting. No one is obligated to physically fight AT ALL. If someone indicates that they don't consent, that is sufficient. There's some other claim that the men need to make, in order for their argument to work.

Remember, pointing out a claim does not mean that you endorse it.

Grades for Forum 2

Here's a link to your grades on Forum 2.

• Look up your grade by student ID number.
• The column to the far left is your ID number;
• to the right of that is your percentage grade as a decimal.
• To the far right is the number of points out of 75 that you earned.

Let me know if you have any questions.

If you know you did the post, but don't see your grade, don't panic! I probably just typed your ID number in incorrectly. Just send me an email with the time you posted, your full name, and your ID number and I'll let you know what your grade was.

Forum 2: Breaking Questions Down

Update:

Don't forget to include your name, unless your screen name includes your first and last name. Otherwise I can't credit you for doing the assignment!

If you forgot to include your name, write a second post, saying what time you posted, what your screen name was, and what your actual name is (you can use just a last initial if you prefer).

Background
In our fictional story, Corinne has claimed that Cromwell's Discriminatory Harassment Policy violates her rights to freedom of expression under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

We looked at the first amendment, and looked at an overview of how the first amendment has been interpreted. We found that the court generally tries to balance the interest an individual has in the expression at issue, versus the interest the state (in this case, the state is represented by the school) has in limiting that expression.

We then generated two further, central questions:
1. What is the interest an individual has in free expression? What's good about letting people express their beliefs, even if those beliefs are offensive?
2. What interest does the school have in limiting the expression of offensive or hostile beliefs?

Assignment
Using those two questions as a springboard, generate at least two more questions that you'd want to have answers to, before you could answer the general question about whether the school's policy is unconstitutional or not.

Remember that a good way to generate questions is to throw ideas around, and then turn claims into questions. You can also do some research to help generate further questions. We're getting into a level of depth, now, that will make this assignment challenging, but you can do it!

Post your answers in comment, below.

Answers are due no later than 4 a.m. on Monday, September 6. Ideally, they'll be posted by 6 p.m. on Saturday, September 4.

Confederate flag images (c) William Quigley under Creative Commons attribution/share alike

Grades for Forum 1

Hi all,

Here's a link to your grades for the first forum: Forum 1 - Research

Look up your grade via student ID number. If you posted to the forum, but don't see your ID number, be sure that your post included your name so that I could identify you.

There were a total of 75 points you could earn for this post, so an A+ = 75 points, A=71.25, etc.

The first column shows your student ID number; the next column shows your percentage grade as a decimal, and the last column shows your points earned.

Let me know if you have questions.