HR: Suggestions from LTC Knepper, Ethics essay, sample problem statements

 

When I initially started brainstorming capstone ideas, I had no clue what I wanted to write about. As an English major, I have grown accustomed to being given specific topics to write about, but having to come up with my own topic was something I was unfamiliar with. I decided to look back on prior essays I had written, specifically the ones I was most passionate about. I found myself reading over an essay I had written in my Ethics class during third-class year. I remember feeling very strongly about the topic, which was whether or not suicide was justified. Reading over the essay, I realized that from a religious standpoint, it was decent, but from a philosophical standpoint, it was terrible. Philosophy interests me, so I decided to return to the topic of suicide and redeem myself, since I got a C on the original paper.

In my original paper in Ethics, I wrote from the perspective of a Catholic, stating that suicide was wrong because God deemed it so, citing religious texts. The paper was a response to David Hume, as is my current capstone, so writing a religious response to a philosophical paper was inappropriate. I wrote phrases like “Hume gives logical reasons as to why suicide is ok, however, he fails to take into account what is written in the Bible, and how suicide affects family members and friends.” This phrase is not only poorly written, but it does not consider logic or moral reasoning. In the original paper, I even acknowledged that Hume’s arguments were logical, however, I stated that they were flawed only because they contradicted the Bible, which is unacceptable in a class discussing ethics. I realized that writing my new capstone from a philosophical standpoint would mean I could not use anything from my original paper, so I did not even reference or even look at it when I started drafting my new paper.

The first step of writing my new capstone was researching sources. I could not use any of the sources from my original paper because they mainly took religious standpoints. This phase of my writing process was the most difficult, because I could not find a single source which directly responded to Hume’s essay which also shared my view that suicide is immoral. In my pre-capstone class 2^nd class year, I was able to compose an annotated bibliography with several sources that I thought would help me. As it turned out, I only ended up using two of the sources when I wrote the final product. I ended up finding the most useful sources when I started writing the essay, after consulting with my faculty mentor, Dr. Richter, and LTC Knepper. The most useful of which was an essay by Emmanuel Kant, which was recommended to me by LTC Knepper. The essay, along with the categorical imperative by Kant, were both shown to me by LTC Knepper, and they ended up being the backbone for many of my major arguments.

After finding my sources, the next step as suggested by my faculty mentor and LTC Knepper was creating an outline for my work. Even as an English Major, I had never been a big fan of writing outlines, rather, I usually like to just write my ideas on paper and go from there. We discussed outlines in class towards the beginning of the semester, where I really learned the benefits of outlining, so I decided that since this was such a big project, it was something I really needed to do. Essentially, all I did was write down each of my main arguments, and then write the individual subtopics underneath. It was not sophisticated, but it truly helped me organize my thoughts a lot more than in any other paper I had ever written.

One thing that I initially had trouble with was creating my introduction. I created a sample introduction in the pre-capstone class, but after Dr. Richter reviewed it, I realized it was poorly written. LTC Knepper helped tremendously when he gave us the sample problem artifact which gave several examples of introduction paragraphs which start with a stable condition, destabilizing condition, cost (consequences), and resolution. Looking it over, I realized this was the perfect format for my introduction. My stable condition was that David Hume argue for the morality of suicide, stating it does not violate our duties to ourselves, others, and to God. The destabilizing condition is that arguments from Emmanuel Kant, Thomas Aquinas, and other philosophers serve to disprove those theories. The cost (consequences) is that if the immorality of suicide is not understood, then people will continue to irrationally take their own lives. Finally, the resolution is my argument that suicide is immoral and that it undoubtedly violates our duties to ourselves, to others, and to God. After I had these written into the template provided by LTC Knepper, I was able to create my introduction and thesis which Dr. Richter approved of.

I believe that I would not have been even near successful in writing my capstone if it were not for the assistance of Dr. Richter, my faculty mentor. This is because he reviewed each draft of my essay in detail, and as a renowned professor in philosophy, was able to highlight the major flaws in my arguments. Most notably, he pointed out that in my paragraph that discusses why people would not be pleased to see a criminal commit suicide because such an act prevents justice from being served, he mentioned that nobody was displeased to learn of someone like Adolf Hitler’s suicide. In response to this, I wrote,

Some may argue that, for example, Hitler’s suicide was not unjust because of all the evil acts he had committed, and that nobody was displeased to learn of his suicide because he deserved to die. However, in this particular case, his suicide prevented justice from being served because Hitler was unable to answer to society for his crimes. He arguably deserved death for his crimes, but there is no justice unless criminals such as him are made to answer to the society which they wronged.

I believe that this is a very strong response to the counterargument because I think it is hard to disagree with the notion that criminals should be made to answer to the society that they wronged for their crimes.