Daily Paper Assignments

There will be daily papers for the readings. These will be keyed to the reading for the day and will ask you to react to them. This means you will need actually to read them and to reflect on them. I will drop the lowest two grades for these papers and so you can decide to skip two (or do them all to make sure you can get the best grade). Late daily papers will not be accepted.

There will be two set questions for each day, and you may choose which question you will answer in your daily paper. Daily papers should be typed and no more than one page in length. In order to help my aging memory, please place a picture of yourself on your paper. This puts the pressure on me to learn your name.

1. Look for Dominance: Analyze the behavior of someone (even yourself) in DeWaal's terms of dominance and submission. What moral lesson does this tell you?
2. Nasty: Why would life be nasty, brutish, and short without Leviathan?
3. Look for Connections: Analyze the behavior of someone (even yourself) in terms of coalition buiidling or connection. What moral lesson does this teach you?
4. Sentiments: What sentiment is most important for Hume? How does it produce moral behavior?
5. Unpack a Judgment: Look for a concrete moral judgment someone makes today. Analyze it in terms of Haidt's two-process theory of moral reasoning. Is it Tail or Dog? Does this affect the correctness of the judgment?
6. Sin: What is the central sin for Augustine? Can you comfortably place yourself in the hierarchy he describes?
7. Describe a Distancing Strategy: Find in the paper or in other sources a distancing strategy. What effect does it have on the moral judgment the person(s) make?
8. Moral Support for Immorality: Describe a concrete instance of using a moral reason to support aggression against another. In this instance, does it increas eor decrease the sophistication of the reasoning?
9. Capitalism: Why is capitalism inimicable to Christianity? Can you reconcile this with your desire for a comfortable life?
10. 9/11 as a stressor: Describe how the experience in the U.S. since 9/11 might be a stressor in Staub's terms. What might keep our society from moving down the continuum of destruction?
11. Property: Why does Rousseau think property is the root of all evil?
12. Building a Moral Community: Suggest at least one concrete way that we might build a moral community in the post 9/11 United States.
13. Will: Would Kant approve your decision to help if you did it because your community supported this choice?
14. Indentifying Positive Influences: Identify apositive influence in your life and analyze that using Colby & Damon's approach.
15. Tragedy: How does Rheinhold Neibuhr qualify his statement that human moral choice is tragic?
16. Is the Bubble Bad?: Given Colby & Damon's approach, what is good and bad about "the bubble" in their terms?
17. MLK: Does MLK's claim for impatience apply to any current moral situation?
18. Identify a Learned Virtue: Indentify a virtue that one might learn in adulthood.
19. Paradox: How can a person be both free and a servant at the same time?
20. Identify a Moral Skill: What moral skills might we teach children in school?
21. Skills: How would we identify someone who was morally skilled?
22. Tell a Moral Story: Find a biblical story or tell one of your own. In McAdam's terms, how is it framed?
23. Virtue: What virtue(s) does this class help you practice?
24. Identify a Metaphor. What is your central metaphor for moral choice?
25. Is & Ought: Are there "moral facts" that we cannot evade in our discussion of morality?

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