In this paper,
you will articulate, defend, and evaluate a claim.
**** The claims
and counterexamples should include and demonstrate mastery of what we studied
with Tavani. Use Tavani to generate justification for the
claim and the counterexamples. Do not
respond to these questions just using common sense without employing Tavanis thought.
****
Ch. 9 Regulating Speech and Commerce in Cyberspace
1) Production
of physical harm by the web content is required for morally justified
censorship of web content
Use examples
Ch. 10 Digital Divide, Democracy, and Work
2) Free public universal access to the
internet is required for morality
use the concept of primary good, with emphasis
on knowledge, political participation, and economic prospects
3) Increase in internet access is
required for increase in racism
Use examples
4) Personalized news and internet
filtering are required for loss of democracy
Use examples
Define personalized news and internet filtering
Ch. 11 Online Communities, Virtual Reality, and Artificial
Intelligence
5) Social Networking Services and
other Online Communities are required for increasing our prejudices and
superficial friendships
Use examples
6) Virtual rape is required for immorality
use Tavani moral development and psychological
harm arguments
Ch. 12 Ethical Aspects of Emerging and Converging
Technologies
7) Intelligent devices and ambient
intelligence technology are required for immoral technology
Use Tavanis argument about the dangers of the
above to make sense of the claim
Use Tavanis argument about the benefits of the
above in the counterexample to the sufficiency of the claim
8) Nanotechnology is required for
immoral technology
Use Tavanis argument about the dangers of the
above to make sense of the claim
Use Tavanis argument about the benefits of the
above in the counterexample to the sufficiency of the claim
Choose ONE claim and use it in question 4) of the
paper.
Instructions: write a 6-part (but responding
to 22 questions) paper. I
Do not just sit
down and write from your head without cracking open your books and
notes. I would set apart some time
during at least three days to write the paper.
IMPORTANT: There must be twenty two labeled
questions/tasks in your paper. Do
not hand in a text that is not divided into sections. You will receive four points for the
successful completion of each section.
The
Paper (Do the following 22 tasks)
Part I:
Introduction
5) Introduce the topic
6) Discuss your relation to the topic.
7) What is the importance of the claim
that you bring up in part II with regard to the topic? Why is examining this claim important in
order to make sense of the topic? Is it
a controversial issue what are the reasons for each of the sides? Does it run counter to common sense? What does the common sense say? You will have to complete 4) before you can
complete 3) here. [For example: Common sense
would seem to say that it cannnot be difficult to get a government-issued ID,
as issuing such IDs would seem to be one of the principal functions of the
government, and that such an ID must be required to do anything at all as one
lives in this country (so that everyone already has such IDs). So, the claim that photo ID laws damage
democracy and are discriminatory in nature seems to run contrary to common
sense. ]
Part II: The
claim
1.
Choose
a philosophical claim either from the list above, your own thinking,
reading, review questions, or the exam addressing the work of the authors
that we read. State the claim in
one sentence. (A claim is a
statement that judges, claims or asserts something to be true.) The form here is: X is responsible for Y. [For
example: Photo
ID laws are respsonsible for damaging democracy. ]
2. Provide
the page number or the section from the book or the name of the article or the
number of the question from the quiz, from which you got the claim.
Part III: IN
DEFENSE OF THE CLAIM
9) Explain to the reader of your paper why
what is claimed in 4) makes sense what is it about the first half of the
claim that connects it to the second half of the claim. Idenitfy what it is about X that makes
it connected to Y? Use Tavanis
actual reasons for this conclusion if appropriate. The form here is: identify XC by which X is connected
to Y.
The answer should be one sentence
only. [For example: Photo IDs are
not available to everyone ,
and, therefore, not everyone can vote
and that damages democracy]
7) Define or explain what is about the first half of the
claim that connects it to the second half of the claim. The form here is: Define or explain what XC is so that
it is clear how it connects X to Y need
to define and use Kantianism or Utilitarianism here in 7 in order to explain
why there is a moral problem with
violation of privacy (on Kantian grounds, violation of privacy is
immoral because
., on Utilitarian
grounds, violation of privacy is immoral because
.) as well as why there is a
violation of privacy in what you have stated in 6 (privacy is violated here
because
)
Part IV: CRITICISM
OF THE CLAIM
8) Rephrase the claim in terms of necessity. This must be just one sentence. The form here is: X is necessary for Y [For
example: Photo
ID laws are necessary for damaging democracy]
9) Constr
uct the simple negation of 8)
that is the initial step on your way to produce the refutation to it. This must be just one sentence. The form here is: X is not necessary for Y. [For example: Photo ID laws
are not necessary for damaging democracy]
10) Construct the concrete possibility negation
of 8) this is the next step in your production of the refutation. This
must be just one sentence. The form here is: Y is possible without any at all
connection to X. [For
example: Damagaing
democracy is possible without any at all photo ID laws]
11) Construct more explicitly, what you have in 10). This must be just one sentence. The form here is: Y is not due to connection with X but is due to
connection with something else (which produces Y without X) [For example: Damagaing democracy is not due to
connection with photo id laws but is due to connection with something else]
12) Identify another factor (W) due to connection
with which Y is not connected to the original factor in 4) . This must be just one sentence. The form here is: Y is due to connection with W (as that
something else that is other the than X and that produces Y without X) [For
example: Damaging
democracy is due to connection with corrupt repesentatives]
13) Idenitfy that due to which the other factor W
produces Y. The form here must be: Identify WC about W by which Y is connected
to it. [For example: Corrupt
representiaves do not represent the interests of voters]
14) Explain or define what you have
idenitified in 13). The form here must
be: Define
or explain what WC is so that it is clear how it connects Y to W. [For example: When interests of voters are not represented,
laws are passed that benefit either the representatives themselves or some
group of persons, instead of beneiting the voters, and, likely, at the expense
of voters]
15) Rephrase the claim in terms of sufficiency. This must be just one sentence. The form here
is: X is sufficient
for Y [For example: Voter ID laws are sufficient to
damage democracy]
16) Construct the simple negation of
15) this is the next step in your production of the refutation. This
must be just one sentence. The form here
is: X is not
sufficient for Y [For example: Voter ID laws are not sufficient to
damage democracy]
17) Construct the concrete possibility negation
of 15) this is the next step in your production of the refutation. This
must be just one sentence. The form here is: X is possible without any at all
connection to Y [For example: Voter ID laws are possible without any at all
damagaing democracy.]
18) Idenitfy, what about X makes us think that it is
not connected to Y. This must be just
one sentence. The form here is: Identify XNC about X due to which Y cannot be
connected to it. [For example: Voter ID is
available to everyone.]
19) Explain or define what you identified in 18. The form here is: Define or explain what XNC is so that
it is clear how it makes it impossible for X to be connected to Y. [For example: Voter ID is available to everyone.]
need to define and use Kantianism or Utilitarianism in 19
in order to defend the critics claims that privacy is not violated (There is
no moral problem here because, on Kantian grounds
, There is no moral
problem here because, on Kantian grounds
)
Part V:
EVALUATION OF THE DEFENSE AGAINST THE CRITICISM OF THE CLAIM
20) Is the defense of the claim or the criticism
of the claim stronger? Explain why. [For example: The defense of the claim is
strong. There are good reasons those
presented in the defense that getting a government-issued photo ID is not as
easy as the common sense thinks it is.
While the first half of the criticism is right, that there are other
ways that democracy can be undermined, other than by photo ID laws, the second
half of the criticism, that photo ID laws do not undermine democracy, does not
seem as strong as the claim of the defense that they do undermine
democracy. The reasons presented in the
defense seem valid. As it happens, photo
ID rules do undermine democracy, for the reasons stated in the defense. Though it would seem that we would need to
ask about how significant are the dangers of voting fraud, in order to gauge
whether democracy is undermined more by photo IDs or by voter fraud that photo
ID laws aim to prevent. We would also
need to ask whether photo IDs would be effective in stopping fraud.]
Part VI: REFLECTION/CONCLUSION
21) Discuss how your thinking about the topic
(what you discussed in Part I) has been affected by what you did in Parts II
through V. Has it strengthened your support
of a position on the topic? Has it
strengthened your opposition to a position on the topic? Etc. How and why? [For example: I have changed my mind. While I thought that voter ID laws make
sense, I can see that they do indeed dimininish democracy, for the reasons
stated in the defense of the claim.]
22) Discuss what have you learned that you
did not know before from doing this paper. Address the content of your paper
here not only its form. [For example: I have learned about the significant challenges
faced by segments of the population elderly, poor, women, young adults,
minorities in getting government-issued ID and that making such IDs into a
requirement for voting would undermine democracy in the US right now.]