The purpose of this assignment is to give you practice in Student Outcomes 2-6, more particularly:
2. Identify and apply a variety of metaphysical theory
3. Evaluate and differentiate between an epistemological, a metaphysical and an ethical question
4. Understand and apply the criteria of correct philosophical reasoning
5. Understand the difference between a rhetorically good argument and a rationally good argument.
6. Identify, reconstruct and evaluation arguments posed by philosophers
Outside of this course, this will help you understand and apply good reasoning, spot in another person’s side of a debate (or spot them in your own) and know how to rephrase a person’s stance in better, more easy to understand ways.
Task:
In the reading as well as the modules, we have discussed many different reasons for the belief that there God exists. Here are the possible arguments:
1. The Design Argument
2. The Fine Tuning Argument
3. The First Cause Argument
4. The Ontological Argument
In this assignment you need to:
1. Choose one of these arguments and explain it
2. Explain one of the objections to the argument
3. Explain whether you think that the issue is damning (a major problem which the person trying to make the argument should be concerned with) or worth it (a minor which the person trying to make the argument doesn’t need to care too much about)
4. Explain why you think that
Each of these should take you around a paragraph to answer. Each of them are worth 5pts. Since this is worth 20pts, this is worth 5% of your total grade.
Example:
This is a bare outline of a possible paper, there is no explanations or anything like that in it:
1. One of the stances is Ontological Argument.
1. Explanation of how the argument goes.
2. One of the drawbacks is that this argument will also work for a perfect taco/island/flying golden banana.
1. Examples of the argument working the exact same way with any one of those.
3. I think that this is not a damning objection.
1. The reason for this (not spoiling it for you, figure it out).
In this version, I would be able to do the entire paper in 3 paragraphs. If you go that route, make it clear to me where the individual parts are.
Submission:
To submit this assignment, I only accept .pdf, .doc, .odt, and .docx. I do not accept .pages. You can find where to submit in the upper right of this screen. As for all assignments in this class, the standard is Times New Roman, 12pt font, double spaced, 2-3 pages (that is, at least a few words onto the second page to the bottom of the third).
