Your papers should be approximately 1000–1500 words. Include the word count at the top of your submission. If you’re under the word count, make sure you’ve developed all parts of your paper (this is hard to do in 1500 words). If you need another page to fully develop your point, that’s OK (so long as the extra words are due to added substance, not verbosity).
All papers should have two components, one expository (where you summarize and explain a philosopher’s argument, view, examples, etc.) and another argumentative (where you defend an answer to the question I ask you, presenting one or two original arguments in support of your answer). Summaries need not be in standard form (neither do original arguments). In general, your original arguments should take up at least half of the paper; I expect you to develop one or two substantive arguments, and that takes space.
For helpful advice on how to write philosophy papers, I recommend that you consult the following:
My Guide “How to Write a Philosophy Paper”, which is posted on the course Website
Jim Pryor’s guide “How to Write a Philosophy Paper” at jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/writing.htmlLinks to an external site..
I also recommend that you come to TA or Professor office hours. We’re happy to talk with you about your papers. You’ll receive by far the most benefits if you come well before the deadline.
Topic
Suppose Ankit becomes so intoxicated that he cannot remember anything he thought, felt, or did from midnight until 2am. As we saw in lecture, Locke’s theory entails that sober, post-2am Ankit is not the same person as drunk, midnight-to-2am Ankit, and this consequence, we saw, can seem quite implausible.
Locke tries to deal with this sort of worry about his view in §22 of his “Of Identity and Diversity.” Explain and evaluate what Locke is saying in this passage. Is his response convincing? Why or why not? Argue for your answer.
The correct section 22 is the following:
But is not a man drunk and sober the same person? Why else is he punished for the fact he commits when drunk, though he is never afterwards conscious of it? Just as much the same person as a man who walks, and does other things in his sleep, is the same person, and is answerable for any mischief he shall do in it. Human laws punish both, with a justice suitable to their way of knowledge, because in these cases, they cannot distinguish certainly what is real, what counterfeit. And so the ignorance in drunkenness or sleep is not admitted as a plea. For though punishment is annexed to personality, and personality to consciousness, and the drunkard perhaps is not conscious of what he did, yet human judicatures justly punish him, because the fact is proved against him, but want of consciousness cannot be proved for him. But in the great day in which the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open, it may be reasonable to think, no one shall be made to answer for what he knows nothing of, but shall receive his doom, his conscience accusing or excusing him.