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Before you begin writing…

When you are reading in preparation for writing a philosophy paper, remember that reading philosophy is not always like reading for other disciplines. In philosophy, you are not reading to gather general information about a topic, to follow a plot or chronological order of events, or to see “what happens in the end.” Instead, you are reading to figure out what an author is arguing and how she makes her arguments. Begin by noticing the conclusion or conclusions the author wants you to accept, and then ask yourself how she arrives at those conclusions—what kinds of reasons does she give? Don’t be surprised if you have to read more slowly than usual, or if you have to read the same text several times. When your instructor gives you your assignment, read it immediately and make sure you understand what is required. In particular, be sure you have understood how many different parts the assignment has and what kind of answer each part requires. (see "How to Read an Assignment ")

Some different elements of philosophy papers

There are several different kinds of tasks your philosophy paper may require you to do. A particular paper may focus on just one of these tasks, or it may ask you to do several. Here are some (though not all) of the different things you may be asked to do:

Argument reconstruction

Objections and replies

Application

Original argument

Thought experiments

Let’s examine these elements one at a time.

Argument Reconstruction

Reconstructing an argument is a special way of explaining the argument. Your goal is to present it in such a way that someone unfamiliar with the material will understand the argument. Often this requires you to be more careful than the philosopher whose work you are examining. Indeed, it often requires you to say a lot more than the philosopher did in his or her paper. When you are asked to reconstruct an argument, begin by identifying the conclusion—in many cases, your assignment will tell you what the conclusion is. Then figure out what kinds of support or evidence the author has given for that conclusion—that is, find the premises. Remember that there may be premises that have not been stated outright. Once you have the premises and the conclusion, you’ll need to think about how the premises work together to support the conclusion.

Imagine that you are a teacher and you want to teach your student about the argument. Think of how much you needed to know before you understood the argument and

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consider what worked for you when you were being taught about the argument. You can use this information in your paper. There are two main ways you can present an argument reconstruction in your paper: you can simply explain the argument in regular prose, or you can formalize the argument and present it in a series of numbered steps. Unless your teacher has told you otherwise, he or she is probably expecting you to present the argument in regular prose form. In either case, as you present your reconstruction, keep these points in mind:

Keep your ideas separate from the author’s as much as possible. The purpose of the reconstruction is to make the author’s argument clear, not to tell what you think of it.

Be charitable. If the author’s argument seems to be missing a step, go ahead and supply that step (but be sure to indicate that you’ve done so). Give the best version of the argument you can, even if you don’t agree with the conclusion—strong arguments are more interesting to talk about.

Be sure to define any important terms.

You don’t need to present the author’s ideas in the same order in which he or she presented them. An argument reconstruction is not a plot summary; the ideas in your reconstruction should be organized so that the reader can proceed from premises to conclusion in a logical, step-by-step manner.

You may wish to summarize the whole argument briefly first, but you will also need to go on, in most cases, to explain each premise—what does it mean? what role is it playing in the argument?

The best way to become familiar with reconstructing arguments is to observe others doing it and then to do it yourself. Your professor has probably been reconstructing arguments during lecture. Review what she or he has done. Don’t hesitate to meet with your professor to ask for help!

Since argument reconstructions are the basis of many assignments, let’s walk through one for practice. Here is a passage from an essay by the 18th-century British philosopher David Hume:

Take any action allowed to be vicious: Willful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In whichever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflection into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact, but it is the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it (David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature).

Imagine that your assignment is to reconstruct the argument in this passage. How would you begin? First you would probably want to reread the passage a few times, stopping to look up any unfamiliar words--“disapprobation,” maybe. You might think you could just skip over words you don’t know and get the general sense of the passage, but that’s a bad strategy--each word in an argument can make a difference. In addition to unfamiliar words, you should also be sure you understand the meaning of any important terms, like “vicious.” Sometimes the dictionary will help you understand those words, but it is even more important for you to be sure you understand what the particular author you are reading is trying to say. To most contemporary readers, the dictionary entry defining “vicious” as “malicious, spiteful, or mean” does the best job of capturing what “vicious” means to them. But by reading Hume’s essay, you can discern that the entry that defines “vicious” as “wicked, depraved, or immoral” is closer to what Hume means.

You’ll notice that certain phrases, like “matter of fact,” seem pretty important to the argument. By reading the rest of the essay, you will begin to be able to understand and explain what this phrase means to Hume. If you aren’t used to reading historical sources, you may find Hume’s style challenging at first. But you can see right away what is important about this argument--Hume is discussing what it is that makes us call certain actions, like murder, wrong. Now that you’ve done the work necessary to understand the sentences in the passage, how should you begin to reconstruct the argument?

First, identify the conclusion. Sometimes your teacher will already have identified it for you--he or she might have written that your assignment is to “reconstruct Hume’s argument for the conclusion that the viciousness of an action is a feeling of disapprobation in the person who considers it, not a property of the action itself.” But even if the conclusion has not been stated for you, you can find it. It won’t always be the first or the last sentence in the passage. Sometimes the conclusion won’t even be explicitly stated in one sentence!

So how can you be sure you’ve found it? First, ask yourself what the author is trying to prove, and state the author’s point in a sentence. Now you can ask some questions that will help you determine whether you’ve correctly identified the conclusion. Suppose that you thought the conclusion of Hume’s passage was Sentence A: “In whichever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives,” and so forth--or, to put it in your own words, “Whenever we think about a murder, all we see are certain actions and feelings,” or something like that. Do the rest of the sentences in the passage offer support for this sentence? If we said to Hume, “Why do you think that actions and feelings are all we see?” would Sentence B, “When you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling...of blame from the contemplation of it,” be a good answer? It wouldn’t--Sentence B can’t serve as evidence for Sentence A. But try reversing the order. If we asked why Hume thinks that Sentence B is true, part of the answer to our question would be Sentence A. Of course Sentence A isn’t the whole answer: all of the premises in an argument have to work together to support the conclusion.

Once you’ve identified the conclusion, you need to be sure you’ve identified the premises. The passage we’re considering is pretty concise, but sometimes a passage will include material that isn’t relevant to the argument--so keep in mind that not every sentence is necessarily going to be a premise or a conclusion. Consider the conclusion, and then ask yourself what the author would need to do to prove it. Hume’s conclusion here seems to have two parts:

1. When we call an action vicious, we mean that our “nature” causes us to feel blame when we contemplate that action.

2. There is nothing else that we could mean when we call an action “vicious.”

How does Hume prove these parts? He does it by considering an example, murder, and pointing out that when we consider why we say that murder is vicious, two things happen:

1. We realize that when we contemplate murder, we feel “a sentiment of disapprobation” in ourselves.

2. No matter how hard we look, we don’t see any other “matter of fact” that could be called “vice”--all we see “in the object” (the murder) are “certain passions, motives, volitions, and thoughts.”

So, there’s the evidence.

You may have noticed that Hume is relying on certain assumptions that he doesn’t state. For example, Hume is assuming that murder is a representative case of “viciousness.” He is also assuming that if there were “viciousness” in the “object” (the murder), we would be able to “see” it by examining the case--Hume is assuming the “viciousness” isn’t somehow hidden from us. Depending on how important you think these assumptions are, you may want to make them explicit in your reconstruction.

Even though you are working with the same argument, you and your classmates (and your teacher) may reconstruct it in slightly different ways. Here is one way that someone might reconstruct the argument of the passage, by formalizing it:

1. If we examine a vicious action like murder, we see passions, motives, volitions, and thoughts.

2. We don’t see anything else.

3. So we don’t see any property or “matter of fact” called “viciousness.”

4. Assumption: What we don’t see is not there.

5. When we examine our feelings about murder, we see a “sentiment of disapprobation.”

6. Unstated: This feeling of disapprobation is the only thing all the acts we think are vicious have in common, and we feel it whenever we confront a vicious act--that is, all and only vicious acts produce the feeling of disapprobation.

Conclusion: So, the viciousness of a bad action is a feeling of disapprobation in the person who considers it, not a factual property of the action itself.

You won’t usually be expected to put an argument in numbered steps like this. Instead, you could summarize the argument in a paragraph. Then you would need to go on to explain the different premises and how they work together. For example, you would need to explain what Hume means when he says we see “passions, motives,” etc., and nothing else, when we look at a murder.

Here’s how a prose reconstruction might go:

In an attempt to understand what we mean when we call an action “vicious,” by which he means “wrong,” Hume decides to examine the case of murder. He finds that whenever we consider a murder itself, all we see are the “passions, motives, volitions, and thoughts” of the people involved. For example, we might see that the murderer feels the passion of anger and is motivated by a desire to make his victim suffer, and that the victim feels the passion of fear and is thinking about how to escape. But no matter how hard we look, we don’t see “viciousness” or wrongness--we see an action taking place, and people with certain motives and feelings are involved in that action, but none of these things seem to be what we mean by “viciousness” or wrongness. Hume next turns his inquiry inward, and considers what is happening inside a person who calls a murder “vicious.” The person who thinks or says that murder is wrong always seems to be feeling a certain “sentiment of disapprobation.” That is, the person disapproves of the action (otherwise he or she would probably not describe it as a murder!) and blames the murderer.

When we say “murder is wrong,” we usually think that we are saying something about murder itself, that we are describing a property (wrongness) that the action of murder has. But in fact, Hume thinks, what we are in fact describing is a feeling in us, not a property of murder--the “viciousness” of a vicious action is just an emotion in the person who is thinking about or observing that action, rather than a property of the action itself.

That’s only one way of reconstructing the argument, of course. Your reconstruction might look a little different! Just be sure that you have:

identified the conclusion

identified the premises (including any important assumptions)

explained what the premises mean and how they work together to support the conclusion

defined key terms

Objections and Replies

Often, when you have finished reconstructing an argument, you will be asked to assess it—to tell whether it is a good or a bad argument and whether you agree or disagree with it.

Thinking of objections to the argument and then examining the consequences of those objections is one way that philosophers often check to see if an argument is a good one.

When you consider an objection, you are testing the argument--you want to know whether the argument can overcome the objection. To object to an argument, you must give reasons why you think the argument is flawed. Just noting that you disagree with the author's conclusion isn't enough. You must tell the reader why. Here are some possible problems an argument might have:

The premises don’t really support the conclusion the author wants them to support.

One or more of the premises are false.

The argument articulates a principle that makes sense in this case, but that would have undesirable consequences in other cases.

The argument slides from one meaning of a term to another.

The argument makes a comparison that doesn’t really hold.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to make sure your objections are as strong as possible:

When raising an objection, have I:

Made clear what part of the argument I object to?

Explained the reasons why I object to that part of the argument?

Assessed the severity of my objection? (An important part of the process of raising an objection is determining how important your objection is. Does it simply point out where the philosopher needs to do more work, or is it something more devastating, something that the philosopher cannot answer?)

Thought about and discussed how the philosopher might respond to my objection? (Considering how the philosopher might respond to your objection is an important part of testing the severity of your objection. You have charged the philosopher with having a defect in his or her argument, and you should think hard about how that philosopher might try to respond.)

Stayed focused on the particular argument at hand, rather than just talking about the general issues the conclusion raises?

Discussed at least one objection thoroughly rather than many objections superficially?

Doing all of the things listed above is demanding. You are apt to do a better job by discussing one objection in depth rather than discussing many in a more superficial manner.

How should you generate possible objections? Sometimes your professor will have given some in lecture. Sometimes another author you are reading may say things that go against what the author whose argument you are reconstructing has said. But often you will simply need to consider the argument, looking for potential weaknesses.

What kinds of objections might someone make to Hume’s argument about murder? Someone might object to premises 2 and 3, and argue that there is actually a property of wrong actions that makes us call them wrong. Perhaps, for example, we call actions wrong because of one of the motives of those actions--because the actions are motivated by cruelty, for example. So perhaps Hume is right that we don’t see a property called “viciousness,” but wrong that “viciousness” is thus only a feeling in us. Maybe the viciousness is one of the motives or passions. Or maybe it is a combination of certain motives in the murderer and certain sentiments in the observer--Hume has assumed that viciousness must either be in the action or in the observer, and has not considered that it might be in both of them, or in neither.

Someone might also object that we sometimes judge actions to be wrong even though we don’t feel any “sentiment” of disapproval for them. For example, if vigilantes killed a serial murderer, we might say that what they did was wrong, even if we shared their anger at the murderer and were pleased that they had killed him.

Often you will be asked to consider how a philosopher might reply to objections. Your teacher asks you to do this so that you can better understand the process of thinking through a complicated argument, and so that you are in a better position to fairly judge whether the argument is a good one or not. After all, not every objection is a good objection; the author might be able to come up with a very convincing reply! Use what you know about the author’s general position to construct a reply that is consistent with other things the author has said, as well as with the author’s original argument.

Consistency is very important--for example, if an author has been arguing that abortion is always wrong because it violates a fetus’s right to life, and someone objects to that author and says that a fetus isn’t a person and has no right to life, you probably wouldn’t want to have that author reply, “Well, you’re right, a fetus has no right to life, but abortion is still wrong because it is a mother’s duty to carry her pregnancy to term.” Instead, you’d want to explain how the author would argue that a fetus does have a right to life.

So how might Hume, or someone defending Hume, reply to the two objections we looked at four paragraphs above? To the first objection, Hume might reply that there is no one passion or motive that all “vicious” actions have in common. A murder might be wrong because it is committed out of cruelty, but are all wrong actions motivated by cruelty? It seems that some are not--theft, for example, might be motivated by greed. A lie might be motivated by a desire to spare someone’s feelings, and yet some people would still think it was wrong or “vicious.” So the only thing that all the actions we call “vicious” have in common is that we disapprove of all of them.

To the second objection, Hume might reply that when we call the actions of vigilantes wrong, even though we are pleased by those actions, we must still be feeling at least some disapproval. If we approved in every way of what the vigilantes did, we might say that their actions were illegal, but we would not say that their actions were “wrong” or “vicious.” So although we might have mixed feeling when we consider certain actions, when we say that an action is wrong, we are always feeling at least some disapproval.

Application

Sometimes you will be asked to summarize an author’s position or argument and then apply that position to a new case. The purpose of such assignments is to help you think about the implications of the author’s position. Considering how the author would think about a case helps you understand the author’s reasoning and can help you see how his or her argument is important or relevant.

Begin by making sure you have accurately understood the details of the author’s position. You’ll also need to be sure you understand the case. Your instructor might ask you, for example, to describe how Hume would think about a case other than murder.

Imagine that your instructor says, “Apply Hume’s views on the nature of vice to the following case: Mr. Smith has a very serious and advanced form of cancer. He asks his doctor, Dr. Jones, what she thinks his prognosis is. Although Dr. Jones is certain that Mr. Smith will die within the month, she tells him he may survive for a year or longer, that his cancer may not be fatal. Dr. Jones is motivated by a desire to give Mr. Smith hope and spare him the painful truth. How should we think about whether what Dr. Jones did is wrong?”

How might you answer such a question? Well, consider what you know about Hume’s views. Hume has not given a list of actions that he thinks are right or wrong, or even said how he thinks we should judge whether a particular action is right or wrong. What he has told us is that if an action is wrong, that wrongness is a sentiment in the people considering the action, rather than a property of the action itself. So Hume would probably say, you might suggest, that what matters is how observers (like us) feel about Dr. Jones’s action--do we feel disapproval? Dr. Jones’s kind motives are relevant only insofar as they affect how we feel about her and her action. If we feel disapproval, then we are likely to call the action “wrong.”

If you are philosophically minded, this little application/test case is probably raising all kinds of questions for you about Hume’s views. You might be thinking “Who cares whether we CALL the action wrong--I want to know whether it actually IS wrong!” Or you might say to yourself, “Well, some people will feel disapproval of the doctor’s action, but others will approve, so how should we decide whether the action is wrong or not?” These are exactly the sorts of questions your instructor wants to get you thinking about.

When you go back and read and discuss Hume, you will begin to see how he might answer such questions, and you will have a deeper understanding of his position. For the purposes of your paper, though, you should probably focus on one or two main points and reserve the rest of your speculation for your conclusion.

Original Argument/Taking a Position

Sometimes an assignment will ask you to argue for your position. Begin by figuring out what your conclusion is, and then consider what kinds of reasons you could give someone else for accepting your conclusion. Consider, and try to address, any serious objections that someone might make to your argument.

When you are asked to make an original argument, you will usually be able to use an author’s arguments to support your positions. For example, you might be asked, “Why is murder wrong?” Suppose your class has been studying J.S. Mill and Immanuel Kant, two important moral theorists. You might begin your paper by stating “Mill would think murder is wrong in cases where it does not produce the greatest net happiness, whereas Kant would think that it is always wrong because it violates the categorical imperative.” The rest of your paper would go on to describe, based on what you know from your readings, why and how the authors would argue for their positions.

Occasionally, you might be asked to supply your own argument. For example, you might be asked whether or not the death penalty is morally wrong. You could probably support your position with others’ arguments, but ultimately you would need to decide what you think and what your reasons are for thinking it. You would then present your argument as clearly and persuasively as possible, giving reasons that would be compelling to a broad audience.

For example, you might believe the death penalty is wrong because you are a Buddhist and committing violence against sentient beings goes against Buddhist doctrines. But this argument will not persuade a non-Buddhist audience. If you can explain, however, why causing suffering or harm to other sentient beings is wrong, you may be able to make an argument that any rational person should listen to and consider.

Similarly, perhaps you think the death penalty is wrong because your parents taught you so. But other people have no special reason to care what your parents think! Try to give reasons that will be interesting and compelling to most people, as you might do in a political debate.

Thought Experiments

In science, if we want to test a theory or principle we have come up with, we carefully design an experiment to test our theory. We construct the experiment so that there is just one variable being tested, so we can focus on the one factor we are most interested in. In philosophy, we often test our ideas by conducting thought experiments. We carefully construct imaginary cases that will allow us to focus on the one issue or principle we are most interested in. Often the cases are not especially realistic, just as the conditions in a scientific laboratory are pretty different from those in the rest of the world—reality is messy and doesn’t allow us to focus on just one principle.

When you are asked to think or write about a thought experiment, don’t worry about whether it is something that is ever likely to really happen; instead, focus on the principle being tested. Suppose that your bioethics teacher has given you this thought experiment

to consider: An elderly patient who is currently unconscious needs a heart transplant. It is possible, but very unlikely, that a donor heart will become available before the patient dies. The doctor’s other option is to try a new, and very risky, procedure that involves transplanting the heart of a genetically-engineered young chimpanzee into the patient. This will of course require killing the chimp. What should the doctor recommend?

When you read this thought experiment, you may find yourself thinking, “Oh, come on--that’s the craziest thing I ever heard! Situations like that never arise in real life. It isn’t possible to transplant a chimp heart into a human.” But that isn’t the point. The instructor has created this scenario to get you to think about what sorts of considerations matter morally (not just medically) when making a life-or-death decision. Who should make such decisions--doctors, families, or patients? Is it acceptable to kill another intelligent primate in order to provide a heart for a human, even when the transplant may not work? Does it matter that the patient is elderly? unconscious? The scenario itself may be unrealistic, but it raises moral issues (e.g., about who should make decisions for unconscious patients) that do arise in real life. In a real case, our thoughts might be complicated by, for example, our feelings about the patient (perhaps she is a rather bad person); if we think that such feelings are morally irrelevant, it is easier to consider a made-up case where they won’t interfere in our thinking. Then we can approach the real case with a clearer understanding of the moral aspects of the situation.

Some Other Issues to Keep in Mind

Consistency. A good argument should be internally consistent. For example, if I begin my paper by arguing that Marquis is right about abortion, I should not later say that Thomson’s argument (which contradicts Marquis’s) is also correct. Here’s another example: Suppose that in the beginning of my paper, I say that I believe abortion is always morally wrong. Later in the paper, I have to discuss an example in which a 13-year-old girl wants to have an abortion because she has been raped and the pregnancy would endanger her life, and I decide that it is morally permissible for her to have an abortion. If I say both of these things, my argument is inconsistent. I should go back and revise the statement I made initially and say that abortion is sometimes morally permissible, or I should stick with my original argument and accept that it would be wrong for the 13 year old to have an abortion—I can’t have it both ways.

Overstatement. Be careful not to overstate your claims. Watch out for words like “all,” “every,” “always,” “no,” “none,” and “never.” Sometimes these are the right words to use, but they are very strong; supporting a claim that uses them will be more difficult. Consider, for example, how much harder it would be to prove that lying is always wrong (is wrong in every single case imaginable) than it would be to prove that lying is usually or sometimes wrong (is wrong in a substantial number of cases).

Related to both of the above issues is a problem students sometimes have when they are trying to be fair to the author and “see both sides.” Suppose you think Kant’s argument is pretty strong, but you still disagree with his conclusion. You might be tempted to say “Kant’s argument is a good one. I disagree with it.” This appears contradictory—instead

of simply giving a global, and possibly overstated, assessment of an argument (e.g., saying it’s good or bad), it is better to focus on the particular strengths and weaknesses of the argument, and the particular reasons why you agree or disagree with it. If an argument really is good and you can’t find any weaknesses in it, it seems rational to think that you should agree with the argument. If you really disagree with it, there must be something wrong with it, and your job is to figure out what that is and point it out. For example, you might say, “While Kant is correct that the categorical imperative is the supreme principle of morality, he is wrong in thinking that the categorical imperative requires us never to lie.”

Avoid both personal attacks on and excessive praise of the authors you are writing about. Neither “Mill was obviously a bad person who didn’t care about morality at all” nor “Kant is the greatest philosopher of all time” adds to our understanding of Mill’s or Kant’s arguments. Philosophers focus on the strengths and weaknesses of arguments, not on the brilliance or stupidity of the people who make those arguments.

Using the first person. Students often wonder whether it is all right to write in the first person—that is, to use words like “I”, “me,” and “my”--in their philosophy papers. Generally, it is fine to do so, but if you are uncertain, just ask your instructor.

It is often a good idea to support your argument with examples and quotes, but be sure that you incorporate them into your paper properly. It is very important, especially with quotes, that you explain what you mean in your own words, and that you make sure the reader knows what you want him or her to do with the quote or the example. Is it an illustration of a point you are making? If so, what point, and how does it illustrate that point? Don’t think that you can avoid explaining a difficult issue by just dropping a long quote about it into your text and then moving on. Your paper should show your teacher that you understand what you’ve been reading.

Introductions and conclusions. Your introduction should give your reader a clear sense of what is going to happen in your paper, and perhaps an idea of why the topic you are writing about is important to philosophers. Avoid starting your paper with sentences like “Since the dawn of time, man has pondered the issue of murder,” or “Webster’s dictionary defines murder as the unlawful killing of one human being by another.” Stay focused on the text you’re working with—if you need to provide definitions, try to say how the author would define the word in question—and don’t be melodramatic or grandiose. The same goes for your conclusion. Avoid saying things like “There is no right or wrong answer” or “We will never really know why murder is wrong.” While it may be true that it is hard to be certain about some issues, your instructor generally wants you to offer, or examine, the best arguments you can; saying “We can’t know anything” adds very little to our understanding of difficult issues.

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