Describe the film. Provide a clear and coherent description of the events in the film. You need to do this before you can tackle any other part of this assignment, since the action of the story is both episodic and non-chronological. In this connection, cover a number of things:
Choose one philosopher we have studied and read beyond what has been offered in our PDFs. You can purchase such works as The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, or any of Holiday’s other books, or feel free to purchase a book by Alain de Botton or The School of Life. If you would like more suggestions, please feel free to reach out! Many of the ancient texts are available with a simple Google search. Such titles include but are not limited to, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Gregory Hays translation), The Art of Living by Epictetus, and Enchiridion by Epictetus. I will provide options in the "Files" section on Canvas as well.
Included here is information for you to complete your play review worth a large portion of your grade. It includes an attached form for you to complete as well as due dates and helpful "how-to's"
???What would the book that would be given to every adult each year say about each law? Would it just explain each law? Would it also offer arguments for and against each? Who would write the arguments for and against each law? (Assume that one official book and/or website would have each law listed which shall be voted on by all adults annually.)
3. After understanding their argument and how they support it, think about where you stand. Do you agree with the author's conclusion? Why, or why not? Dive deeper into your own beliefs and values to sufficiently explain your response.
First and foremost, a major critique that I have about the paper is that it does not seem to talk about how any of the free will theories would address the problem between Beatrice and Griselda. It instead seems as though you focus more on factors that are not related to any of the theories. To start at the top and make my way down, the introductory paragraph does not really seem to address the prompt at all and instead focuses on free will and moral responsibility. These concepts are important, but the thesis needs to give your side as to who should bear more responsibility between Beatrice and Griselda. Next, you outlined the reasons why Beatrice is not responsible, but they all seem to focus on the nature of what a brain tumor would do to a person, rather than focusing on the situation in a philosophical context. For example, it is important to highlight what advocates for different philosophical ideologies would say about the situation instead of simply saying that the brain tumor would mess with Beatrice’s thought process. This same issue follows in the next paragraph. You discussed the impacts of external factors and moral liability, which is good, but you then make the paragraph more about the legal system than anything else. In that same paragraph, you also talk about how the tumor causes her to “obtain joy from activities that are highly condemned,” which seems fairly irrelevant to the discussion because they aren’t backed up by talking about one of the philosophical ideologies. In the next paragraph, I love the point you make about Beatrice’s constraints preventing her from attaining free will, but then you veered off and talked about why convicting Beatrice would actually be problematic, which once again seems irrelevant to the topic. I think your paper could also be boosted by explaining some terms that may be unfamiliar to some people. For example, you talked about free will and determinism but did not explain what either of them are. I like your analyses between Beatrice and Griselda about how Griselda acted out of an ignorance to moral responsibility, while Beatrice physically could not take that into account. Once again, describing guidance control is very unique and expresses extended knowledge, but it does not further your argument by standards of a philosophical paper. I am also sort of confused with the structure. It seems to be going back and forth between explaining Beatrice’s side and Griselda’s side, but does not follow any linear path when doing so. You explained why Griselda appeared to be more guilty at the bottom when that really could have been used to contextualize your argument at the top. Overall, I don’t think you clearly expressed you understood the material because you talked about other, non-philosophical factors for the most part. Also, I think the structure could improve, which would make your argument seem more clear. Lastly, this was a great analysis of the situation and I believe your argumentation was spot on.
