Questions and Topics We Can Help You Answering; 

Thought Paper 1

Due April 11, 2017

Please write your 3-5 page essay in response to one of the following prompts. If you’d like to write on an alternative question, please make sure to clear your topic and thesis with me first. Details regarding formatting, submission and evaluation are available in the “Paper Instructions” file in the Course Documents folder on the CourseDen page.

1) In “The Powers of Rational Beings,” Peter Van Inwagen outlines several possibilities for how to understand the relationship between free will and determinism, and explores some of the “mysteries” that accompany these positions. Why do free will and determinism appear to be incompatible? What kinds of considerations might motivate us to maintain both positions at the same time (i.e. why would we want to make them compatible)? Do you think a compatibilist position is possible? Explain why or why not, and be as specific as possible. You might find it helpful to refer to some of the “mysteries” Van Inwagen describes in his work in articulating your view.

2) Maria Lugones describes the experience of possessing an attribute in some worlds that she does not possess in other worlds. How does this experience affect her conception of self? Do you find her proposal of a “plurality of selves” plausible? Why or why not? How do you think that this ontological claim relates to the idea of “playful world travel” as a resistant exercise?

3) In his essay, “But What Are You Really?” Charles Mills provides ten examples of racial identity “problem cases” that test our intuitions regarding racial ontology. In this essay you should critically and thoroughly engage one of these cases. Which of the criteria of racial identification are coming into conflict and how? In this case, how do you determine what/who the person is? Most importantly, how does your thinking about this specific case inform your thinking on Mills’ more general question: “to what extent and in what ways…is race ‘real,’ and how deep is this reality?”

4) Linda Martin Alcoff suggests that in our society bodies and identities are “overdetermined” through visual racial perception. Describe the idea of racial color-blindness. What does Alcoff think is problematic about this idea? Describe Alcoff’s use of the concepts of “perceptual competence” and “domain-specific competence” to articulate a position on how race might be seen. Do you think that this provides a meaningful alternative to racial color-blindness? Why or why not?

5) According to Marilyn Frye, men can experience the limitations of gender normativity but are not oppressed by those limitations. Explain her argument. How does Frye understand oppression? Based on that understanding, why can’t men be oppressed? Do you agree with her conclusion? Why or why not?

6) As we have seen, examples of particular experiences are often presented as evidence of oppression. Thoroughly describe a specific example from current events or your own life, and analyze it using Iris Marion Young’s “Five Faces of Oppression.” Which of the faces are reflected by the example? Which are less evident/applicable? How does Young’s theory help you understand or respond to the example? What further questions does Young’s analysis prompt or leave open for you?