Moral judgments can be reasoned about and critically reflected upon.  Many of the previous writing assignments in the Core Course have focused on how to persuade others, but this assignment asks you to decide for yourself what is true, or what we should believe.

This assignment asks you to develop a counterargument that responds to a passage in Beitz's text. This activity requires much more than simply rebutting a single point, since you will be considering the best possible versions of all relevant sides of an argument, and providing reasons in favor of one view over another. 

In the Humanities, students are encouraged to go beyond easy "pro" and "con" dichotomies to make original arguments that engage their opponents and make even those who agree with them think about the subject in a new way.  Close reading and critical thinking will be important in all your assignments to make effective arguments in this course.

Your counterargument must respond to the specific text of a particular argument.  Do not choose the passage from Beitz yourself.

For background you should carefully read "Fallacies in Arguments" (117-121), "Counterarguments" (122-124), "On Revision" (125-132), and "Revision Strategies: A Special Core Course Guide" (133-134) in the Writer's Handbook.  You should also read the material about "logic" and "logical fallacies" in Writing from A to Z.

To complete this essay you will first need to identify the components of the original argument, so that you can analyze them, evaluate them, and ultimately respond to them. To review the components of an argument read "Arguing from Premises to Conclusions" in the Writer's Handbook.  

Your essay should be roughly 4-5 pages and will count for 30% of your writing grade.

The Essay

This assignment calls for an essay having four parts, which together constitute a critique of a passage related to the debate about principles of justice in international relations.  The passage will be provided by your section leader.  Do not choose the passage yourself!

1. Reproduce the exact text of the passage to which you plan to respond at the top of the essay.
2. Interpret the passage as containing an argument. Paraphrase the main argument.  Then state clearly what the structure of the argument is. There may be more than one plausible way to do this; select the interpretation that you see as making the most sense of the passage.  You should be able to identify premises (both explicit and implicit), conclusions, and intermediate steps in the argument of the passage.  Identify which claims are "given" and which claims are supported with evidence.
3. Evaluate the argument.  You may have to clarify further what is being assumed in order to evaluate the argument; if so, make explicit what you are assuming.  To do this, you can use the "six strategies" in the section on "Counterarguments" and the list of logical fallacies in the section on "Logical Fallacies" in the Writer's Handbook.
4. Respond to the argument with a counterargument to the argument in the passage that is at least as good as the initial argument and that leads to a different conclusion from the one given in the passage. To integrate the parts of your essay together, you can review the list of ways to "acknowledge" a counterargument in the section of the Writer's Handbook on "Counterarguments."

• Use the structure we offer here as the skeleton for your essay.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the logical principles, types of arguments, and logical fallacies at work in Beitz's text.
• Offer a thorough "reading" of the argument in the assigned passage.
• Punctuate all quotations (indented or not indented) properly, and introduce all quotations appropriately, as described in Writing from A to Z.
• Keep the reader on track by means of clear signals and clear paragraphing.
• Develop a convincing thesis in the form of a counterargument.

Newspapers like the New York Times  or the Los Angeles Times often run opinion pieces, editorial pieces, or letters to the editor about foreign policy and the sovereignty of other nation states.  Sometimes these essays are written by legal experts or legislators and sometimes they are written by ordinary citizens.  Sometimes an event will be discussed that happened a long time ago, but the historical controversy around it has become relevant to the news again because of current events.  How would you write your paper to appeal to the public forum of a newspaper?  What qualities make an essay more likely to be chosen by a newspaper for publication?