Epictetus' Stoic Account of a Good Life

This is a Philosophy essay
Final Writing Assignment Instructions
Write a 4-6 page (typed, double spaced, 1000-1400 words) paper that completes both of the following steps. The paper is due on Ilearn at the end of the exam week. Late papers will lose 1/2 letter grade for every day they are late.
The syllabus has info on how the papers are graded. There is a link at the top of our Ilearn page about how to write "Philosophical Argument Reconstructions" that will help you write good philosophy papers.
Part 1
Write a brief (2-2.5 pages) exegesis of one of the philosophical theories listed below. An "exegesis" is just an explanation that uses simple terms, illustrative examples, and points out aspects of the idea being explained. When writing an exegesis use your own words. Imagine that you are speaking or writing to a friend who knows only a little about philosophy and that friend needs to understand the concept you are writing about. Be careful that you do not commit plagiarism in this section of your paper. Note that you do not need to do -and in many cases should avoid doing- any research outside of reading the textbook. When you do refer to the ideas in the textbook, cite them in APA style.
-Al Ghazali's arguments for the Philosophical Skeptic's conclusion that we know nothing
-Descartes' Cogito Ergo Sum argument
-Lucretius' Atomism/Materialism
-Berkeley's Criticisms of Materialism
-Berkeley's Idealist metaphysics (all that exists are ideas in our minds
-Russell's position on sense data and real objects
-Libertarianism (about free will)
-Hard Determinism
-Soft Determinism/Compatibilism
-Midgely's Criticisms of Moral Isolationism and Cultural Relativism
-Mill’s arguments that we should always follow the Utility Principle
-Thomson’s claim that there is a morally relevant difference between pushing the fat man off the bridge and throwing the switch.
-Iris Marion Young's explanation of oppression
-Taylor's argument that life is objectively meaningless
-Wolf's theory about projects of worth
-Sartre's theory of Existentialism
-Epictetus' Stoic account of the good life
-Epicurus' account of the good life
Step 2:
Write a brief criticism of the theory you explained. Your criticism can come entirely from your own mind, from things I said in class, or from things other authors said in our textbook. But if you refer to other authors' criticisms and agree with them, make sure to say why you agree and make sure to properly cite your sources using APA format.
Information from your syllabus:
Final Writing Assignments:
The final writing assignment prompts and due date are listed on Ilearn. The assignment requires that you write 4-6 pages (1000-1300 words, typed and double spaced) and hand in your finished assignment on Ilearn. Assignments that are too short will be penalized. All assignments will be graded on a 10 point scale according to the following rubric:
Quality of Writing
Number of Points for
Demonstrates Comprehension of Assigned Readings
Number of Points
Clear, concise writing. Contains only a few, small grammatical errors. There are at most 1 or 2 sentences that don’t say something relevant to the topic at hand. Thoughts are well organized.
3 pts
Fully answers the assigned question by clearly explaining all of the core ideas and relevant details from assigned readings.
7pts
Writing is clear and concise in places, but not in others, or 3-5 sentences are not relevant, or thoughts aren’t well organized
2 pts
Fully answers the assigned question by explaining all the core ideas from the assigned readings, but omits some details or makes some mistakes in explaining those details.
6 pts
Writing is mostly unclear and hard to follow, or all but 3 or 4 of the sentences aren’t relevant, or thoughts are extremely disorganized.
1 pt
Only partially answers the assigned question by explaining core ideas from the assigned readings, and misses some details.
5 pts
Doesn’t answer the assigned question, but does clearly explain some of the core ideas from the assigned readings.
4pts
Doesn’t answer the assigned question and only partially explains some of the core ideas from the reading.
3pts
Doesn’t explain anything from the assigned readings correctly, but does make sense.
2 pts
1 pt