Money for Nothing and Your Cows for Free

Philosophy 2306, Fall 2019Instructor: Dr. Robert TierneyEpistemic Responsibility Writing AssignmentGeneral InstructionsFor this writing assignment, you are to answer the questions below. Your submission should be 400-500 words in length. This project is to be submitted via Canvas. Submit your answers as a .doc or .docx document. Your full name must appear at the top of the document. The Focus of the ProjectRecall that by “epistemic responsibility” we mean the responsibility that one has to make sure that one forms one’s beliefs on the basis of appropriate and sufficient evidence. This was the focus of “The Ethics of Belief,” but this issue also ran through our subsequent readings in one way or another. Clifford was primarily concerned with our beliefs about descriptive as opposed to normative issues. That is to say, he wasn’t discussing the need to base our ethical beliefs or theories on appropriate and sufficient evidence, he was concerned with the need to make sure we “have our facts straight” as regards persons, things, events, etc. in the world. (Clifford seems to think that we have such a responsibility on any reasonable ethical theory.) At this stage in the course, this is also the kind of epistemic responsibility we are focusing on.The Target of Your AnalysisIn this project you will be applying some of what we have been studying to the content of the following podcast: This American Life, Episode 503: “I Was Just Trying to Help,” Act One: “Money for Nothing and Your Cows for Free” Note that we are only interested in Act One, “Money for Nothing and Your Cows for Free,” and not any other part of Episode 503. (Hereinafter, Act One: “Money for Nothing and Your Cows for Free” shall be referred to as “the Podcast” for purposes of these instructions, but not necessarily in your paper.) You should be able to get the Podcast at the link that I posted in Blackboard. Otherwise, this address: https://www(dot)thisamericanlife(dot)org/radio-archives/episode/503/i-was-just-trying-to-help?act=1#playIf you have any problems with link and the address given immediately above, use the identifying information provided above to locate the Podcast on the Internet and access it by other means. The Podcast is readily available at the Website of its creator: This American Life. I have provided a transcript of the Podcast in the “Assignment Materials” folder.Two organizations play key roles in the events described in the Podcast: Give Directly and Heifer International (Hereinafter, each of the latter shall be referred as an “Organization” for purposes of these instructions, but not necessarily in your paper. Hereinafter, each Organization, as well as any person or persons empowered to make decisions on behalf of one of these respective Organizations, shall be referred to as a “Decision-Maker” for purposes of these instructions, but not necessarily in your paper.)Finally, rely solely on the information contained in the Podcast as regards the people, organizations, events, and issues discussed therein. Do not use any outside research or information concerning these organizations. The Podcast provides the factual context of your analysis.
Page 2 of 4 Epistemic Responsibility Project (2306, Fall 2019) (First Question Only) v6.0Question1.This part of the question has two subparts.a.Which of the two Organizations is doing a better job at being epistemically responsible? (In answering this part of the question you are simply to state the conclusion of your comparative evaluation. You should probably be able to do this in one or two sentences.)b.Provide the basis for the conclusion that you stated in Part (a) of this question. (In answering this part of the question you are to provide the comparative evaluation that supports the conclusion you stated in Part (a) of this question.) 2.Why does it matter whether and to what extent the respective Organizations are exercising epistemic responsibility? In other words, what is at stake in this regard? I would think that your answer to Question 1 would be longer than your answer to Question 2. Question 1 is worth more points than Question 2, though the assessment of each is connected to the assessment of the other in certain respects. Remember to prioritize what is most important. For example, if there are a number of things at issue in Question 1 and you focus on the relatively minor issues to the neglect of the major issues, then your answer is weak to that extent. Further Instructions and Information Reasonable AnalysesNote that Question 1 is asking you to do a comparative evaluation. To do a comparative evaluation you have to talk about each of the two things you are evaluating. As a general rule, to do an honest, meaningful, and fair comparative evaluation, you need to consider the positive and negative aspects of each of the two items being compared and to give weight in your analysis to the features (positive or negative) that you are examining in proportion to their actual significance. I do not mean to be saying anything surprising in the foregoing paragraph. I am just saying that if you are asked “Which is better, A or B?” and you only talk about A, you haven’t done your job. If you ignore the negatives regarding A and/or ignore the positives about B, you are not doing your job(assuming that there are actual relevant positives or negatives there to be found). Such an analysis would be fundamentally skewed and, therefore, worthless. If you focus on the trivial at the expense of the significant, again, this is not a good analysis. The point is not to “pick a winner” and then distort the facts to fit your preconceived view. The point of the exercise is to do an honest analysis in order to find out the best answer. Then you write up the results of your analysis in appropriate form. Similarly, you should not invent facts. Use the information provided. This includes inventing “possibilities” that have no rational weight. For example, in a life or death decision, saying that it is OK if so-and-so dies because “Who knows? Maybe he was a mass murderer!” is obviously a bogus move. I could just was well reply, “Who knows? Maybe he was about to invent the cure for cancer!” Clearly, this is pointless. On the other hand, it is appropriate to make well-grounded, reasonable, conservative inferences from the facts you are given. However, relying upon unsupported or poorly supported inferences from the facts as a part of your analysis is, of course, improper. Suppose, for example, we have a scenario involving someone named Jane. If Jane says she loves dogs, and we have a reasonable basis for taking Jane at her word, then we could reasonably infer that Jane is, in fact, very fond of dogs. Moving on from there (with no further information) to say that Jane might well be a radical animal liberation activist ... well, that is taking things a step too far. Going on from there to cite the “possibility” that Jane might be a radical animal liberation activist as support for the conclusion (or a sub-conclusion) of your “analysis” is, of course, completely out of court. Finally, if you have limited space to do an analysis, prioritize the most important considerations.
Page 3 of 4 Epistemic Responsibility Project (2306, Fall 2019) (First Question Only) v6.0In sum, you are to provide honest, accurate, insightful, clear, precise, concise, and appropriately thorough analyses. Note that every adjective in the foregoing sentence is serving a serious purpose in conveying my message. By contrast, do not write: fluff; bullshit; nonsense; clichés; platitudes; empty generalizations; irrelevant expressions of feeling; unsupported fact claims; off-point digressions; self-aggrandizing statements—including affirmations as to how deeply moral one is; self-congratulatory statements; flattery aimed at the instructor; empty rhetoric; purple prose; shoddy prose; shoddy reasoning; parroted phrases that one doesn’t understand; skewed analyses; one’s general views about life, religion, ethics ... or whatever; and so on. Keep in mind that in this course there will rarely, if ever, be case where I ask you to tell me what you “really believe.” By and large, this is none of my business and is irrelevant with regard to my evaluation of you in this course. I am grading you on your demonstrated comprehension of the material we cover, not on your personal convictions. Strive to do a good, honest, workmanlike job. I hope that everything I said above is already obvious to you. If so, I am sorry for having asked you to read it. However, I have seen all of these principles transgressed many times in student papers, and I think that they are essential to doing good, effective, honest thinking in ethics and everywhere else. I am taking extra steps to try to prevent as much unnecessary grief (yours and mine) as possible. Again, sorry if I am coming across all “preachy” or “bad cop,” but this stuff is important.Write in Declarative SentencesIn this course, questions should NOT appear in your answers to questions—not in any writing assignment or paper. I am asking the questions, you are to provide the answers. If you end a sentence with a question mark, delete it and start over. You need to make it clear what you are claiming and why you are claiming it. This is done by means of declarative sentences. Putting a bunch of questions in a purported answer to a question tends to be a lazy way around saying something clear and precise and/or doing the work of analysis and rational justification. This is true for rhetorical questions as well. (NB: I often find that what a student takes to be a rhetorical question with an implied obvious answer is not that at all.) Finally, one cannot get past this requirement by grafting a question onto the end of what starts out as a declarative sentence and then ending this string of words with a period. For example, suppose a student writes “John is wrong about what Bill said because how could he know.” This an attempt to sneak a question into something masquerading as a declarative sentence. The result is something that is grammatically incorrect and semantically meaningless. That is, it is not even a sentence. More on FormatYour paper should be double-spaced. Answer the questions in order and label each question and question part (i.e. 1(a), 1(b), 2). It is your job to make it clear which part of which question you are answering. For each question or question part, begin a new paragraph and label it with numbers and/or letters as appropriate. Do NOT rewrite the questions. Just provide the answers. Make sure your pages are numbered. Put the name of the project, the class name, the course CRN number, the group number, and the names of all the members of the group at the top left-hand corner of the first page. Do NOT make a separate cover page. The project name, the group number, and the appropriate page number should appear in a footer on each page. Use Verdana 10 point font.CitationsEvery time you write a sentence in which you quote the podcast or make a statement based on information in the podcast, you must cite your source. In this case, just write “Podcast” and give the paragraph number(s) where the relevant information is contained in the podcast transcript. Put the citation in parenthesis immediately after the relevant sentence. Thus, your citation might look like this: (Podcast, ¶38.) or (Podcast, ¶¶38-39.) Similarly, every time you make a statement that quotes, paraphrases, draws upon, or otherwise utilizes information from one of our readings, you must identify
Page 4 of 4 Epistemic Responsibility Project (2306, Fall 2019) (First Question Only) v6.0the relevant reading by the author’s name and cite to the relevant page(s) within the text. Thus, your citation might look like this: (Clifford, p. 290.) or (Clifford, pp. 290-291).Is There a Right or Wrong Answer for these QuestionsYes there is. However, a “right answer” that is not properly supported is not a particularly good answer. On the other hand, a “wrong answer” that is cogently supported is definitely going to get points for being cogently supported. This is definitely not a “tell-me-how-feel exercise.” There is a target, and I want to see if you can get a bull’s-eye, and, if not, how close you can get.