Essay, Choose A or B
Essay Length tips–To answer these topics completely, it takes about 2 pages—8-10 paragraphs. Use the topic
questions and the scoring rubric to see if your draft responds fully to all parts of the question. A complete,
thoughtful answer is more important than word count.
Topic A
In this essay you will address the controversy between free will and determinism. You will go deeper into the
problem of determinism by choosing whether it is the predictability or the unpredictability of our actions that
poses a bigger threat to free will. Using passages from the textbook, explain in detail what determinism is and
why determinism threatens the idea of free will.
Now consider these two opposite points of view about our ability to predict behavior:
Everything you do is predictable to those who know you well. This predictability means your life is determined
by choices beyond your control—Paraphrase from Vaughn, p.258
“He sat a long time and he thought about his life and how little of it he could have foreseen and he wondered
for all his will and all his intent how much of it was his doing.”—Cormac Mc Carthy (reprinted in Vaughn, p.255)
Explain what these two points of view mean and then give your own reasoned opinion about which point of
view is correct. Defend your answer.
Topic B
Describe the theory of knowledge called skepticism. Consider the skeptic’s charge that we can never be
confident about the reliability of our normal sources of knowledge (perceptions, memory, introspection, and
reasoning.) Describe why and how, for each of the 4 sources mentioned, the source is unreliable. Use
examples to show your understanding.
If a source of knowledge is unreliable, it means these sources can trick us into believing falsehoods. Does it
follow from the fact that we are sometimes mistaken when we rely on these sources that we are always
mistaken? In other words, once we admit is possible that we are mistaken, does that mean that we need to
admit that we might never be correct? How would you respond to the skeptic?
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