Philosophy
Beauvoir + Sartre Essay
1300-1500 word Textual-Analysis Essay
As we know, in the Ethics of Ambiguity Simone de Beauvoir presents different stages that one can go through with regard to living ethically, and with regard to being truly free.
~ 1200 words: Explain the meaning of these five stages: the child, the sub-man, the serious man, the passionate man, and the free man.
To do this, start out by explaining the phrase “existence precedes essence” (from Sartre), and what Beauvoir means by the term “ethics.” Your account of the 5 stages should make clear why freedom is something that can incite fear/anguish, and what freedom has to do with love.~ 200 words: Explain why Beauvoir rejects “recipes” for ethical decision-making, and discuss the “method” that she lays out in our readings from Chapter III.5.
Said otherwise: In light of “the antinomy of action” and the ambiguity of world, what should our general method of ethical decision-making be?
General Notes:
Please label the above sections “Section A” and “Section B” in your essay.
When writing about any key terms that might be misinterpreted (e.g., “essence” or “freedom”), be sure to clarify what the author means by the term.
To Avoid Grade Deductions, Please Read Carefully:
This essay is to be a close textual analysis. What this means is that the ideas in your essay should be carefully drawn from the texts, and carefully documented as such.
When you make a significant claim, you should support what you are asserting with a quotation from the author in question, and when you make smaller claims, you can support them with citations (i.e., just a footnote). A good rule of thumb is to have a minimum of 3 citations/quotations per page.
To make your explanations concrete, the use of everyday examples is highly encouraged. However, please do not simply repeat examples from class. (the point of a research essay is to exhibit strong thinking skills, not strong note-taking skills.)
Whenever you make use of a quotation, be sure to give sufficient commentary on it. As a
general rule, the sentence before the quote should serve to lead into it, and the sentence
after the quote should logically lead out of it, such that you are explaining both what the
quote means, and why it is relevant to the larger point you are developing in the current
paragraph.
Please draw only from passages that were specifically assigned.
Because this is a text-based essay assignment, there should be no uses of the first person
(e.g., “I think,” “I feel”), unless you’re recounting a personal example.
Secondary sources are not to be used. Since the internet counts as a secondary source, any reference to the internet would count as plagiarism.
The deduction for late papers and assignments is 3% (one third of a letter grade) per day.
Technical Specs:
☐ Microsoft Word document (Brightspace cannot process “.pages” Mac documents)
☐ Double-spaced lines
☐ Pages numbered
☐ No bibliography is needed, unless you’re using a different book than that listed on the syllabus.
☐ Please use FOOTNOTES (not in-text citations), formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style. (The “Purdue Owl” website gives a helpful summary.)
Near the top of the first page, list:
☐ a thoughtfully-composed title
☐ the essay’s word count
Common Grammar Mistakes:
Repeated grammar mistakes will negatively affect your grade. The three most common mistakes I see in essays are:
run-on sentences (e.g., comma-splices, in which 2 independent clauses are joined only by a comma)
the non-grammatical introduction of quotations (see this document for some useful tips)
substituting semicolons for colons, and vice versa.
Two Final Strategies:
Reviewing my margin comments on your previous essay is a good strategy for making improvements on the current one.
I would recommend reviewing your class notes and the Google Doc reading questions mainly to orient yourself to the topic of the assignment, and then diving into the text itself to formulate and support the claims of your essay.
Due Date: 11:59pm, Tuesday May 9th, via Brightspace.
