Paper #1, fall ‘18

Please write a paper in response to the following prompt. Your paper is due on Monday, October 6by 11:59 p.m. Drafts may be submitted until Monday, October 1,likewise by midnight. Send your paper as a Word attachment to my email. Use 12-point font, double space the pages, and cite all quotations and sources according to MLA, APA, or Chicago style. Papers without footnotes/endnotes or a list of works cited will be returned without a grade. And remember to read your paper out loud to yourself! Don't write just as you speak, but be sure that you would be willing to say out loud what you write.

We have discussed several cases over the last couple weeks against the background of Albert Carr's article "Is Business Bluffing Ethical?" Those cases include Cicero's "The Famine at Rhodes"; Apple's "search for a moral high ground in a heated debate," as well as the company's decision "to close [an] iPhone security hole that law enforcement uses to crack devices"; and finally the accounting shenanigans practiced by the likes of Enron and MCI WorldCom.

Choose to write on 1) Cicero's "The Famine at Rhodes"; or 2) Apple's "stand to protect security" over and against the wishes of law enforcement in the aftermath of the December 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack; or 3) Apple's recent decision to close the iPhone security hole; or 4) Enron's accounting shenanigans; or 5) MCI WorldCom's accounting shenanigans. (If you choose one of the last two cases, you will have to do some extra research online to learn just what those companies did.)

The paper has four parts. First, briefly summarize the case. That is, explain either what has to be decided (in Cicero's "The Famine at Rhodes") or the decision that was made already (in all the other cases). Assume that your readers do not know the case in question.

Second, write a commentary from the perspective of Albert Carr. In other words, be him. What would he say about the case in question, and why? Draw from and cite his article "Is Business Bluffing Ethical?" But write in the first person as Carr. (So when he refers to his article, write, for example, "As I have claimed....") Refer, where appropriate, to other authors we have read, such as Sissela Bok, Harry Frankfurt, and Niccolò Machiavelli.

Third, write a commentary from the perspective of a critic of Carr's article, whether you agree with it or not. Disagree here with Carr, giving of course reasons for your disagreement. Draw from and cite his article. And refer once more, where appropriate, to other authors we have read (e.g., Plato as well as Bok et al.).

Finally, discuss the case from your own perspective. How do you come down and why? Be sure to anticipate and counter objections to your position. Respond both to Carr and to the critic you have imagined.