Instructions for the Response Paper This assignment requires you to write a critical response to another student’s paper – 800 words minimum

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Instructions for the Response Paper This assignment requires you to write a critical response to another student’s paper – 800 words minimum. Any paper under 800 will not be accepted for credit. That’s not a lot of space so pick your battles carefully. You may have written critical responses in other classes, but here your focus should be primarily on the ideas in your student’s paper – and nothing else. To give you an idea for what I’d like to see, I’m going to start with the downer-strategy and give you a bunch of “DON’Ts”: ? You don’t need to be giving grammar criticism. Save that for an English class. Here we’re trying to learn how to think better – that’s our focus. Your comments can possibly be a big help to the person you’re reviewing; giving them more ideas to work with, stimulating new ones, seeing other perspectives. ? Don’t MERELY give your opinion. This is not another paper YOU are writing. You want to be in dialogue with the AUTHOR’S ideas. Play on their turf. Don’t get astray in irrelevant tangents. Share your ideas but make sure that you 1) connect them in with what the author is up to and 2) defend them. Just stating that you disagree isn’t useful. Giving an argument for an objection helps IMMENSELY. ? Don’t just share the first 700 words of ideas you have. Pick and choose what you think is most significant to talk about. You’ll probably have more reactions that you have space for. Share what will be most helpful to your author. On the more positive side, here’s a couple ways to think about how to approach giving criticism. (you don’t have to follow these categories exactly, but if you’re having trouble finding things to talk about this might help): ? Identify places where clarification in the ideas needs to happen. If you’re confused, it may be your fault for misunderstanding, but most of the time the author shares the responsibility here. And regardless of the finger-pointing (which is not really the point here), your author will want to be as clear as possible and if there’s a communication breakdown, they should know about it. When sharing this kind of response be sure to include your guesses as to what they have in mind – this will really help the author know where things got off track. (Don’t make this category the entirety of your reaction!) ? When the author makes claims in their arguments, ask yourself if you think that those claims could be challenged – whether by you personally, or someone else less sympathetic to the position. If there is significant room for a challenge, indicate on what grounds someone might be suspicious of that claim or outright dispute it. ? Argument anatomy refresher: all arguments have a thesis or CONCLUSION that is being defended and PREMISES that are the claims that defend the truth of the conclusion. When looking at the arguments your author employs, ask if you could agree with all the premises and yet disagree with the conclusion. #1 THING FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT: HAVE PATIENCE! Your paper’s author is just trying out this whole philosophy thing for the first time too, so don’t expect freaking John Stuart Mill is writing the paper you’re reviewing. BE CHARITABLE and CONSTRUCTIVE. And don’t forget that “constructive” doesn’t mean you can’t be critical. But also: “critical” doesn’t license being abusive! Keep it friendly. So basically: don’t pull the punches but throw those punches as a friend and not as an enemy. Think about how two martial artists might spar with each other for their mutual benefit and with mutual respect. This is more like that than an all-out brawl. Detailed Outline ? The automation of jobs (replacement of people with robots for jobs), which has been a result of the ever fast evolution of technology, is not ethically sound. This shouldn’t be a result of innovation. ? There is no need to keep society and humanity from continuing to innovate, but without the access to jobs for certain, and maybe even most parts, of the population, this will accelerate our housing, unemployment, and financial problems already existent within our society. ? It can be argued that other theories, such as the theory that without the burden of jobs we would be able to live our lives in a better and more self fulfilling way, but in the modern world I just think that this idea is not realistic. ? In the best version of our world, where everyone is working together for the better of each other and aren’t highly devoid of selflessness and not forced to look out for one’s own self always, then this might be possible. Ideally, something like this would be possible. A way life can be lived for self enjoyment and not simply for the purpose of survival over all. ? People of the past believed automation would lead to a life of leisure, but we have seen that automation has actually made workers become more productive and forced them to work harder in our capitalist economy. This theory has been shown to not be applicable to our world. ? Additionally, many people tend to find their sense of self and happiness in their work. While some people may find it within other things in their lives that they find self fulfilling, there is the opposite end of the spectrum in that they will become despondent without the ability to identify with their professions and find value within that work. ? Change is not always for the better, innovation and progression does not mean something is getting improved in the long run. I think this is one of those situations. ? But it can also be argued that this work being replaced with automation will open up more opportunities for different types of work, and not simply take away the opportunities for human workers. About 80% of the population worked on farms at the turn of the 20th century, and now only about 5% work on farms in modern day. There are many examples that this replacement will not be a detriment, and it will simply allow for people to be able to further innovate and work different types of jobs now that the other jobs are being automated. Say manual farm work moving toward more knowledge-based work. ? But the point I am trying to make is that the most at risk that will be the biggest casualties of this automation, where will they run to? New jobs don’t become available at the drop of a hat, especially with the amount of people who will be displaced by this automation. And I’m not even touching on how much it costs to live, and how many people live paycheck to paycheck and wouldn’t survive a layoff for any extended amount of time. How do you justify that? ? Automation is quick, so this would hopefully only last a generation, but is that worth it? Can it be justified? And even if the effects don’t last a long time, what will be the repercussions and the lasting aftershocks that affect the following generations. Can they truly be justified? ? This all leads us to the question, what is the most ideal state for individuals, and what is the most meaningful way to live? ? In my opinion, if you are able to explore as much as you want, whether that be through literal travel, discovering new foods, venturing into hobbies, immersing yourself into the arts, or any other things that would give one pleasure and meaning, then you are living ideally. Obviously, you’d have to have your basic needs also met, but in my ideal world it wouldn’t be a struggle to fulfill those needs. Due to this lack of struggle, one would have time to discover and explore all of the things I mentioned previously. I mean, that’s what life is about right? Along with comradery, companionship, family, etc, it is in these other things that we can find our meanings and our drives in life. ? I don’t think this problem should halt humanity’s progression to keep our existing system functional. There are already enough problems with it, so it should progress and improve, it’s progress does not need to be impeded by this. ? But, that doesn’t mean this problem needs to be a casualty of progression. ? I don’t believe that we will ever truly reach a lifestyle in modern society that is utopian in the way we enjoy it and experience it, but keeping jobs available to people and not further muddying the socio economic problems of our world would be a closer step to a society that is more utopian.