Writing Assignments

The purpose of these assignments is to establish that you have read and understood the assigned readings before we begin our discussions of them in class. You should have one Google Doc for the course named: last name Evil. Then for each of these writing assignments, you will open the Google Doc and put the newest entry on top. Give it the title in bold, such as Oppy, within the document and then answer the question. Do not create a new document for each assignment. The longer, formal papers we will write for the course should be inserted at the bottom of the same doc. There is no minimum or maximum word count on these writing assignments on the readings. Your goal should be to show that you have read and understood the piece, and that you are thinking critically and carefully about the various philosophical issues, concepts, and conclusions that the author is presenting. In addition to the question, feel free to add other thoughts, arguments or criticisms that the work brings up.

These entries should be free of grammatical and spelling errors. They should have well composed paragraphs with clear thesis sentences. They should conform to the Philosophy Department Writing Guidelines.

1 Oppy: Summarize Oppy's account of disagreements about religious claims and his position concerning God. Due before class Thursday, Sept. 1.

2 Suffering: Find a real example of moral and natural evil. Summarize it. Give your source. Due before class Tuesday, Sept. 6.

3 Mackie: Summarize Mackie's Argument in "Evil and Omnipotence." Due before class on Tuesday, Sept. 13.

4 Plantinga: Summarize Plantinga's position concerning freewill and the argument from evil. Due before class Tuesday, Sept. 20.

5 Rowe 1: What is Rowe's argument against the existence of God? Due before class Tuesday, Sept. 27.

6 Draper: What is Draper's argument against the existence of God? Due before class Tuesday, Oct. 4.

7 van Inwagen 1: What is van Inwagen's argument? Due before class Tuesday, Oct. 11. Due before class Tuesday, Oct. 11.

8 van Inwagen 2: No writing project on the vI reading this week.

9 Hick: Summarize Hick's soul building defense. Due before class Thursday, Nov. 3.

10 Swinburne: Summarize Swinburne's theodicy for the problem of evil. Due before class Tuesday, Nov 8.

11 Wykstra: What is Wykstra's argument against Rowe's inductive argument from evil? Due before class Tuesday, Nov. 15.

12 Rowe 2: What is Rowe's response to Wykstra's argument? Due before class Tuesday, Nov. 22.

13 Alston: What is Alston's position concerning our ability to ascertain pointless evils? Due before class Tuesday, Nov. 29.

14 Almeida and Oppy: What are A and O's criticisms of the skeptical theism position? Due before class Tuesday, Dec. 1.

15 Conee: what is Conee's argument against moral perfection? Due before class Tuesday, Dec. 6.