Tips for Answering Essay Questions:

I started to write up some suggestions for writing good essay answers and then it occurred to me that there may already be precisely this kind of information on the Web. And it turns out that there is. No need to reinvent the wheel. Here are some sites that have some useful information.

But here are some tips more specific to the types of questions you will likely see from me.

1. As a general rule, I suggest that students imagine that they are explaining the issue to their moms. In other words, don’t imagine I’m your audience. (I already know what “valid” means. I’m the one who told YOU, remember?) If you imagine me as the reader, you are likely to skip over details that you should be including in your essay.

Envision your audience as an intelligent but uninformed reader. (Think of your mom, your dad or your friend who has never had this class. If your Mom is a philosophy professor, this will not work.) How would you explain to your mom what “valid” means and how it applies to evaluating arguments? If your mom or your friend would understand it after reading your essay, then you’ve done a good job.

This is why it is SUCH A GOOD IDEA to study in groups. Take turns explaining the material to one another. To teach is to learn twice.

Brief Aside:

When was the last time you had to explain something to some one? (How to bake a cake. How to change a tire. How to get to Hialeah.) In today’s culture that is not generally called for on a daily basis.

That’s what YouTube is for I suppose. But this is a skill (a valuable one at that) and you only get better at it with practice. How do you get better at playing poker? (By playing poker.)

“To teach is to learn twice.”

Today’s young people have very limited opportunities to practice explaining anything to anyone. But this is a VERY good skill to develop. It is “robot proof” … at least for the time being.

2. I usually start my essay question by making some sort of statement and “setting the table” a bit. If I used specific technical terms that we’ve covered in class in an essay question, it’s probably a good idea to explain those terms whether the question explicitly asks you to or not.

Further if YOU use a term we’ve discussed in class (e.g. Philosophy is a dialectical process. Would your mom know what “dialectical process” means? Or your friend?) be certain to go on to explain that term in your essay.

3. Many of the essay questions are cluster-questions. That is, though it is “one question” calling for one essay response, there are several parts that need to be addressed to write a complete answer. You are not done until you have discharged each element of the cluster. Also, the parts, while distinct, are usually strongly related to one another. Therefore, the answer should explore HOW these parts are related to one another.

4. In that same way, be on the lookout for context clues. You might sometimes notice that a statement in one question actually contains part of the answer to another question. Here’s an example of two such questions.

Kant’s ethics suffers from the fact that it leads to Real (strong) Moral Dilemmas. Explain what these are and how Kant’s system makes them likely and frequent in real life. W. D. Ross introduces the notion of “prima facie duties” to explain both our intuition that “Lying is wrong.” and our intuition that sometimes lying is the right thing to do. Explain Ross’s modified deontological system. Be certain to discuss how Ross believes we come to know what our actual duty is in any given situation.

W. D. Ross offers a deontological intuitionist moral system. Explain the role that moral intuition plays in Ross’s system. If Ross’s account of how we acquire moral knowledge is correct, moral disputes cannot really be argued. Why is that?

Note the second question refers to Ross’s intuitionism. This answers part of the first question: “(discuss how)… Ross believes we come to know what our actual duty is in any given situation.” Some of this can go on between essay questions and multiple choice questions. The attentive reader may be better able to answer one question, or part of one anyway, by using information contained in the other.

Here is another example:

According to Thomas Aquinas, God is the “Prime Mover” and “First Cause” of the universe, but he does not mean to suggest that God is the temporally first. Explain what sort of “primacy” Aquinas is ascribing to God and why. Be sure to explain the infinite regress that Aquinas claims would result from the claim that all movers are moved movers (and/or all causes are caused causes).

Contemporary philosopher William Lane Craig defends a version of the Kalam Cosmological argument. He usually presents this argument in the form of a syllogism, the first premise of which is “Anything which begins to exist must have a cause. Briefly summarize how his argument is structured. Aquinas’ “Third Way” cosmological argument is importantly different from the Kalam version cosmological argument. What is the principle difference between the two?

Just by reading these two questions, what do you imagine is the big difference between Aquinas’s cosmological argument and Craig’s Kalam cosmological argument?

5. Look for the specific purpose of the question. In general, regardless of what the question is asking, I am trying to give you an opportunity to show me what you know, what you have learned and what connections you can draw among these points. The questions may read “blah, blah, blah, … Ross.” But whatever the specifics, I am asking you to show me you understand Ross’s ethics.

6. Having said that, don’t waste time providing information not related to the specific question. The answers provided should be straightforward and relevant to the question as asked. So, if the question is specifically about Ross, just talking about ethics in general is likely not relevant and eating into the time you have to complete the exam.

7. Finally, you are NOT tweeting. An essay is NOT a bulleted list. It is not a chronicle or table of elements or properties. If you want to write a bulleted outline for yourself to help you structure your essay that would be fine. But do not mistake that for a completed essay response. An essay is presented in a discursive way that takes the form of paragraphs.

Example Essay Prompt:

• Explain the difference between the Realm of Being and the Realm of Becoming according to Plato. Which of these two competing realms is supposed to be “more real,” more powerful, and more lasting and why does Plato claim this? According to Plato, there could not exist actual cats unless there existed a Platonic “Form” of cat. Explain why Plato held this view. If this is correct, then forms are ontologically prior to their particulars. Explain what is meant by this phrase.

A) Terms to explain:

1. Realm of Being

2. Realm of Becoming

3. Form

4. Particular

5. Ontologically prior

B) Outline Elements To Be Covered

1. Explain the realms and what distinguishes each.

2. Explain the “residents” of each domain.

3. Explain how Forms are related to particular things.

4. Explain why Forms are “ontologically prior” to their corresponding particulars.

5. Give examples and/or an analogy to explain the relation.

C) Rubric for Scoring Essay

This is an example of a rubric I use to grade essays.

Item	Possible Score	Earned Score
Explain the realms and what distinguishes each.	8
Explain the “residents” of each domain.	8
Explain how Forms are related to particular things.	6
Explain why Forms are “ontologically prior” to their corresponding particulars.	6
Give examples and/or an analogy to explain the relation of particulars to their forms.	5
Total	33

Here is a question from one of the first exams. I have also included both of very good and a very poor essay response. See if you can tell which is which.

1) Thales of Ionia is considered the founder of Western science and Western philosophy. He is famous/infamous for claiming that "everything is water." Briefly explain why Thales claimed this. How does this represent a move towards “logos” as opposed to “mythos.” That is, how does his theory represent an important break with previous attempts by humans to make sense of the world?

A) Thales of Ionia is famous for saying that everything is water. What he means by this is that the basic substance that makes up all that we see, all the stuff of reality, is water. He believes this because he reasons that there must be a basic substance to reality; that, and only that, could explain how one thing can change into something else. The substance, that which “stands under” the appearances actually stays the same, but the appearance of the substance changes. Thales knew that water could do this; water can change, appearing solid to appearing liquid to appearing gaseous, but it remains the same substance, water, the whole time. Of the four basic elements with which he was familiar (earth, air, fire and water), water seemed the most versatile and therefore the most basic.

Now this theory was immediately criticized and rejected. His students presented the counter example of “dry cliffs” which clearly could not be made of water, demonstrating that this theory is at best flawed. But the importance here is that he attempted to explain a feature of reality by providing a reasoned explanation, one that was recommended by argument and evidence. This represents “logos,” and is a departure from “mythos. “ Mythos, by contrast, represents an attempt to understand and rationalize the world, not through reason and argument, but through imaginative narratives, employing supernatural forces and purported to have divine origins. Myths were not offered nor regarded as “testable hypotheses,” but Thales was offering his theory for precisely that kind of critical review.

The importance of Thales theory then, even though it was shot down, is that for the first time someone was offering a theory that could be shot down. Since it was supported by reason and argument it could be defeated by better reason and better argument. This is why Thales is considered both the founder of science and the founder of Western philosophy. He started a conversation that is still going on today. It is a dialectic, which means it proceeds by theory postulation, justification, critical review and revision, a process that seeks to come closer and closer to the truth of things through the exchange of argument and discussion.

B) Thales said everything is water because he could not understand change. He didn’t know what everything was so he thought it was water. He argued about this and that was logos, not mythos because he wasn’t telling stories from the gods. Science and philosophy have the same methodology.

Sample of Essay Question:

(Topic) Suicide, Euthanasia and Doctor Assisted Suicide:

Question:

Give an example of a virtue argument against suicide, a consequentialist argument against suicide and a deontological argument against suicide. Identify at least one weakness in each of the three you give.

Original Answer:

One such argument against suicide is, “That suicide is wrong because we have a duty to God to remain alive as long as we can.” This is a deontological argument, but a weakness of this argument is that one must prove that there actually is a God for us to have a duty to. A next argument stating that suicide is wrong is a virtue argument. This argument states, “That a healthy human has the natural instinct to preserve our lives. Therefore, they believe that only a sick, cowardly or dysfunctional person would want or condone suicide.” The weakness of this argument goes to say, that “suicide is unnatural” meaning that “suicide is wrong”. However, this only works if one believes that everything which is unnatural is wrong. This poses a huge problem because things like microwave ovens are unnatural, but are they actually wrong? Finally, there is the consequentialist argument, which states, “That suicide is wrong is because generally suicides result in more harm than good so the general rule should be "Don't Commit Suicide.” One weakness of this argument may be that, this is taking away the freedom of allowing someone to make their own life decisions.

Comments:

One such argument against suicide is, “That suicide is wrong because we have a duty to God to remain alive as long as we can.” This is a deontological argument[KH1] , but a weakness of this argument is that one must prove that there actually is a God for us to have a duty to[KH2] . A second argument stating that suicide is wrong is a virtue argument[KH3] . This argument states, “That a healthy human has the natural instinct to preserve our lives. Therefore, they believe that only a sick, cowardly or dysfunctional person would want or condone suicide.” The weakness of this argument goes to say, that “suicide is unnatural” and concludes that “suicide is wrong”. However, this only works if one believes that everything which is unnatural is wrong. This poses a huge problem because things like microwave ovens are unnatural, but are they actually wrong? Finally, there is the consequentialist argument,[KH4] which states, “That suicide is wrong is because generally suicides result in more harm than good so the general rule should be "Don't Commit Suicide.” One weakness of this argument may be that, this is taking away the freedom of allowing someone to make their own life decisions.[KH5]

Revised:

One such argument against suicide is, “That suicide is wrong because we have a duty to God to remain alive as long as we can.” This is a deontological argument meaning that is argues that actions are right or wrong depending on whether or not they accord with correct moral rules. In this case God sets the rules, but a weakness of this argument is that one must prove that there actually is a God for us to have a duty to, therefore an atheist will not agree with this argument. A second argument stating that suicide is wrong is on the basis of virtue, which sees actions as right or wrong depending on whether or not they are conducive to or flow from a good character. This argument states, “That a healthy human has the natural instinct to preserve our lives. Therefore, they believe that only a sick, cowardly or dysfunctional person would want or condone suicide.” The weakness of this argument goes to say, that “suicide is unnatural” and concludes that “suicide is wrong”. However, this only works if one believes that everything which is unnatural is wrong. This poses a huge problem because things like microwave ovens are unnatural, but are they actually wrong? A third argument is based on consequentialism, which sees actions as right or wrong depending on whether or not they have good consequences. This argument states, “That suicide is wrong is because generally suicides result in more harm than good so the general rule should be "Don't Commit Suicide.” One weakness of this argument may be that, this is taking away the freedom of allowing someone to make their own life decisions.