Assignment
Write a coherent philosophical essay on a present-day form of commodification.
Topics that you cannot write on are commercial surrogacy, prostitution, and markets in human kidneys–as these forms of commodification will be discussed during the lecture.
Your text must consist of the following parts:
-Introduction: Explain the commodification that you have chosen and show why it is a present-day issue.
-Paragraph 1: Argument from coercion: Formulate an argument from coercion against the commodification in question.
-Paragraph 2: Argument from corruption: Formulate an argument from corruption against the commodification in question.
-Paragraph 3: Personal evaluation: Is the commodification in question morally acceptable or not? Argument from coercion and/or from corruption convincing/decisive? Are there other moral considerations involved?
-Conclusion: Formulate your final conclusion(s).
Length
Between 900 and 1000 words (excl. citations and bibliography). The essay will not be graded if it is shorter than 900 words. It will also not be graded if it is longer than 1200 words.
Form
Plain text, to be copied and pasted in Canvas. So please, don’t spend your time nicely formatting your essay and finding accompanying pictures.
I decided on this for two reasons. First, opening and closing word / PDF documents during grading takes a long time if you need to do it 300 times (which is roughly the total number of essays I need to grade before Christmas). Second, there often are a few corrupted files in the batch. This prevents that problem.
Extra requirement
Use at least 3 academic sources. These can include the course readings, so this is not a very demanding condition.
