FU Ethical Immorality Aspect in Regard Eating Meat Discussion

This assignment is asking you to use the Utilitarian ethical approach to analyze some piece of art, media, or cultural object. Your job is to think through the ethical impact of something that holds interest for you.

You will first need to pick a piece of media, art, or some kind of cultural object. Examples include part of a movie or novel, a short story, a song, a painting, a sculpture, a building, a park, a meal, a sports game, a news story or show. Be as creative as you want-some objects or experiences will more obviously lend themselves to the assignment, but you may find it more interesting to stretch your imagination.

Once you have picked your object you need to imagine how a utilitarian would view it. Does the object promote happiness? Or does it lead to an overall decrease in utility? Does the object teach us something about a whole category of objects and their ethical value? Does the object promote a utilitarian perspective? Does the object amplify any one part of Mill’s thesis, i.e. that higher pleasures really are better at promoting long term happiness? You should form an argument or thesis about the philosophy/object. You will spend the rest of your paper defending that thesis.

Some examples of the kinds of arguments you might defend:

• From a utilitarian perspective people should own precious jewelry.
• Parks are good for society. This can be illustrated through the analysis of central park from the utilitarian perspective.
• 13 Reasons Why should never have aired on TV. Though the TV show gave some people a short-term kind of pleasure, it decreased happiness in the long term. I will argue this using Mill’s utilitarian philosophy and data from surveys collected from the show’s fans.
• I will argue that eating meat is ethically wrong from a utilitarian perspective.

In your essay you should clearly describe the piece of media, art, or cultural object. If I can’t understand what you are describing it will be hard for me to know if your analysis makes sense/if your thesis is defendable. If it’s an object describe its shape, the kind of space it takes up, what it’s used for, why it exists, it’s texture, what it’s made of. If it’s a piece of writing or movie, set the scene. Explain who the main characters or players are. Describe their relationships to each other. What is the scene or the story about? What is the tension? If it’s something else i.e. a meal, a park, a sports game, give all the details that would make it possible for a reader to have an image or sense of scene.

You should use the pieces we have read during this unit to make your point, pulling on relevant passages and examples from the texts. Remember-you are meant to be offering an analysis of the ethical impact of the described object through the utilitarian lens only. Be explicit about what parts of utilitarianism you are using to make each point.

I do not believe in page parameters, you should take as little or as much space as you need to complete all the elements of the assignment. That being said, I would expect this one to be anywhere between 2 and 5 pages double-spaced. Please make sure you cite your sources. Include a bibliography that lists any of the texts we read for class that you may have used, as well as any relevant materials that make up your piece of media, art, or cultural object. Use whatever citation method you prefer but be consistent.