2018 Fall, Written Presentation 2

In this assignment, you are to write arguments both for and against the concept of intellectual property.

Your presentation should have five sections:

Section 1: introduction,
Section 2: an argument for the concept of intellectual property based on normative ethics,
Section 3: a similar type of argument against the concept of intellectual property,
Section 4: your conclusion, which should include your personal stance, and
Section 5: your references, which should include all five of the ones listed later in this assignment.

For your arguments and your conclusion, you can mix whatever systems you like, but please be careful to name a system whenever you reference one.

In particular, it is challenging to make strong non-consequentialist arguments for the creation of the idea of intellectual property. If you are looking for a challenge with this assignment, this would be an interesting area to explore — look closely at the von Gunten piece (source 4) and the Harvard Bridge group piece (source 5) in the source list. Both list traditional non-consequentialist arguments for intellectual property, and also give refutations to some of these arguments.

Please read and refer to the following works:

Intellectual Property (background article from Stanford's Plato site)
Ideas Are Free: The Case Against Intellectual Property, by Kinsell
The Case Against Intellectual Property, Boldrin and Levine (note that this link is to JSTOR, and you will likely need to use a campus network address to access this)
Intellectual Property is Common Property, von Gunten
Philosophic Perspectives on Intellectual Property, Harvard's Bridge group

This list is not exclusive, and you are welcome to use whatever additional resources that you would like, but please be careful to cite other people's work and delineate it from your own thoughts.

Please make sure that you put your name, class section, and email address in your paper. Please turn in your paper during recitation during the week of December 3-7.