2019 Spring, Second Writing Assignment

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

Your presentation should have five sections:

• Section 1: your introduction,
• Section 2: an argument for the concept of intellectual property based on normative ethical principles from whatever school or schools you would like to use,
• 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 more 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, I believe that 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.

Sections 1 through 4 should each have sufficient material to adequately cover the area. As guidelines, your introduction should have at least three paragraphs (statement of the problem, summary of arguments for, and a summary of arguments against). Your arguments for should have at least five paragraphs (statement of what normative basis or bases that you plan to use, three paragraphs of argument, and summary of the ethical analysis.) Your arguments against likewise should have at least five paragraphs. Your conclusion can be brief or comprehensive, but it does need to include your own stance (though of course this can be a nuanced position since this a very broad topic and it has a vast number of aspects, both legal and ethical.)

Please read and refer to the following works:

1. Intellectual Property (background article from Stanford's Plato site)
2. Ideas Are Free: The Case Against Intellectual Property, by Kinsell
3. 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)
4. Intellectual Property is Common Property, von Gunten
5. 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.

This will be graded on a 100 point basis.

The rubric:

• Up to -100 points off for poor or unacceptable English.
• Up to -100 points off for nonsensical material.
• Up to -25 points each for leaving out any of sections 1 through 4, and a graduated scale for failing to be reasonably comprehensive in a section's material.
• Up to -100 points off for leaving out section 5, and a graduated scale for failing to include all of your sources.

(The good news is that there are a cap of 0 for the lowest possible score, so failing to turn in a paper is only a 0 rather than -400).

As stated in the syllabus, plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty are not acceptable and are an infraction of the university's Academic Honor Policy.

Please make sure that you put your name, class section, and email address in your paper. Your final paper is due by 11:59pm on Wednesday, July 24. If you wish me to review any drafts, I am happy to do so during my office hours. I will also hold special office hours for draft reviews on Friday, July 19 from immediately after class until 3:00pm.