IHCE
How to Write an Ethics Paper
Writing an ethics paper is both challenging and useful. This is an excellent way to improve your understanding of the content of the subject as well as to improve your critical reasoning skills. Writing an essay on an ethics issue focuses your mind and forced you to concentrate on the essential arguments connected with the issue. This is a proven way to making ideas truly your own. The following guide is intended to provide you with guidance on how to construct high quality papers.
General Guidance:
1. First of all, identify the problem you want to discuss, or solve, and the position you want to defend.
2. Be sure that you have read at least a few good articles on different sides of the issue and can put the argument in your own words – or minimally can explain them in your own words.
3. Be prepared to write at least two drafts before you have a working copy.
4. Presume no knowledge of the subject on the part of the reader and explain your ideas as simply and as clearly as possible. Give definitions of all important terms (e.g. abortion, suicide, pulling, elder abuse, etc.) and use the term consistently throughout the paper.
5. Remember that the paper you write is a POSITION paper, which means that you must draw on ethicists’ views on the subject as well as clearly indicate what YOU think on the issue and why!
6. Make sure that your arguments are well constructed and that your paper as a whole is coherent.
7. Regarding style: Write clearly, and in an active voice. Avoid ambiguous expressions, double negatives, and jargon. Put other people’s ideas in your own words as much as possible and give credit in the text and in bibliographical notes whenever you have used someone else’s idea or quoted someone.
8. After you finish the final draft, put the paper aside for a day, then read it afresh. Chances are you will find things to change and improve upon.
9. The paper should be well organized with a BEGINNING, a MIDDLE and an END.
10. It should be clearly written and comply with the length requirements (number of words), typed, double spaced and proof-read.
I. The Beginning: Ethical Dilemma – Thesis Statement – Background
1. Clearly identify the ethical problem/dilemma you want to analyze. For example, you might want to show that utilitarianism is a tenable or untenable theory.
2. As clearly as possible, assert your thesis statement (the position you will defend)and what you intend to show. For example: “I intend to analyze the arguments for and against utilitarianism (the doctrine of the greatest happiness for the greatest number) as it applies to the role of the nurse providing care to vulnerable populations in this changing economic environment, and show how utilitarianism can/or cannot meet the health care objectives.”
3. Answer the question, “Why does it matter?”
II. The Middle: Supports the Thesis Statement
1. Set forth your arguments in logical order, and support your premises with reasons. It helps to illustrate your points with examples or to point out counter examples to opposing points of view.
2. RELEVANT ETHICAL PRINCIPLES AND ETHICAL THEORIES ARE IDENTIFIED AND APPLIED
3. Consider alternative points of views as well as objections to your own position.
4. Apply the principle of charity to your opponent’s reasoning. That is, give his or her case the strongest interpretation possible, for unless you can meet the strongest objections of your own position, you cannot be confident that your position is the best. Applying the principle of charity is one of the hardest practices in ethics discussion. Even experienced ethicists have an inclination to caricature or settle for a weak version of their opponent’s arguments.
5. Pay attention to the logical validity and the soundness of your arguments. Avoid logical fallacies. See Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab for examples of logical fallacies.: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/659/03/
III. The Ending: Summarize, Offer a Proposed Resolution on the Issue, Conclude
1. End your paper with a summary and a conclusion. That is, succinctly review your arguments and state what you think you’ve demonstrated.
2. Include a bibliography at the end of the paper. In it is list all the sources you used in writing your paper and make sure your APA 6th edition format is correct.
Criteria for a well-written paper:
1. Expression: You have written with clarity, used correct grammar and have varied vocabulary.
2. Connectedness: All your paragraphs and parts of the paper fit together and you have made the connections and transitions between paragraphs.
3. Comprehensiveness: All the elements from this guidance paper/rubric are included in the paper
4. Understanding:have you understood the material and have you presented the other’s views correctly.
5. Self-criticism: You have considered alternative points of view and possible objections to your position and you have meth the charges successfully.
