Short Assignment and Second Essay Topics

You may choose any of the following topics for your second essay (section 008: first draft is due 3/27; section 010: first draft is due 4/3).

You may use these topics for any of the short assignments leading up to the second essay. Since the short assignments are only two pages long, you should only do one part of the essay topic (either part A or part B) per short assignment. That way you'll have enough space. Also, remember that you don't have to do all of the scheduled short assignments--just up to a total of six over the course of the semester.

If you plan to write your second essay on a topic of your own creation, you may also request to write your short assignments on the same topic--but do contact me first (email is fine), so we can settle on specific guidelines.

1. Critical comparison of Dostoyevsky and Kafka.

A) Compare the Grand Inquisitor’s views, in Brothers Karamazov, about freedom and the law (moral, political, or both) to the views of either the officer in Kafka’s story "In the Penal Colony" or the doorkeeper in "Before the Law."

B) Critically discuss one (or both) of the character's views you have considered. Is it a correct understanding of freedom and law? Why or why not?

2. Literary analysis of Kafka's "In the Penal Colony"

A) Why does the officer voluntarily get into the machine?
B) Why doesn’t the procedure go normally?

In your replies, be sure to focus on the key themes of this course: the meaning and existence of morality and law, the nature of moral and legal authority, and the relation of the individual to the law.

3. Critical philosophical analysis of Sartre

A) Explain Sartre’s claim that I choose in a state of anguish because I choose for all humanity rather than for myself alone. Why should I worry about my choices, if there is no possibility of making the "wrong" choice?

B) Critique or defend Sartre's view, then consider and respond to at least one objection to your argument.

4. Literary and philosophical analysis of Sartre's No Exit

A) How does Sartre's play No Exit illustrate his philosophical view that a person is "nothing else than his life"?

B) How does it illustrate Sartre's philosophical view that we cannot be anything "unless others recognize it as such"?