Comments on Papers
General Comments
In general I was very pleased with the papers, and since this is the only paper for the course, I'll try not to harangue you. The vast majority of you chose to wrote on Augustine. Here there were a few common mistakes. First of all, a few of you mistook what Augustine was trying to argue. He was not arguing that we never act for the sake of attaining some good. Quite the contrary, in Chapter VI he catalogues in some detail the various sorts of goods that move us to act. Rather, he is concerned with the possibility that we might sometimes act sinfully just for the sake of doing something sinful, with no other directly intended end.
Next, many of you took it as obvious that his admission that he would not have acted alone shows that he was acting for the sake of companionship rather than simply for the sake of sinning. Perhaps this claim is correct, and that is why he considers it. But it is by no means obvious. One way to see this is to note that the very same question can be raised about the cooperative action of the group as a whole. Why did they steal the pears rather than do something else? What good were they trying to attain? Perhaps I want to see a certain movie but do not want to go alone. Does it follow that, when we go together, I am acting directly for the sake of companionship rather than, or even in addition to, acting for the sake of seeing the movie? It's not clear.
One other point that most of you neglected to discuss, but which is very important to Augustine, is the worry that acting out of sheer perversity does not itself put any constraints on what one does. So even though stealing pears is in itself a less grievous sin than, say, murder, still, if I'm acting out of sheer perversity, the fact that I steal pears rather than kill someone seems to depend entirely on accidental circumstances. (Suppose a little old helpless lady had been passing by at the time; they might just as easily have beaten her up rather than commit theft.) This is what really worries Augustine. The sickness of soul revealed by acting out of sheer perversity is a worse sickness than the sickness of soul that is revealed by sinning--even seriously--in the pursuit of some intelligible good.
As for the Hume papers, you did a pretty good job, though hardly anyone got Cleanthes right. When Cleanthes endorses Locke's claim that "faith is but a species of reason," he is really in effect tying faith to evidence in a way that ultimately undermines the idea that faith takes us beyond what is evident--either directly or indirectly--through reason alone. In that sense, it is at least not clear how belief in the mysteries of the faith could be justified. (This is a bit tricky, so I didn't take off much.)
Key to symbols
Symbols:
¶ -- You should have started a new paragraph here.
SP -- Designated word is misspelled.
REF -- You should have given a page reference here.
# -- An extra space should have been inserted here.
= -- The letter under which this symbol occurs should have been capitalized.
/ -- The letter through which this line is drawn should not have been capitalized.
Keyed Comments:
#1. The thesis of the paper is not stated crisply and with precision.
#2. Don't make sweeping generalizations.
#3. PROOFREAD YOUR PAPERS MORE CAREFULLY.
#4. Incorrect punctuation.
#5. The underlined word or phrase is not appropriate or exact enough.
Try to find words that convey precisely the concept you are trying to express.
#6. The meaning of what is underlined here is unduly vague or even obscure.
#7. What is underlined here is stated inelegantly.
#8. The crossed out word or phrase is either redundant or unnecessary.
#9. The underlined word or expression is misused.
#10. Don't change tenses abruptly.
#11. Your pronoun does not match its antecedent in grammatical number.
#12. Your verb does not match its subject in grammatical number.
#13. The underlined phrase is a dangler.
#14. You have not provided enough context to make the underlined quote fully intelligible.
#15. What is underlined here is stated lazily and imprecisely.