Should there be limits on Free Speech?

Please follow the attached rubric and instructions. Thank you. FORMATTING YOUR PAPER: • The body and headings of your essay should be rendered throughout in 12 pt. Times New Roman font or its equivalent. • The essay should be double-spaced. Unless using a block quotation of more than five lines, there should be no single spaces; neither should there be extra spaces between paragraphs (refer to appropriate style guides). The manner of section headings varies depending upon style. Use the rules relevant to the formatting style you choose (Chicago/Turabian, MLA, or APA). Chicago / Turabian formatting for citations is preferred. However, MLA and APA formats are accepted, so long as they are used consistently and correctly throughout. • Your essay should have 1-inch margins on all sides. • Your final draft should be between 1,600-2,500 words (or approx. 7-10 pages), excluding title page and references page. • The first line of each paragraph should be indented. This indentation should be 1/2 inch or five spaces, but pressing [Tab] once should give you the correct indentation. • The text of your essay should be lined up evenly at the left margin but not at the right margin. In your word processor, choose “Align Left.” Do not choose “Justify.” • Please number your pages in the top right-hand corner of each page. Please also provide your name in the header of each page. • Please include a separate title page and references page (these should not be included in the calculation of the assigned page length). • Each paper should have a minimum of 1 primary and 2 secondary sources. Primary sources include works written by the philosopher you are discussing (for example, Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals is a primary source). Secondary works include works written by others about that philosopher or their ideas (for example, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals is a secondary source). IMPORTANT: Blogs, Wikipedia, Reddit, and other Social Media sites are NOT appropriate sources (citation of such websites as sources of information will result in an immediate 10% point-reduction for each instance). Wikipedia is a good place to start your research to get your bearings, but it should not be the final landing place for college-level research into a topic. THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND REGARDING YOUR THESIS STATEMENT: • Lack of Argument/Position “In this paper, I will compare different theories of personal identity—specifically those that identify persons with minds, and those that identify persons with bodies.” o The problem with this thesis is that it doesn’t take a position. A thesis statement should be able to function as the conclusion of an argument—it should be the kind of thing that could follow from premises. It is not enough to simply compare, observe, describe, etc.; while these are useful things to do in order to make a point, they do not, on their own, suffice as the conclusion of an essay. • Infeasible/Unmanageable Scope “I will argue that utilitarianism is right.” o This thesis takes a position, but it’s a MASSIVE one! Remember that you are reading a limited amount of literature, and have a rather limited number of words to make your point—you are not going to be able to prove a conclusion as sweeping as this. It is essential that your thesis limit the scope of your argument. For instance, you might choose to make a case against a particular author (or authors) who argue against utilitarianism; or you might make a case against a specific objection to utilitarianism. In general, be sure to restrict the scope of your thesis according to whom and what you’ll be able to properly discuss in the space allowed. (NOTE: It is common to think that a thesis statement must only be a single sentence. This is not the case. As is becoming evident, there are a number of different things that a proper thesis statement must accomplish, including scope restriction; it is neither preferable nor (in some cases) possible to all of these things in a single sentence. Do, however, complete the statement within a short paragraph. If your thesis spans more than several sentences, it is more than likely too long.) • Irrelevant information o When you write an essay, you should keep in mind the audience to whom you are writing. Keeping this in mind will prevent you from adding unnecessary or irrelevant details. For example, I know who Bertrand Russel was. If you are writing an essay concerning one of Russel’s arguments, please don’t spend a lot of time providing historical information about Russel. While such information may be interesting, it is most likely unnecessary and irrelevant to his argument. • A helpful exercise is to try to write the argument down as a list of premises, leading to your conclusion (thesis statement) and see if the argument works before writing the full paper only to discover that it is an indefensible mess.