Essay #2: The Costs and Benefits of Covid-19 Responses
Description:
For Essay 2, your goal is to use utilitarianism and one other theory that we have learned toanalyze the costs and benefits of 2 opposing responses to the novel coronavirus in some aspect of society (e.g., schools) and to evaluate which response would be better. As part of your utilitarian analysis your essay should do as full of a cost-benefit of both the responses, laying out BOTH costs and benefits and weighing them. (In other words, you shouldn’t just defend your conclusion and ignore complicating evidence.) Therefore, in your analysis you might consider how many lives, how much wealth, and how much suffering each response would be likely to lead to in order to try to determine the better policy/response.
Theory #2:
In addition, you should contrast utilitarianism with a second theory of your choosing. So, for example, you might show how the libertarian focus on individual rights over utilitarian societal welfare, would yield strikingly different policies. You may use this secondary theory either to show why you believe utilitarianism would work better, or to show how, in your opinion, utilitarianism falls short and this second theory actually offers a better solution to the problem.
Research Requirements:
You MUST CITE AT LEAST 4 SOURCES in your essay. Your research should help you to give support to your cost benefit analysis and perhaps to other aspects of your argument. For example, when determining the costs of deaths, you should probably consider how much a human life is worth in the United States and other factors such as the average age of coronavirus fatalities and hospitalizations, etc.
Goals:
The goals of this assignment are:
1. To improve your critical analysis and argumentation skills.2. To familiarize you with the use of documents and quotation. 3. To introduce you to the concept of and possible problems with cost benefit analyses.4. To familiarize you with one more ethical theory—libertarianism, communitarianism, and/or virtue ethics.Grading Criteria:
Your essay will be graded according to its clarity, logic, insight and attention to detail.
MLA Format
Your essay should be in MLA format and contain a works cited list containing all the sources that you use in your essay. This will partly determine your grade.
Other Requirements:
Length: Approximately 1800-2400 words (works cited and heading do not count towards word count).
Points: 3000 pts. (For Final Draft of Essay)