Deontology

The Paternalism Project:  Choose a trusted friend or family member who cares about your wellbeing. Tell them your goals for yourself and identify the ways that you are falling short. Ask them to plan a day for you that they think will help you make progress on some of your goals. Follow their plan for the day.  

Write a reflection about whether paternalism actually did bring you closer to your goals? If so, why was your friend helpful here? If not, what information did they lack? Discuss these questions with reference to this week’s readings, noting the distinction between respecting autonomy and promoting autonomy. 

As evidence, print and include documentation of your correspondence with your paternalist and/or the plan they prepared for you as well as pictures of your day of paternalism. 

The Honesty Project:  Go a day where you try to avoid using any strategic speech and you come clean with people you’ve been withholding information from. If you do use strategic speech, make a note of it and explain why it was justified. 

Write a 1-2 pg. reflection paper explaining what you learned about the ethics of strategic speech and whether you think Schapiro’s justifications for strategic speech are the right ones.

As evidence, keep a log of times when you actively refrained from strategic speech, and/or print and include screenshots of you being less strategic online than you otherwise would.

For two days, intentionally arrive 5–10 minutes late to several low-stakes social commitments (do not show up late to work, class, practice, or medical appointments!) Do not invent excuses or say it is for an assignment. Simply acknowledge that you are late if the subject arises. After each interaction, write down how long the other person waited, how they reacted, how being late made you feel, and whether you think you did anything wrong. 

Next, spend two days arriving 5–10 minutes early to similar events. Did this make you feel bad or good? In your reflection, discuss whether being late wrongs someone even if no significant harm occurred. Does punctuality express respect for persons, or is it merely a social convention? Would universal habitual lateness undermine the practice of making plans?

Evidence: Maintain a log of each appointment and your arrival time.

For two days, notice every time you treat yourself as a tool rather than as a person. That is, make a note of every time that you discount your embodied material interests (e.g. eating a meal, sleeping) and your emotional life and relationships, so that you can accomplish a task or meet deadline or meet some self-imposed standard that requires sacrifice. Keep a log, and for every instance of this behavior ask yourself, "Would I think it was acceptable for my employer, professor, or partner to force me to make these tradeoffs?" Then, go one day where you do as much as you can to avoid these errors and you treat yoruself as a person rather than a tool. On this day, you must also create something that expresses your "true self." Reflect on whether respecting yourself requires placing limits on your own willingness to use yourself merely as an instrument, and ask yourself why you are imposing barriers on the expression of your true self. Are these tradeoffs worth it? 

Evidence: Log and expression of your true self