Love & Friendship

This project is for students who are not currently in an exclusive relationship. Ask someone out on a date in person and go on a date in a public place (no alcohol) where you spend no more than $15. Limit the date to 90 minutes. In your reflection, address Velleman’s discussion of love that focuses on someone’s properties, vs. their personhood.

As evidence, provide some evidence of the date (e.g. receipt, texts). If you have evidence of trying this project and not succeeding, include that with the other project you completed and I’ll add one point to your weekly purpose project score. 

This project is for students who are currently in an exclusive relationship. Ask your partner the following questions, which are designed for couples who are considering marriage. 

As evidence, provide a recording or written record of you and your partner's responses. 

● How important is it to you in attending church and praying together as a family?

● How would you discipline our children if they misbehave?

● How many children do you want, if any?

● What is the family structure and family life going to look like?

● How soon would you like to start trying for children?

● What do you consider infidelity?

● What are your beliefs about pornography?

● How do you receive and give affection other than sexual?

● How often do you desire to have sex? 

● How will we come to a decision if we have different ideas of how often?

● What are your financial goals?

● Do you consider yourself a saver or a spender?

● Do you want separate or combined bank accounts?

● What are your goals and plans for buying a house, paying off student loans, paying off large debts, buying a car, other large financial goals.

● How would we split/share costs?

● Where will we live?

● Does your future spouse help you either to be, or work towards being a better person?

● What are your perspectives on physical activity or exercise?

● How often do you want to go on vacation? What type of vacations do you like to go on?

● Is divorce an option?

● What do you hope to achieve in our relationship?

● What is one thing you ask of me to always do in our relationship?

● What do you want your household to look like?

● What would you like the timeline to be for how long we are dating and engaged?

● Would you be open to going to therapy, before or after we are married?

● What are you willing to give up in your career for your significant other?

● Would you like to stay home or continue working once there are children in the picture?

● Would you consider a large move for your career or work?

● Are you a morning or night person? Are you willing to change that to spend more time with your spouse?

● How much time to do you spend with your family? How do you want that to change/stay the same when we are engaged, married, have children?

● How have you handled conflict in the past? How will we handle conflict when we are married?

● Are you an introvert or extrovert? How will we deal with our differing personalities?

● How important are your friends to you? How important are my friends to me?

● What are your political beliefs? How important are these to you?

● If this person was the same sex as you, would you be friends? Why or why not?

● If you play video games, when you are playing, how long do you play (in length of time) and how often do you play?

Reach out to someone you haven’t talked to in at least 4 months. You can tell them that it’s for an assignment. Check in with how they are doing and catch up with them for at least 20 minutes. Then reflect on the friendship in light of the readings by Velleman and Scheffler. What are your obligations to this person? What is the source of these obligations?

As evidence, print documentation of your correspondence (e.g screenshot of zoom or phone call) and include any notes from the conversation. 

Choose two friends to take the following T/F survey about your friendship. For each friend, take the same survey. In the reflection, discuss whether you and your friends are aligned in your tolerance for moral danger. Do differences in tolerance for moral danger depend on the friendship or your different moral dispositions? 

As evidence, provide a recording or written record of you and your partner's responses. 

● I would tell you if your partner was cheating on you. 

● I would provide a fake employment reference for you. 

● I would lie to the honor council for you. 

● I would anonymously disparage your enemies on the internet. 

● I would lie to the police for you. 

● I would throw you a surprise party if I thought it would make you happy. 

● I would let you borrow $50 no questions asked. 

● I would cosign a loan for you. 

● I would commit a property crime (e.g. auto theft, vandalism) for you. 

● I would physically injure another person if it was necessary to protect you from harm. 

● I would help you hide a dead body. 

● I would help you cheat on an assignment for a better grade. 

● I would lie to you to prevent you from harming yourself. 

● I would ditch other friends to hang out with you. 

● I would help you illegally buy drugs, even if I had no intention of using them. 

Participate in two on-campus or off-campus community events or club meetings for two different groups that you have never joined but which you’ve always considered joining or learning about. Go to their meeting or consistently post on their online forums for at least three days. Do you think that either new community is the kind of community that Scheffler would say has intrinsic value? What moral obligations do members have in virtue of their participation in each community? Why do you think people joined each community and why do they stay?

Evidence: Print and include selfies at the two meetings and/or screenshots of your posts on the forum.

Choose one Saturday when you do not already have major fixed obligations. Before that day, ask six people from different parts of your life (e.g., a friend, roommate, sibling, parent, classmate, coworker, teammate, or professor) to each request one thing from you that would take between thirty minutes and three hours.

Tell them that their request should be genuine, but not urgent, dangerous, expensive, or emotionally manipulative. They should not coordinate with one another, and you should not tell them what the other requests are until all six have been made. Provisionally agree to all six requests, but let them know not to count on you. Then decide which ones to complete as you plan your Saturday. 

From this experience, reflect on how you weighed the competing claims. Did you prioritize need, closeness, reciprocity, prior commitments, enjoyment, fairness, or the difficulty of saying no? Consider whether the people closest to you have stronger claims on your time, whether everyone deserves equal consideration, and whether your time is wholly yours to allocate.

Evidence: Include the six requests, your initial ranking or plan, what you ultimately did, and any messages related to the requests.

With the informed cooperation of a friend, design a temporary subscription plan for some small part of your friendship. Specify what a subscriber receives—for example, one encouraging text per day, one ride per week, priority responses, attendance at one social event, or thirty minutes of attentive listening—and assign a price.

You do not necessarily have to collect the money; the important part is to seriously propose and negotiate the terms.

Reflect on which parts of friendship could be specified contractually and which resisted specification. Did putting the relationship into explicit terms expose hidden expectations, reduce resentment, or make the relationship seem less genuine? Would the service have had the same value if performed by a stranger?

Evidence: Include the proposed subscription terms and a record of your friend’s response.