REL 74: “The Moral Self: A Comparative Inquiry”
PAPER ASSIGNMENT #1
Choose a “bridge concept” that will make a useful comparison possible between the moral anthropology you read about in Eberhardt’s Imagining the Course of Life and either Xunzi or Augustine as described in Stalnaker’s Overcoming our Evil. In choosing your bridge concept you should be reflective about Stalnaker’s advice about bridge concepts and how to do comparative work.
Once you have a workable bridge concept, do a careful comparative analysis that uses your comparison to advance an argument about how to interpret both sides of your comparison. Your discussion should offer new questions and cast new light on how we can understand these Shan Buddhist villagers and either Xunzi or Augustine. In other words, you are not just describing Eberhardt’s and Stalnaker’s work, but advancing it in important new ways.
FIVE PAGES, DOUBLE SPACED, DUE TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27
Please submit two hard copies of the paper.