Vacation Reading

Over the vacation, finish reading and annotating Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget. You do not have a writing assignment with this reading. On Tuesday, April 29, the first class after the vacation, we will develop essay topics for this book.

Assgnment for Thursday, April 17

Read and annotate to p. 147 in Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget. Also, write at least one typed page defining or explaining the ideal relationship between people and digital technology. Be sure to take Lanier's arguments into consideration as you develop your position. 

Assignment for Tuesday, April 15

Read and annotate up to p. 137 of Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget. You do not have a writing assignment.

Assignment for Thursday, April 3

Read and annotate to p. 44 in Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget. Pay particular attention to how he tries to persuade the reader of his point of view. 

Assignments for Monday, March 24, and Wednesday, March 26

For Monday, finish reading and annotating Press's Beautiful Souls (ch. 4 and the epilogue). There is no writing assignment.

On Wednesday, you will write an in-class essay on Beautiful Souls.

Assignment for Wednesday, March 19

In Press's Beautiful Souls, read and annotate Chapter 3, "The Rules of Conscience," pp. 85-129.  You have no writing assignment.

For Monday, March 17

Read and annotate chapter 2 of Eyal Press's Beautiful Souls. Write one or two well-developed paragraphs in response to each of the following question: Press writes,  "[W]hat ultimately determines moral conduct are not character traits, personal beliefs, or political attitudes but situational factors ... 'Studies designed to test whether people behave differently in ways that might reflect their having different character traits have failed to find relevant differences,' the philosopher Gilbert Harman has argued. 'It may even be the case that there is no such thing as character.'" (29) Do you agree with this position? What do you think determined moral conduct?